Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
There are the Europeans, writ large. They are sort of a theoretical concept, easy to turn your back on, those greedy selfish ingrates.

Then there are the Poles, the Czechs, the Ukrainians, the Estonians etc. Those are actual people who do need our help, the Ukrainians, now-and may need our help, now too (I was going to say later but no, now is better), everybody else. It is harder to turn a back to them, "Sorry Stash, the Russians ain't as bad as you remember."
The first step of an useful strategic analysis should be to sort the facts:

1) We have Ukraine.

2) We have the other countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia...

The crucial difference between 1 and 2 is that the latter are in TWO organisations with mutual (military) assistence as part of the deal.

In contrast, the Ukraine is member of none. Therefore, to combine in an argument 1+2 does not pass a simple smell test.

In case of Ukraine, considering the economic reality with clear advantages on the western side, a low level economic war is the best we could do.

It is a kind of strategic hyperventilation when the events in Ukraine are sold as the equivalent of the occupation of parts of a NATO or EU member.