But doing the short-term irrational thing and joining the economic (and in weapons support, kinetic) war against Russia is exactly what the fucked-up initial conditions require. When you've worked yourself into that kind of lose-lose situation, making the rational choice has a long-term game theoretic downside.

The next Putin that manages to maneuver a Western country into a bind can't count on them rolling onto their backs and crying for mercy, even if that seemed like the rational choice. We've seen it demonstrated, also disproving that Westerners are lazy, fat, spoiled and unable to handle significant pain for a greater cause.

This is certainly a lesson for the West, but it's also a lesson for the autocrats.

If we didn‘t join this war, the war would come to us. Most Europeans fortunately understand this.