It's always amusing to see rampant defeatism based on nothing but ignorance and infantile fears. Pearl Harbor would have happened regardless of the USA's tepid support of Britain. More importantly, Russia has zero capacity to strike at the USA. Not only can we be deeply skeptical of its ICMB capability - riddled with corruption, substandard parts, and rusting equipment - but we can also be confident that while Russian officers will obey orders to use tactical battlefield nuclear weapons, no Russian will obey an order by Putin to strike the USA. No Russian will be willing to turn Russia into radioactive ash.

Even at the height of the cold war, there were seven distinct occasions when Soviet (mostly Russian) military personnel had every reason to believe the USA had launched a first strike (radar tracking imagery, lost communications, etc.) yet they still did not obey orders to initiate Armageddon. Today, it is inconceivable to imagine any Russian obeying Putin and thereby ensuring the death of everyone and everything they love.

So we can ignore the perpetual voices of defeatism and hide-under-the-bedism and accept that the harder the West responds, the lower the probability of any WMDs being used anywhere.

Or, we can carry on with appeasement - the ever-popular choice of the fearful and spineless.