How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[steve_bank]

Navigation Gone Wrong
Soviets Shoot Down an Airliner
While flying from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, South Korea on September 1, 1983, a Korean Air Lines jumbo jetliner strayed into Soviet airspace. The error proved tragic.
What Happened

Mostly out of range of land-based radio beacons and air traffic radar stations, the crew of KAL Flight 007 had to depend on inertial navigation. But flying without an assigned navigator, the pilot and copilot failed to notice that the plane’s autopilot was not following the waypoints programmed into the inertial navigation system.

Russia was determined to be responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 over eastern Ukraine by a UN aviation agency in May 2025, following a similar incident with Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 in late 2024, which sources suggest was hit by a Russian air defense system

I'd say shoot down any Russian military jet violating NATO airspace, first issue a warning that is what will happen.

It appears inevitable there will be a NATO confrontation provoked by Russia, why else the provocations. There have been multiple incursions.

At this point my guess is Putin is getting irrational and maybe delusional.

 

[steve_bank]

Why not?

Why not indeed. I wish you the best in any effort to preserve a democratic republic for the people of India.
Keep in mind that vigilance is required. India has only been a democratic republic since about a month before I was born in 1950. The USA was (mostly) one for well over 200 years before complacency and stupidity stepped in to destroy it.
It is possible that something of value might be salvaged from the ashes, but even that seems less likely every day that the Republicans in control fail to step up to meet the moment.

Take a look at 19th century politics and print media. Pretty much the same.

 

[Elixir]

Pretty much the same.

Not regressive for the time though.
Anyhow, it took well over a century from there, to get to a point where we elected a black president and were respected worldwide as a benevolent force for representative government. It may take another century to get anywhere near that status, if the dust ever settles on American fascism.

 

[TomC]

Navigation Gone Wrong
Soviets Shoot Down an Airliner
While flying from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, South Korea on September 1, 1983, a Korean Air Lines jumbo jetliner strayed into Soviet airspace. The error proved tragic.
What Happened

Mostly out of range of land-based radio beacons and air traffic radar stations, the crew of KAL Flight 007 had to depend on inertial navigation. But flying without an assigned navigator, the pilot and copilot failed to notice that the plane’s autopilot was not following the waypoints programmed into the inertial navigation system.

Russia was determined to be responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 over eastern Ukraine by a UN aviation agency in May 2025, following a similar incident with Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 in late 2024, which sources suggest was hit by a Russian air defense system

I'd say shoot down any Russian military jet violating NATO airspace, first issue a warning that is what will happen.

It appears inevitable there will be a NATO confrontation provoked by Russia, why else the provocations. There have been multiple incursions.

At this point my guess is Putin is getting irrational and maybe delusional.

Putin is also watching his American stooges, Trump and Co., destroy American power. Our economy, our government, our values, our political clout, they're all going in the toilet as fast as Trump can destroy them.

Putin is winning the competition for "sole remaining superpower".
Tom

 

[bilby]

Fighting between Pakistan and India has no effect on the greater world.

Putin's provocations by violating NATO airspace can lead to catastrophic consequences which will affect the world. War leading first to Russia using tactical nuclear weapons escalating to a nuclear war.

You do know that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, right?

Russia has way more nukes than Pakistan and India and China for that matter combined. Did not prevent US/NATO "proxy" aggression.

Russian nukes are worthless, even if they still work (which is unlikely).

Like Mustard Gas in WWII, everyone is neevous that somebody will use it, but even a madman who is about to be utterly defeated won't do it, because the retaliation would be too horiffic.

Putin knows that the very first time he uses a nuclear weapon, Russia (including - indeed, particularly) the bits he is currently believed to be inhabiting, will be turned into a wasteland of radioactive rubble.

He won't ever give the order. Not least because it might well not be obeyed - the people who arm and fire those nukes also know that doing so will destroy everything they care about.

Russian nuclear weapons are a paper bear.

 

[TomC]

He won't ever give the order.

I don't have your confidence in the essential rationality of humans, much less those of people like Putin, Hitler, or Trump.

I see them as dangerously similar to the kind of people who shoot up a school or a concert or something, in a suicidal attack, so as to go out in a blaze of glory.
Tom

 

[bilby]

I see them as dangerously similar to the kind of people who shoot up a school or a concert or something, in a suicidal attack, so as to go out in a blaze of glory.

So, we need only worry about the Americans?

That's oddly reassuring.

 

[Elixir]

That's oddly reassuring.

You think you can take us?
Not as long as we have Pistol Pete leading the charge!

 

[aupmanyav]

Thanks, Elexir. Moreover, our Army is apolitical. That is a big help. And Modi as the Prime Minister, honest, sane.
Indeed, we are blessed.

 

[aupmanyav]

Not as long as we have Pistol Pete leading the charge!

Pistol Pete, the Russian bear and the Chinese panda, all fear a world war.

 

[barbos]

Russian nukes are worthless, even if they still work (which is unlikely).

OK, that explains US/NATO agression.

 

[barbos]

He won't ever give the order. Not least because it might well not be obeyed - the people who arm and fire those nukes also know that doing so will destroy everything they care about.

You are dangerously misinformed. Russian military has been suggesting nukes for Ukraine/NATO since the beginning.

 

[barbos]

Russian nuclear weapons are a paper bear.

All that chest-thumping and insults is projections.
You went into this war sure that you would win, All you needed was a pretext for sanctions and economy smaller than that of a Spain would crumble in a couple of months. Remember that?
And then remember Abrams ATACAMS, F16 and other scary game changing wunderwaffe?
How is that working for ya?

 

[barbos]

I have said before and will repeat it again. The problem is that Putin is none of the the things western propaganda describes him as. He is not not a deranged maniac hell bent on restoring USSR and invading West. That's why the west continuously escalates, they know damn well, that Putin is rational and will not over-react. When in reality Putin should have reacted and over-reacted long time ago, that would have saved a lot of ukro-lives and russians too.