What happens if the U.S. limits itself to economic war against Russia, and the Russian economy doesn’t collapse? From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:
The most likely outcome is Russia’s economy will not collapse (even were the EU to go the whole hog on energy and ‘everything’ else).
U.S. and European NATO hawks and liberal interventionists want above all else, to see Putin, humiliated and repudiated. Many in the West want Putin’s blood-soaked head atop a pike towering above the ‘city gate’, visible to all as a resounding warning to those who challenge their ‘rules-based international order’. Their mark is not just Pakistan or India, but China, primordially.
Yet the hawks see that they dare not – cannot – go the ‘whole hog’. Despite the belligerence and posturing, they want the kinetic aspect to the conflict confined within the borders of Ukraine: No U.S. boots on the ground (though those whose very existence cannot pass our lips are already there, and have been ‘calling the shots’).
