It’s been accepted that as long as troops from one of the side are not directly shooting at uniformed troops from the other side (sides here being US/Russia!), it’s a proxy conflict, not a direct one.
Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korean War being some of the larger versions of this.
With Russian troops on the ground right now, adding any NATO or US troops would mean it isn’t a proxy conflict anymore once someone from the US or NATO side shoots at someone in a Russian uniform. But providing weapons to Ukrainians has a lot of precedent as being ‘not a war’ between them. Even if the Ukranians use them to shoot Russians.
During the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Soviet pilots engaged in dogfights with Americans, which makes the amount of handwringing over just sending weaponry being a escalation laughable.
Also MacArthur’s pursuit of the North Koreans across the 38th parallel brought China directly into the war and precipitated a much, much larger conflict, and cost a great many American and UN Allie’s lives. It got him (rightly, IMO) fired. But that was too late.
[https://www.marshallfoundation.org/articles-and-features/mar...]
If everyone agrees that shooting at each other’s pilots isn’t a ‘direct conflict’, then it isn’t.
The US didn’t want to officially care to that level that Chinese jets (or troops) were killing US troops, because the US could waltz back home and Korea would be the one to take the hit. At least one of the parties could accept a failure, somewhat.
The stakes for Russia here (and especially for Putin), like when MacArthur crossed the 38th, are much, much higher for them. A well armed, actively hostile (well earned hostility or not), and aligned with the west Ukraine is right on their doorstep, with no meaningful geographic barriers. Historically a scary situation for Russia.
And Europe, which has a lot (depending on if we’re counting countries or $$) of influence over NATO and is nuclear armed themselves, is also existentially threatened by Russia doing what they are doing. Russia has a recent and very painful history with many of those countries. And even if the WW2 push west from Russia was precipitated by Nazi Germany, nothing they did afterwards left a warm and fuzzy feeling.
The hand wringing is because after a long period of peace that people became accustomed too, this is a real and present danger to a lot of folks livelihoods and safety even if nothing goes nuclear.
And this turns up the dial on stress in a way that no one can look at it and really be sure the other side wouldn’t go nuclear over the next step or two.
Would he be super stupid and self destructive? Yes.
But when in an information bubble and when threatened by existential threats is exactly when folks are most likely to do stupid and self destructive things.
Would you be willing to bet there is no (crazier) MacArthur, potentially one that has access to a nuke or dirty bomb or the like, in the power structure somewhere there, or even in Ukraine if you really looked?
Madmen need to be checked. Getting nuked is also terrible. Starting WW3? Just yikes.
So is it a strategic move to be the first to attack?
In this case for instance, if NATO had moved in before Russia into Ukraine however, that would be really, really bad.
A big factor behind this war already is Russian insecurity about NATO strength and being frozen out of traditionally Russian territory.
It would be a bit like Russia occupying some of the Aleutians all the sudden. Not likely to go well. Sudden double flashes not well.
Forecasts say, this will change in nearest decades, but at the moment machines considered incapable.
Some people have other opinion, but for us important, that Russian govt agree with what I write.
