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This is not essential to my argument. I think the game theory is sensitive to de facto rather than official control, and so we should react to this similarly as to suppressing a separatist movement. What matters for escalation is the extent of the consequence: Starting a war over the shifts in trade would be have been escalation, but if soft power loses them their black sea port, you cant hide behind "just playing chess".
Consider: If the West openly attempted a colour revolution in Russia, would that also be "not escalation" because its "just soft power"? This idea that everyone has to take unbounded amounts of damage for losing at your prefered game and may not pull a gun in response is good as a justification for enforcing pax americana, but not for deciding if thats actually what you want to do.
Theres two different arguments. First, that Russia is dangerous, and if nothing stops them in Ukraine then whats to stop them from taking Germany. And second, that we could whisk Ukraine away from Russia and come out ahead. My argument is against the first: I think there is a red line, and the Ukraine war is on the safe side of it.
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