[misja111]

> And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia

You are assuming here that Russia would be willing to cause a World War by attacking those American soldiers.

> as a Pole the risk of actually being involved in military operations is making me extremely uncomfortable right now.

But the alternative, to let Russia have Ukraine, will become very uncomfortable in the long term. It's naïve to assume that by giving Putin what he wants he will be satisfied and not invade any other countries in the future. The analogy with 1938 is striking.

[simonh]

I’m afraid while I support strong action against Russia, I think we should have kicked them off Swift in 2014, sending us troops to Ukraine wouldn’t achieve anything. The Russians would simply ignore them.

If they got hurt during the invasion, the Russians would just claim, possibly entirely legitimately, that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the US is using it as an excuse for escalation. Which in fact is exactly what you’re suggesting. It would be a serious misstep we can’t afford. We should have acted decisively sooner, but now we’re here we should act decisively now. Close the pipelines completely and shut off Russia from swift. Ban all foreign travel for any Russian government employees. We’re at war with this guy, we need to act like it.

[gambiting]

>>You are assuming here that Russia would be willing to cause a World War by attacking those American soldiers.

I think Russia has been "calling the bluff" of the west for a long time. Attacking American soldiers on Ukrainian soil to send a message "look what I can do, you aren't going to attack me back because you know what it will cost you" would be entirely within the standard Russian strategy. And it would place US and NATO into an extremely uncomfortable position - attack back = world war 3, don't attack back = send a message that you can kill American troops without punishment. That's not a position anyone wants to be in.

>>It's naïve to assume that by giving Putin what he wants he will be satisfied and not invade any other countries in the future.

I don't think I'm naive, I fully realize that this is what will happen in the future. But again, there's having a nicely formed opinion on the internet, and then there's receiving a letter stating you are to report to your nearest military base for training and deployment. We should do something. I don't want to leave my wife and kid and go fight in Ukraine. Those aren't contradictory statements.

[XorNot]

It's not NATO -> nuclear war, but it can head that way though. NATO is currently desperately trying to not get into a limited-scale shooting war with Russia, because that's an escalation game which then depends on the other side recognizing the scope of the conflict.

[vidarh]

Look at the long history of authoritarian leaders thinking they could act without triggering escalation, e.g. Taliban, Saddam, and consider again if you want to take the risk that Putin will be rational enough to avoid further escalation and the consequences of doing so given the failure to defeat even the Taliban.

[pyuser583]

You’re assuming killing those troops would cause a world war. The US might just say, hey we’re not going to sacrifice more folks over this.

[gambiting]

Yeah, and send a message that says "you can kill American troops without consequences"? And if that's your strategy - why send them there in the first place?

[nosianu]

So.... Afghanistan? How many soldiers from several Western nations died there, and of the US in particular? Only to recently withdraw unconditionally and even hand over lots of military equipment to the enemy they had been fighting for decades?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...

[gambiting]

...but how many of those were killed by Russian forces? If Russia attacked US troops in Afghanistan then yeah, that would have been a comparable situation. US isn't going to nuke Afganistan over killing American soldiers, because that's not the stated policy.

[Paradigma11]

Nobody seemed willing to fight for the government and the taliban were hiding in pakistan waiting for the US to leave. Sometimes you just have to call it quits.

[lupire]

"fighting for decades" is not shipping some people over to die and then walking away, as was proposed upthread.

[nosianu]

> shipping some people over to die and then walking away

Eh??? This is exactly what happened. Soldiers were sent to Afghanistan. Thousands died. The US left, and the enemy took over, both government and equipment.

Also, the parent had said

> Yeah, and send a message that says "you can kill American troops without consequences"?

and again this is what happened. No consequences for the Taliban for killing American soldiers, just as the parent wrote.

[the-dude]

The analogy of the invasion of Iraq ( Shock & Awe ) and Blitzkrieg are striking too. What is your point?