Oh, I guess I did miss that second sentence: "We are on the verge of a World War that could very well go nuclear." It's hard to read these days, without magnifiers. ;-/
In my current view, the World War started some time back, with "enemies domestic". I usually call that WW4, just to demarcate boldly enough.
I could be wrong but I think Putin is going to stop with Ukraine disarmed and, most importantly, a complete end to any discussion about Ukraine joining "NATO". So, I expect this to go into the history books mostly as the point that the US made definitive to the world that it fell down and can't get back up. I mean...forcing Russia's hand by pushing NATO and US arms into Ukraine...how senile.
The thing that has me worried vastly more is what China does next, GIVEN this display of soiling our pants in public. I expect it to take Taiwan, and soon, but how -- without ruining all the infrastructure. If grandpa President hadn't made such a mess of things, China might wait for the US to cause itself more harm and humiliation. But this is too good of a setup. If China takes Taiwan now, does the US respond with more 'sanctions'? Keep in mind, that if we put serious sanctions on China AFTER it takes Taiwan we are effectively going to be shutting down the United States as an economic power, as we don't make much of anything tangible anymore...we already shipped everything to Taiwan, India, etc. that we hadn't previously shipped to mainland China.
If this was a game of chess, I'd suggest the US just tip over its king, give a retirement speech, and stumble off the world stage. But it's not quite that easy.
It's hard for me to believe even the US federal government could be this stupid. So I don't think it will go down in the books as stupid. I think it will go down as assisted suicide. WW4, you know. Your thoughts?