> You don’t seem to get my point though - it only has turned into a quagmire for Russia because other countries have feared the thing of which you are sceptical. It is like complaining the medicine is useless because you don’t have symptoms, when it is only because of the medicine that you don’t have them.
What did I write that made you think that I think that the West's backing of Ukraine has not been essential for Ukraine's defense/Russia's failure? My claim is that Ukraine is an example of why it is absurd to expect Russia to invade NATO countries. If Russia cannot even overtake NATO-backed non-NATO countries, no one should reasonably expect it to invade NATO-proper countries.
If NATO/etc had abandoned Ukraine, and Russia had successfully taken it over - and maybe Belarus and Moldova next - then they might have been tempted to try attacking a peripheral NATO member to test if NATO really means what it says (whether or not they would have succeeded). NATO supported Ukraine to prevent that real threat of Russian military aggression against NATO.
I do not necessarily think the alternate history you propose is implausible, but am not sure what your point is. We do not live in a timeline where that happened. My original comment was (quite clearly) referring to the reality in which Russia is stuck in an unwinnable war in Ukraine, not a hypothetical from eight months ago.
It was NATO’s fear of Russian military aggression which prevented that timeline from occurring. Why stop the fear now though? Sure, in the short-term, it is rather unlikely; but if they stop fearing it, that may cause it to (in the medium-to-long term) become more plausible again.
What did I write that made you think that I think that the West's backing of Ukraine has not been essential for Ukraine's defense/Russia's failure? My claim is that Ukraine is an example of why it is absurd to expect Russia to invade NATO countries. If Russia cannot even overtake NATO-backed non-NATO countries, no one should reasonably expect it to invade NATO-proper countries.
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