Quote (thundercock @ Apr 26 2022 04:33pm)
Is this a serious question? No, there's not "every reason to think that Putin could retaliate against Western targets." Attacking a NATO country means declaring war on dozens of countries. C'mon, use your brain. You're so much smarter than this.
And those countries attacking Russia means what?
The most obvious example would be Russia supplying weapons to a proxy who uses it to sink a US navy vessel. And when that happens, will we then have to quibble over "It wasn't really Russia"
How about if Russia directly targets a convoy of weapons on the Polish side of the border, clearly to be used to fight Russia? Will NATO invoke article 5 and rush to nuclear war?
Attacking the Russian mainland, whether directly or by proxy, is such a wildly dangerous and wanton way to spark WW3 and get us all blown to smithereens. We're not talking about Russia making the first strike on a NATO country, we're talking about NATO making the first strike on Russia and trying to dance around the responsibility. Meanwhile Putin is right out in public making threats of what would occur. And we're just supposed to handwave and dismiss it as bluster, after he blustered about invading Ukraine.