Comment by mytailorisrich

> If they helped themselves to Estonia, say, over 48 hours, would the US, UK and France send nukes? Send much at all? Possibly not, and Putin knows it.

They clearly wouldn't send nukes but Russian forces would still be destroyed by conventional means. Ukraine has shown that the Russian air force is weak and poorly supplied (see how the US or Israel operate from the air while Russia sends in ground troops almost immediately) so would lose air control very quickly and then be carpet bombed.

Russia is good at making threats but reality is different. In general, the really powerful don't need to make big threats all the time because they are both confident of their strengths and they know the opposition is fully aware of them, too. Putin threatens nuclear armageddon all the time because, really, that's all he has to appear strong.