It's an interesting situation that I think to date is without precedent.
Imagine you're Russia. You have hypersonic and other weapons that allow you to strike any place on the Earth in less than 2 minutes. Nuclear, conventional, EMP, whatever... You go into Ukraine to secure your country's weak point and for a variety of other reasons.
Okay, now imagine you're the West. You've spent decades "projecting power" and controlling everyone. Russia goes into Ukraine. You are so used to getting your way that the mere idea of Russia's new capabilities jellify your brain. What do you do? Well, you do sanctions, you tell your "partners" to give away their weapons to Ukraine so you can sell them more, blah blah blah... You stage an Information War against Russia because at least everyone will believe lies and that will... change absolutely nothing on the ground! "Well, if WE can't have it, no one can!" So you set about doing very stupid things that begin to truly wreck everything you "created".
You try to make lots of money when (at least deep down) you know that Your Old World is literally falling apart before your eyes. The idea of immunity is gone. You're screwing your own people over, but who cares about them anyway?! Imagine you are a fancy-pants higher-up in the White House, Pentagon, or CIA HQ and you know that at any moment, a missile that you cannot defend against could wipe you out. And the country that could launch it wouldn't even have to leave their own territory. No long-range bombers required, no submarine launches off the coast of America, no aircraft carriers. Just a bunch of really zippy missiles that your sworn enemy apparently developed and built in bulk while you sat back and watched because of your epic hubris...
This is
very different from the Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War since there is no "mutual" about it anymore. Sure, Russia would not escape unscathed, but the West would lose - badly.
But you don't just have 1 major enemy: there's also China. They are sitting quietly, they have a massive military, massive production capacity, a booming economy, and most likely they also have some new toys. Still waters run deep and all that...
My guess would be that the West, in their completely delusional state, will continue to push and push and push. The East will take the hits, just like the Moskva. And then one day, their Red Line will be crossed - probably when a Western leader does something REALLY unhinged and stupid. At that point, the East will demonstrate their capabilities. Bathrooms in Western halls of power will suddenly be filled to capacity. Not that that will stop them! Crazy people don't suddenly become rational when confronted with their own idiocy and impotence. But the average person fears authority and power. Even in their nutty state, I suspect a clear demonstration of "higher authority" will not go unnoticed or unheeded by the masses - assuming the demonstration is big enough and therefore not "propagandizable" - and the people have been suffering enough due to the moronic actions of their "leaders".
Getting back to Finland, if they do accept "NATO" missiles, and Russia does blow them all up, what will Finland do? Nothing! They can't do anything! What, are they gonna try to invade and conquer Russia?! Of course, Russia knows all of this, so would they even bother to blow them up in the first place?
Well, one things for sure: it's gonna be interesting!!
