Russia - threadbanned users in OP

What we have seen very clearly is that there just aren't the votes or political capital in withholding aid from Ukraine that the MAGA Republicans once thought there was. Trump has given up on his opposition to same, not out of a moral principle, but because it is not worth it to him. As I argued before, the US population getting tired of Ukraine does not mean it is harder for Congress to pass financial aid bills, but it actually makes it easier. No one cares, therefore it is no longer controversial. So even in a Trump Presidency, it will be a lot easier to pass Ukrainian aid.

The massive Russian influence campaign had one chance at stopping Ukraine aid and they failed. MTG will continue on giving out about it, but no one else cares.

Most of the world may not be sanctioning Russia, but the part of the world that has lots of money and high tech goods that Russia needs are. Russia has a large amount of natural resources so its need for other trading partners with similar resources is minimal. Their need for high tech finished products is high, and right now only China will sell to them, which means that China sets the price.

China isn't strategically aligned with Russia - as every day passes, Russia becomes strategically aligned with China. That is an important distinction.

Russia was trading with BRICS and SCO countries before the war. They are continuing to do so, and perhaps using some of those countries to bypass sanctions, but this just means that they are paying a higher price.

I'm sure that Russia will rebuild occupied Ukraine to the same standard that the other Russian provinces are.

I don't really understand. An all out strike would most likely involve them launching ICBMs. The B2s are all based in continental US and I'm not aware of any nuclear cruise missiles. They did have the AGM129, but I think that was a silly thing and it would be a risky system for deploying strategic nuclear weapons.

But in any event, while there is a theory that once the nuclear taboo is broken then it will inevitably lead to a full scale nuclear exchange, in reality this is unlikely. If Russia carried out a limited nuclear strike, they would be watching intently to see the reaction. If they observe that the reaction is to launch ICBMs, they will launch theirs in response. The outcome is mutually assured destruction.

If you assume that the attacker does not intend to cause an all out exchange (which is a reasonable assumption because, if they did want that, they would have launched an all out attack themselves) then it is also reasonable to assume that the defender will tailor their response to ensure that it provides sufficient deterrent for the attacker not to try it again while at the same time not being such an escalation that it does lead to an all out exchange.

So in the event that there is a nuclear attack, it is not a binary that the response will either be nothing (capitulation) or everything (all out launch), but instead there are multiple different options depending on how much escalation/deterrence is judged to be appropriate.