I think mobilisation and moving toward declaring the special operation a war (more mobilisation) could be the beginnings of that slippery slope.
The fundamental question is - is NATO committed enough to the Ukraine cause to demolish Europe? Probably not.
Everyone talking about Russia being "already defeated" knows little of the Russian capacity for misery. Napoleon learned the hard way. The Russians also accepted losses in WW1 and the following civil war that would have destroyed most other societies (and indirectly destroyed Russia too), and of course, they continued fighting in WW2 when most democratic societies would have surrendered. Do not underestimate Russia.
Compare losses in the Brusilov Offensive alone to all-time combat losses for most other nations (including the US)...Russians will keep fighting long after it seems sensible.
Eventually Biden and Blinken will back away from Ukraine...the US public will find another Current Thing to obsess over, and US troop commitments are completely out of the question.
Basically, Russia gets Ukraine eventually, its just a matter of how bad the carnage is
This gets trotted out every time but it's a really stupid argument. Russians may have been willing to endure extremely poor conditions to defend their homeland. They're not going to do the same to invade ukraine. And no, people are not going to suddenly believe that Ukraine is their homeland because Putin has claimed it so. This is an offensive operation. If Russia declines to extreme poverty, it will simply be unable to maintain effective logistics to the front. Which is really hard to do when the enemy has accurate long range missiles and all you have is trains.
Thank you for echoing Russian state propaganda, however your predictions are predicated on false premises that don’t match the commitments already made and fulfilled.
Your scare tactics might have sounded plausible 6 months ago, but it appears impossible for Russia to ever own and manage Ukrainian territory. The occupation has done no rebuilding, hasn’t brought drinking water supplies to occupied cities, hasn’t even managed yet to bury the bodies that still litter many streets and is an oppressive and failed occupation in every sense of the word. Presuming that this occupation is inevitable is itself a point of major contention I can’t see any evidence for.
Russia has already lost. How many more will die before it’s leadership realizes this?
AS far as I know Russians from Napoleon are no longer alive so not sure how this sentiment is relevant.