[keepper]

I hope it isn't, of course. ( the nuclear taboo).

But, what this war has exposed is how bad the russian army is trained, and how not so great their equipment is. While a prolonged war would be hard for any country, they struggled from the get go.

I hope this doesn't embolden the US and Europe to be more aggressive. I really hope that cooler heads eventually prevail.

WRT to the really really far fetched ( I hope ), that Russia would launch any nuclear strike. The missile defense systems that NATO and the US have were built exactly to counteract Russian missiles in a situation like this. This will even accelerate the development of hypersonic interceptors ( afaik, already in final stages) .

It would mean total annihilation of russia, as their in flight missies would be intercepted, and it would guarantee a total attack by the us. ( we as a nation tend to over react... and not go tit for tat ).

I hope this never happens. The reason why countries need leadership changes often. And why stable leaders are needed everywhere :-/