With WWIII a real possibility in the coming weeks or months, hard to not take this seriously.
One could look at this as a protracted civil war.
suppose some state here secede and are allowed to.
thirty years later, the main group of states gets PO’d enough with the breakaways dallying with the traditional enemies that they just decide to take them back the hard way.
would anyone treat that like two otherwise uninvolved countries? it is clearly much more complicated than that.
I guess your supposition is the US civil war ended and the south won.
Your other supposition is the north comes back marching in.
Hell of a book.
Lets get back to reality. The USSR broke up, for 20 years.
Not because of civil war but due to global bankruptcy.
Start there for your thesis.
With all respect.
The Ukraine has no more protection from the west than any other non NATO nation.
It is what it is.
We have designs of course but thats all.