Let's Go Brandon hasn't learned from history

History provides a guide in how to deal with Putin's imperialism, but Let's Go Brandon doesn't know history. I'm not a fan of the Bush family, but when Iraq invaded Kuwait, George Bush (41) got a sizable international coalition together and used a coordinated invasion to crush Iraq. Europe responded, Middle Eastern nations responded and other countries did as well.  Now that we have Let's Go Brandon in charge, we've gone back to the Obama years of leading from behind.  We have a lack of coordinated effort, and we have sanctions that, despite all the claims of "harshest possible", are at best mildly annoying  to Russia while they invade Ukraine.  They may matter to some degree in the long run, but Ukraine doesn't have a long run at this point.  What's needed, if it's to be an economic battle only, is a complete financial freeze on Russia.

That means full removal from the SWIFT systems (along with anyone else who provides support for Russia, like China or Belarus), complete sanctions, impounding of foreign assets as well as other efforts such as a concentrated cyber warfare effort, war crime charges, as well as massive arming of the Ukrainians and a declaration of a No Fly Zone over the Ukrainian territory.

While people fret about Putin's threats of a nuclear war or further invasions, it's not real.  His approach is a combination of Soviet era propaganda and Hitleresque go as far as you can while the West hasn't got it's act together.  A lot of people aren't old enough to recollect the cold war, let alone WWII.  We had to live with a nuclear threat every day during the cold war, but it never happened.  Mutually assured destruction prevented it.

What needs to happen is exactly what I said above - a massive coalition with agreed upon steps, taken with the highest degree of urgency.