| Another way of looking at this point: "In both cases, it was clear that the United States would not go to war with Russia, using either conventional or nuclear weapons, . . . ,” with the correction that it was the Soviet Union who was our Cold War enemy (words matter), and could be said as well that the US “would not go to war with Ukraine,” given that the “Soviet Union” was headed at the time by the Ukrainian Nikita Khruschev (admittedly similar to labeling WW I as "Wilson’s War,” while omitting that it was the Republicans who were the pro-war party in the US from 1914 on), just as it had been shortly before that by the Georgian Stalin, is that the condition of the USSR having what we were told was such massive military might, doesn’t obtain with Russia today. Now it's a tinpot Russian military we would/will be up against, relative to our massive military with that US military buildup accelerated in 2017 under you know who, and his “Party Comrades.” We no longer have the “external constraint” that we did in 1956 and 1962. Nor do we need to announce our nuclear intentions, as they’re implicit in our "Warfighting Doctrine,” and made explicit in too many ways to count here. But, even more important, what Russia could do to Ukraine with non-nuclear weapons is true, but that lesson is even more true for what the US can do to Russia with non-nuclear weapons. To all of the major targets that would be attacked, with the consequences of that having been made clear in Iraq and Libya. That is a “constraint” on Russia, I’ve no doubt. Such an attack by Russia on Ukraine, as described, would at that point be grounds for a US/NATO massive “counter-attack,” which would no doubt be launched immediately. And that’s when the nuclear danger really begins. So I disagree that "By just using the full force of its conventional weapons in Ukraine, Russia would force Washington into the same no-win situation it found itself in after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, when it concluded that saving the victim of Moscow’s aggression would require direct U.S. military intervention.” That implies that Russia would “force” Washington into that situation when I think it is more correct, given the last 20+ years of US Warfighting, and too many statements and evidence of US aggressive intent, that the situation is more akin for the US to B’rer Rabbit saying, “Don’t throw me into the briar patch.” With the short-sighted, short time-horizon, constricted view of our ruling militarists that an “opportunity” (pretext) for an all-out kinetic (as opposed to all-out “indirect” attack, as underway currently) attack on Russia that meets both of the two US parties “test” for war, that would be an “opportunity” neither would pass up, or oppose. With both refusing to see beyond the "short-term,” such as the Republican's new meme that they only favor war when our “interests” (liberally defined) are at stake, as they like to justify our wars by now, as so-called “Realists.” With the Democrats having their own meme of the so-called “Liberal Democracies” under Russian attack. With both having too much blindness/ignorance/stupidity/corruption to care that in the long-term, more war is destructive of “US” interests, though that tipping point has been passed I’m afraid.
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