I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization?
Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation and outcome, MAD, is not an acceptable trade for a tank crossing your border.
Repeat until arrival at French coastline. The terrorist steps forward waving a trigger to a bomb and either you show him your bomb and threaten to blow yourselves both up, or you step back.
At some point, the only option is to call the bluff and give him a good punch and hope that he values life as much as you and won't actually detonate. It has to be a solid one but not so hard as to make him think you might kill him, as that would make the detonation a certainty.
I don't know that NATO has the guts to give Putin that bloody nose.
Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation and outcome, MAD, is not an acceptable trade for a tank crossing your border.
Repeat until arrival at French coastline. The terrorist steps forward waving a trigger to a bomb and either you show him your bomb and threaten to blow yourselves both up, or you step back.
At some point, the only option is to call the bluff and give him a good punch and hope that he values life as much as you and won't actually detonate. It has to be a solid one but not so hard as to make him think you might kill him, as that would make the detonation a certainty.
I don't know that NATO has the guts to give Putin that bloody nose.