I think what Laura has said before applies here - NATO is like the tick crawling on an bear (Russia) with rape on its mind. The missiles that were shot at Russia vs the demonstrations from Russia are incomparable. NATO brought a knife to a gun fight. Putin knows what kind of beast he's dealing with, and I agree with others who said he's unlikely to do anything that is not absolutely necessary. If Russia and its people are not in any real danger, there's no need to respond. The Ukrainian missiles were just a message, not any real threat, so the response was a message as well (with a real implied threat this time).
Once Russia finishes cleaning up Ukraine, it will be a sobering moment for the beast - kinda like when Neo absorbed and exploded Agent Smith and the other agents looked at each other and ran. The real question for me is what is plan B when the Ukraine proxy war fails. When was the last time the west has so blatantly failed in its wars or even proxy wars? Granted all their wars were failures, but somehow they were still able to claim that they accomplished whatever vague and illusory objectives they had. This time I think is much more clear - Russia achieves what it came to do, keeps its territories, and Ukraine may or may not even exist at that point after denazification is completed too. And US/NATO has utterly failed to stop them. It would be a very high profile blow and will erode the last remnants of anyone still perceiving US as a dominant superpower. Which can have all sorts of cascading effects!
Of course, if Trump can manage to negotiate peace, I also agree that Russia will still get what it wants, but maybe the PTB can then save face and say they didn't lose, it's Trump who decided to pull US support out, so he "abandoned" Ukraine and gave Russia what they want. I imagine a very long media propaganda campaign about how Trump supported the "dictator" Putin etc. But seeing how probably the majority of the US are so fed up with supporting Ukraine anyway, this may no longer have any real effect. Yeah a bunch of lefties will be pissed, but maybe that's about it.
But "saving face", even if possible, will probably not be satisfactory. The geopolitical goals vs Russia failed, and that's a huge blow regardless of how it happened. I don't think the beast will just shrug and move on, so who knows what they will attempt next.
Once Russia finishes cleaning up Ukraine, it will be a sobering moment for the beast - kinda like when Neo absorbed and exploded Agent Smith and the other agents looked at each other and ran. The real question for me is what is plan B when the Ukraine proxy war fails. When was the last time the west has so blatantly failed in its wars or even proxy wars? Granted all their wars were failures, but somehow they were still able to claim that they accomplished whatever vague and illusory objectives they had. This time I think is much more clear - Russia achieves what it came to do, keeps its territories, and Ukraine may or may not even exist at that point after denazification is completed too. And US/NATO has utterly failed to stop them. It would be a very high profile blow and will erode the last remnants of anyone still perceiving US as a dominant superpower. Which can have all sorts of cascading effects!
Of course, if Trump can manage to negotiate peace, I also agree that Russia will still get what it wants, but maybe the PTB can then save face and say they didn't lose, it's Trump who decided to pull US support out, so he "abandoned" Ukraine and gave Russia what they want. I imagine a very long media propaganda campaign about how Trump supported the "dictator" Putin etc. But seeing how probably the majority of the US are so fed up with supporting Ukraine anyway, this may no longer have any real effect. Yeah a bunch of lefties will be pissed, but maybe that's about it.
But "saving face", even if possible, will probably not be satisfactory. The geopolitical goals vs Russia failed, and that's a huge blow regardless of how it happened. I don't think the beast will just shrug and move on, so who knows what they will attempt next.