it would at the very least be financially crippled by loss of trade with Western European countries
Maintaining trade relationships with other European countries wasn't really much beneficial for 1938-era Germany, and in fact it could be argued that it was actively harmful, given the huge foreign debt from WW1 reparations.
the conflict would likely excalate to a full scale conventional war with the US
The US wasn't that much interested in European affairs back then. Certainly there wasn't anything comparable to the NATO.
Also, nuclear weapons didn't exist in 1938.
Hitler may not be exactly a nice guy, but in 1938 he certainly doesn't seem crazy.
Except that he had written a book detailing his deranged political plan that he had then been following to the letter.
Maintaining trade relationships with other European countries wasn't really much beneficial for 1938-era Germany, and in fact it could be argued that it was actively harmful, given the huge foreign debt from WW1 reparations.
All remaining German WW1 reparations were cancelled in 1932, and were under moratorium since before then. They had nothing to do with the beginning of the war in 1938.
The German economy through the 1930s was suffering from a foreign trade imbalance - it relied on crucial imports while not having enough exports to earn the trade balan...
Some of the comments on the link by James_Miller exactly six months ago provided very specific estimates of how the events might turn out:
James_Miller:
Me:
"Russians intervening militarily" could be anything from posturing to weapon shipments to a surgical strike to a Czechoslovakia-style tank-roll or Afghanistan invasion. My guess that the odds of the latter is below 5%.
A bet between James_Miller and solipsist:
I will bet you $20 U.S. (mine) vs $100 (yours) that Russian tanks will be involved in combat in the Ukraine within 60 days. So in 60 days I will pay you $20 if I lose the bet, but you pay me $100 if I win.
While it is hard to do any meaningful calibration based on a single event, there must be lessons to learn from it. Given that Russian armored columns are said to capture key Ukrainian towns today, the first part of James_Miller's prediction has come true, even if it took 3 times longer than he estimated.
Note that even the most pessimistic person in that conversation (James) was probably too optimistic. My estimate of 5% appears way too low in retrospect, and I would probably bump it to 50% for a similar event in the future.
Now, given that the first prediction came true, how would one reevaluate the odds of the two further escalations he listed? I still feel that there is no way there will be a "conventional battle" between Russia and NATO, but having just been proven wrong makes me doubt my assumptions. If anything, maybe I should give more weight to what James_Miller (or at least Dan Carlin) has to say on the issue. And if I had any skin in the game, I would probably be even more cautious.