Ok, but his platform then logically includes taking the former Baltic republics, probably big chunks out of central asian republics, and depending on the reading parts of Brooklyn also.
So what? He certaily can't take parts of Brooklyn, most likely he can't take even parts of the Baltic republics, which are members of the NATO, EU, Schengen Area, Eurozone, etc. Taking them would cause much greater disruption to Western European and American interests than taking Crimea or Donetsk.
He may indeed take parts of the central asian republics, if China lets him.
There are lots of Han Chinese in all sorts of places.
Which makes this an issue between Russia and China, not Western Europe.
There are lots of mexicans in California.
I'm not exactly expecting columns of Mexican tanks rolling into California any time soon, do you?
You treat the local opinion as monolithic, your analysis is superficial.
It's a first-order approximation. Do the Scottish people want independence from the UK? Well some do and some don't, no true Scotsman in its literal form. And yet, they will soon have a referendum and if the majority votes for indepdendence, Scotland will be an independent country.
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.