This pushes the view that somehow Russia hasn't been punished enough by the west for it's actions. The sanctions so far against Russia has hit the Russian economy and industry really hard. After buying close to 100 military aircraft a year in mid 2010s, Russia has been able to only order around 20 a year in the past couple of years. That should give you an idea of who hard Western sanctions have hurt Russian economy and cut off access to western suppliers and technologies. It's a huge shock to Russia's entire system. And if Russia does invade Ukraine soon, there will be economic warfare against Russia from the west. That's why Putin was so desperate to get Chinese partnership recently.
Not all wars are fought on the battlefield. Wars are not popular with general public. America is not going to help Ukraine, because there is no desire amongst American public to get involved it. That's quite a different scenario compared to china and Taiwan where American public is already viewing china negativity for covid and the rising Chinese economic power.
Even so, I think any future war between the two countries will be fought a lot more in financial market, economic war and virtual realm vs military hardware. As I said, an all out military will be so bad for not just the two countries but rest of the war because all the major export industries in Asia will be cut off from global trade. Oil market will spike up from bombing of middle eastern oil routes. There will be hyper inflation and currency collapse and economic collapse all around the world. Every other country are going to beg us and china to get on the negotiation table very quickly. We have never had a war in history where the two countries are so economically and financially tied together. Not have we ever had a time when rest of global world is so linked together. Lessons of second world war might as well be thrown out of the window here.
