Originally Posted by
mph
I have a hard time seeing Putin invading a NATO member, in large part because I agree with those saying Putin is a rational actor. To the degree it was possible, he's been sanction-proofing the Russian economy since he annexed Crimea in 2014. He also knows that neither America nor any European ally cares about Ukraine enough to risk military confrontation with Russia. I can't recall a single American politician, now or in the past, declaring Ukraine a vital strategic interest. It's much riskier for Putin to make the calculation that we will ignore our Article 5 obligation to protect NATO members.
I also don't see compelling evidence for the view that Putin is trying to reconstitute the USSR. It's not a realistic outcome and its not a required outcome if his goal is to let the West know the Russia will not be treated like a second-rate power. I'm not going to pretend to know how this ends, but one realistic scenario involves Russia annexing the Donbas region, installing a compliant leader in Kyiv, and declaring victory. The show of force would likely be enough to end Western discussions of another round of NATO expansion and Putin gets to domestically sell himself as the guy who stopped the West from bullying Russia. That's a lot more plausible than Russia rolling tanks into the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, or Romania.
Having said all of that, there are still a lot of ways this invasion could spin out of control. Would love to hear other's thoughts, but I don't see a better option than our current strategy--sanction Russia to impose our available non-military consequences and increase readiness on NATO's eastern flank.