For some reason, since Putin has taken over, US President have paralyzed to risk any confrontation with Putin, even though Russia is in far weaker position, than it was from roughly 1955-1990, conventional forces, economically, and far more diplomatically isolated. In addition, instead of looking at 10,000 warhead that both sides pre SALT, each side is limited to 1550 warheads, and neither has even 1,500 warheads. Now don’t get me wrong 1,500 nukes is enough to seriously fuck up each other countries, but it is NOT enough kill everyone, much less end life on the planet.
A few example
JFK- Had the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Blockade, 1st Inaugural speech
Nixon: Invasion/bombing of Cambodia/Laos, Mining of harbors in North Vietnam, Opening up China
Reagan: Starwars defense, basing of intermediate missiles in Europe, Evil Empire speech, Invasion of Grenada, Iran/Contra
Bush 41: Retaking of Kuwait, Iraq No Fly Zones
Clinton: Missile strikes at Iraq, intervention in the Balkan, NATO expansion
Russia also engage in at least as many provocative actions
In poker terms, Russia would do something threaten, and rather than just responding (calling), the Americans would raise. The Russian would either raise/ or call. Then both sides would walk back from the brink.
Since, Putin has been power has been the West, has basically, ether folded or just called. The invasion of Iraq was an provocative as was the addition of the Baltic states in 2004. But other than that Putin has learned that there is no downside to do anything aggressive.
Yes, I know people will say what about sanctions? Well, in my lifetime I’ve seen diplomats talk about the “unprecedent, damaging, severe, devastating, wide ranging, crippling”, sanction imposed on Afghanistan, Angola, Argentina, Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Burma, Cambodia, Chad, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, and that’s just A-C. Other than South Africa, I’m really struggling to see a time when these sanctions convinced a country to change course. In the case of South Africa, I think the change had a lot more to do with Nelson Mandela than western sanctions.
Take Iran, the country has been under some form of sanctions since the Shaw was overthrown, access to SWIFT was shut down since 2012 . Yet, somehow despite these "pick your adjective " sanctions, it is still a functioning country, and people aren’t starving nor rioting in the street in number much larger than in the US.
There is actually a ton more we could do: real time intelligence, drones, no fly zones, volunteer brigades, cyberattacks But, all Putin has to do is trot out a meme.
And everyone say, we can’t doing anything cause WWIII will start.
