What's The Goal

I suppose I didn't quite spell it out here, but the potentially conflicting goals are: minimize loss of life, Ukrainian especially but not just, or focus on punishment of Putin and by extension the Russian economy/people.

I don't even like linking to the "the important thing is Putin doesn't think we're pussies" pieces, but so you know I am not making them up, here is one.

This is all bloody and brutal stuff. But, to quote Clausewitz again, “If one side uses force without compunction, undeterred by the bloodshed it involves, while the other side refrains, the first will gain the upper hand.” We are dealing with an enemy that is vicious but weak, menacing but deeply fearful, and that is likely to crack long before our side does—if only we have the stomach for doing what needs to be done.

People like this are always loud in Blob circles, and their concern for The Lives Of Other People is precisely zero. Lives in Ukraine are irrelevant. They can all be sacrificed for yet another dick measuring contest (this guy is mad because we lost the last one in Afghanistan).

I am not being uncharitable.