Well, I'll be frank: between nuclear holocaust and Ukraine going back to 1989, I pick the latter. Sucks to be Ukrainian right now, I know, but this is the time to be smart: France was overrun in a month too, and looked pretty pacific under occupation for a pretty long time, but eventually...
You mean good enough to buy NATO-grade American weapons, surely. But anyway, obviously the allegiance matters - if anything because they already got troops and missiles deployed there, so the risk for Russian assets is too high - you can hit St. Petersburg from Tallinn with little more than a fishing boat.
Besides, there is no reason for Putin to claim those, nor a real strategic value. Ukraine has value: the pipelines, the coast, the Dnieper, and the example for Belarusians not to get ideas once Lukashenko goes. That it would remain a Moscow satellite was basically the agreement post-1990, this makes it more explicit. Sucks for self-determination and all that, but again, avoiding nuclear holocaust is probably worth losing the occasional battle.
I'm going on the assumption that you haven't visited those countries or you would realize that the sentiment runs a lot deeper than being allowed to buy NATO grade American weapons, those countries have Russian occupation in living memory and very much won't go back to those days without a fight.
> Besides, there is no reason for Putin to claim those, nor a real strategic value.
The strategic value of Lithuania or the North of Poland for Russia can not be underestimated.
> Sucks for self-determination and all that, but again, avoiding nuclear holocaust is probably worth losing the occasional battle.
It isn't the West that is threatening nuclear holocaust here, Putin did just that on live television and if that threat works this time I don't see any reason why it would not work the next.
Historically appeasement of dictators never ends well, I don't see why this would be the exception.
> you would realize that the sentiment runs a lot deeper than being allowed to buy NATO grade American weapons
Oh but I referred to sentiment at the other end of the alliance.
> if that threat works this time I don't see any reason why it would not work the next.
Eh, I don't completely disagree, but the risk/reward calculation of invading a full NATO member with deployed military infrastructure is undoubtedly different - if anything because the stay-behind capabilities in those areas would be very difficult to uproot.
> Historically appeasement of dictators never ends well
The luxury of getting rid of dictators in certain countries by swinging a bigger club, effectively ended in Hiroshima in 1945.
France was invaded because the liberals in France and UK refused to act against Hitler when he first invaded Poland and Austria, or when he and Mussolini supported Franco's coup d'etat in Spain in 1936, crushing a popular anarchist revolution and destroying any notion of hope across Europe for the decade to come.
France/UK argued that helping elected governments (or people's militias) against their invader could ignite war spreading throughout Europe, so they would rather not irritate these angry dictators. Where did this strategy get us? It's hard to imagine just how different Europe (and probably the rest of the world, for better or for worse) would be today if the western powers had intervened at that time.
It's also worth noting already at the time, social-liberal democracies from the USA to France were very unwelcoming of refugees from the nazi regime. Let's make sure to make them welcome no matter what our governments say, there's quite empty housing for everyone!
> No, France was invaded because they didn't shore up their Northern border.
Technically correct, yet completely misses the point. If you don't want to be bullied, don't let someone bully anyone else. To be clear, i'm extremely hostile to any colonial Empire (Russia/USA/France/etc) and i'm certainly not a fan of military intervention.
My point is not to compare modern Russia to the nazis, but rather that this laissez-faire policy in regards to military invasions of sovereign territories doesn't exactly have a history of leading to a more peaceful situation overall (see also: France in Mali, USA in Iraq/Afghanistan, China in Tibet, Turkey in Bakur).
