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I will start that I'm from Poland which may create a completely different vision to someone more distant from Russia. I'm also no military expert and I have no idea what the best course of action is.
Having said that, I think that the collective west should do everything in their power to stop Russia from subjugating Ukraine because after this, we will face not just Russia but Russia+Ukraine and Russia will not stop. This is a repeat from 1938, where the Czechoslovakian military potential that could have subtracted the Germany potential, got added to them. Russia has a long history and experience in breaking Ukrainian spirit and after pacifying, they will conscript them and send them to die in another Russian war. Russia's win will also start a new era of nuclear proliferation (if this ship has not sailed already) and the world with nuclear arsenal distributed among many more players will become much less stable.
I am personally willing to endure a substantial hit of my standard of living now to contain Russia. I donated money to Ukrainian cause but obviously my whole wealth would hardly make a noticeable dent if not followed by a collective action. I believe that any spending now is a bargain compared to the spending in resources and lives in the future facing victorious Russia. It is clear in hindsight that a much stronger response in 2014 would have been much better that having to deal with the current situation.
I'm just wondering if you're aware that in that particular crisis the Polish military regime, instead of offering military assistance to the Czechoslovak state to defend itself, actually decided to take part in the partition of it instead in order to pursue irredentist territorial aspirations of its own? They did this even though they were aware that they were the only state capable of realistically offering military assistance to Czechoslovakia in a potential defensive war, and that the Nazi government was staking a claim for Danzig for a long time, which meant that Poland was obviously going to be threatened in the future, that is, they were going to be next.
The remaining Czech rump state received no security guarantees or assistance from any great power, it had an enormous armaments sector that was completely intact, and was actually even beyond the range of the air forces of Germany's enemies. The parallel with Ukraine doesn't have legs to stand on in any of those aspects.
I'm not claiming the current situation is a 1:1 copy of the interwar period, just that the Czechoslovakian potential helped in later Hitler's military conquest (including several Slovakian divisions being used in 1939 invasion of Poland). I'm not going to defend the Poland's dick (and short-sighted) move of grabbing Trans-Olza from Czechoslovakia, either. It is worth pointing out, though, that Poland's help to Czechoslovakia was a complete fiction back then because Poland and Czechoslovakia were not too friendly, mainly due to a similarly dick Czechoslovakian move of invading Trans-Olza in 1919 while Poland was preoccupied in defending their eastern borders.
A couple of things.
Don't you think that it's rather far-fetched to claim that Poland was "defending" her "eastern borders" in January 1919? From whom? The newly formed Ukrainian state that was claiming her independence at roughly the same time as Poland? Also, what "eastern borders" did Poland have? East ot Poland a civil war was raging, and the bolshevik regime was fighting for survival, not attacking Poland.
Slovakia's actions after 1939 don't fit into your parallel at all. Nothing of this sort did happen or is ever going to happen in Ukraine. (You're not going to claim that Slovakian independence was illegitimate, are you?.) Regarding military potential, it's true that the Germans captured enough equipment to equip roughly 45 divisions, plus large armaments industry facilities intact. Again, this is something that's never going to happen in Ukraine at all. To spell it out: the area that remains under the control of the Ukrainian government never had and does not have an armaments industry comparable in scale at all (to spell ot out further, look at size of the Czechoslovak armaments sector as compared to the German in 1938, and that of the Ukrainian as compared to the Russian today), and even if it did, there's no chance of the Russians ever capturing it intact ever.
No matter what went down in 1919, in 1938 Poland should have assisted Czechoslovakia against Germany even out of nothing else but self-interest. It was well known by that time that Hitler wanted to undo the Versailles Treaty, consequently to regain lands that were surrendered to a newly formed Poland, especially Danzig. It logically followed that if the Sudeten crisis ends with concessions made to the Germans, they'll be emboldended and make similar demands to Poland. It was evident. France and Britain were not in a geographical position to assist Czechoslovakia in a defensive war, but Poland was.
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The remaining parts of Czechoslovakia were also annexed in 1939, handing over those armaments sectors too. The best defensive positions (and fortifications) against Germany were given up with the Sudetenland.
I know. My point is that the rump Czech state had an armaments sector which was enormous by regional standards and was captured intact by the Germans, and without force. None of that applies to Ukraine. When Czechoslovakia surrendered territories, it was not given any security guarantee by any great power afterwards, as far as I know. That's also something that very obviously isn't going to happen to Ukraine.
My suspicion is that Ukraine now has the third-largest military drone industry in the world (after China and Turkey). But the main thing that Europe loses if we surrender Ukraine and end up confronting Russia later is a large, competent, battle-hardened army.
Where do you think Russia fits in on that scale? I don't have a sense for the size of drone forces on either side there.
Also drone warfare seems a pretty clear loss for the US in the last decade: I remember 15 years ago DARPA (or maybe some other part of defense) was funding quadrotor control research, but even though that looked interesting at the time, they weren't the ones to operationalize it first, and still don't seem to have (announced) plans to do so.
My understanding was that Russia was getting their drones from China.
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That surprises me. I had always just naively assumed the US was at the leading edge of all technology, especially defense related.
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I find it hilarious that EU members and North American states are not even in the top 3 (if you're correct).
In the case of the US (and, I suspect, most other NATO countries) it is the usual disruptive technology threatening incumbents problem. The culture that is the USAF sees it as a jobs program for fast jet pilots. Hence drones replacing fast jets is existential to the USAF.
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