masterspace , 5 hours ago (edited 5 hours ago)

You’re not emphasizing the MAD part of it enough.

Russia’s threats are all thermonuclear, fuck everyone, we’re all going to die, kind of threats.

Nukes being the first, then they were saber rattling about satellite destruction, now under sea cables.

But go ahead and watch Russia cut an undersea NATO cable and suddenly have the entirety of NATO bearing down on them for starting a war. Or watch them start shooting down satellites and ruin the ability to put anything in space at all including their own positioning and communications systems and make them a pariah to literally every country on earth that might need a satellite for something.

Russia is not strong enough domestically to do much of anything. They are certainly not strong enough domestically to thrive on their own, and literally all the cards they have to play end with the entire world turning against them.