I was 7 when a Soviet submarine commander saved the world during the Cuban missile crisis.

But I see de-escalation is possible only by defeating Russia. Putin will not negotiate a peace that includes Ukraine's independent survival while he thinks he can win. Watch Fiona Hill on youtube to understand this basic point.

Soviet pilots were shooting down B-52s in Vietnam. No nuclear war ensued.

US CIA agents were supplying Afghan mujahedeen with Stinger missiles. No nuclear war ensued.

What's your scenario for deterrence and Mutual Assured Destruction failing this time? I view Putin as more bad than mad. He pushes the west's fear buttons with red lines Nato repeatedly crosses, without consequences. Again, watch Fiona Hill on youtube to understand how his KGB 2.0 regime is a reedition of Bolshevik Active Measures dating back to the 1920s.

You, Chomsky, Greenwald, Jessica Wildfire, Gabbard are Steffens, Webb and Shaw 2.0. Your agreement with AFPAC and CPAC applauders of Putin and Orban prove that the correlation between intelligence and realism is a very simple number: zero. My idealistic communist maternal grandparents made the same misguided error by ignoring the rules of the history of Russia, the country of their birth. My paternal grandparents, having grown to adulthood in that country, made no such error. They intuitively and fully understood the genocidal nature of the regime they'd fled from. They would understand that Putin is a genocidal neo-Stalinist and that for Ukraine surrender is not an option. They would know that this war offers only two outcomes: victory or Russifying erasure. I suggest you learn from their experience.