Subject: Re: Let’s See If This Pans Out for Putin
And the last time I checked, Russia is a lot bigger than the Ukraine is.

It's about 4x the size, in terms of population. Bigger, but this isn't "US v. Grenada." Ukraine is the 9th biggest country in Europe. It's smaller than Russia, but neither is it tiny.

Here's a pro tip: don't read what board libs say I typed. Actually read what I typed.
One of us is advocating for more pain to be inflicted on Russia. Hint: that would be me.

Hmmm....I thought you'd been advocating two things:

1) Inflicting more pain;
2) Reaching a negotiated settlement soon to end the war.

I took that to mean that you would accept either of those - but perhaps not? Perhaps you're advocating for more pain for Russia, but if that doesn't happen then continuing the status quo is acceptable?

What are your ideas for inflicting more pain on the Russians?

I don't think there are any. We pretty much buried the needle on all responses that didn't involve direct military engagement from NATO sources. Obviously you could do that, but don't want to. We could just have the U.S. invade Russia - but that would end up causing WWIII, so that's not really an option. Beyond that, we have imposed almost every measure to economically and diplomatically isolate Russia that would have been effective.

What's left that hasn't been tried? I'd be fully on board with sending Ukraine even more resources, but I think that's a non-starter in today's GOP.

I think secondary sanctions would be counterproductive - neither China nor India would respond the way we want them to, and indeed Trump's first effort in that regard resulted in India reaffirming their commitment to Russian energy markets no matter the tariffs. Not a great outcome, and one that reduces - rather than increases - Russia's pain.

Apart from secondary sanctions, what is your idea for increasing Russia's pain that you think people on this board disagree with?