Thanks, Max. Do not praise me too much; my inflated ego is already annoying too many. Any boost of it might be contra-productive. But if you see value in my reasoning, please spread it.

You are right that NATO and the U.S. should manifest their readiness to defend Ukraine. When the war seemed inevitable, I wrote an article arguing that if Americans do not want to die for Donbas later on, they should tell Russia they are ready to die for Ukraine if Russia invades it. Now, we can only guess, but there was a chance that if WWIII was the sure outcome, Putin might refrain from starting the war. If he wanted WWIII, it would change nothing, except that we would know it a year ago and would not be guessing today.

Again, the mentality of Munich 1938 prevailed a year ago.