Gnaeus

So sure NATO could play politics or lawyer with article 5 - "well technically, and so forth".  At which point how fast do you think NATO will evaporate?  "Oh welcome to NATO Ukraine but we are not really going to do anything about a NATO nation being hammered by an adversary illegally...oh look Russia is firing missiles at Latvia...well technically".   Deterrence only works if one can clearly demonstrate that you intend to follow through with either punishment or denial.
So "yes" basically if you illegally attack a member "we all declare war and march against you".  That or NATO stands for nothing really and then it all falls apart.  This reality is likely why we are avoiding an Article 5 about as hard as Russia is at any given moment.  They do not want it coming back at them as in their current state we are talking very rapid escalation, possibly out of control.  And we don't want it because it might fail and the Emperor's doodle is out.

He isn't right at all- he missess a lot of historical instances when Russians marched west to obtain their goals, and that is why he was punctured by other users. I would add attempt to suppress Belgian revolution in 1830, which was to be, according to specific wishes of devout Tsar, being drown in blood- his armies already marched West but didn't managed due to pacification in Belgium itself and Polish uprising. Not many people know this fact- liberal movement in Brussels was inches from being butchered by army of Holy Alliance (Russia was only country that took the adjective "Holy" very seriously back then, after rule of fanatic Alexander I).
Ofc. Bolsheviks hordes also had very excplicit, verbalized aim of "joining with revolutionary brothers" in the West in 1920. It is disputeable if they would succeed, but being Red was cool sexy novelty back than and many people envisaged that social war would become new, future form of warfare across the globe, independent from traditional geography. So it is quite likely that without effort of people of Central-Eastern Europe (Poles, Belarussians, Balts, and Ukrainians + Finns, waging their own brutal civil war) they would put their feet on westerners door as well. In this or other form.
Now, as you see, this pattern repeats itself fairly constanty throug history- many times they tried to reach West, but were cut down due to problems in subjugating Central Europe. They finally did manage to do this after 1945. And that is why Western soldiers were forced to drill holes for stationary nukes along German roads. Soviet Army of conquest loomed over horizon for damn half century- it is still beyond me, frankly, that so many people don't get this as sign of ultimate imperialism. Anyone ever heard about "Seven Days to Rhine"? How is that not aggression? Or were there any serious scenarios where it was NATO actually attacking Warsaw Pact?
 
Btw. folks, some day we need to clarify what we understand under those broad terms "Western, Central, and Eastern" Europe, since there is hell lot of confusion, as some seem to also misread Russian usage of these terms- which is quite different than this in London, which in turn is different than in for example Tallin. Unfortunatelly, people in the West have this post-WWII habit of neatly dividing the continent on Western and Eastern part that serves perfectly Russian interests. But if you look culturally and politically, it was usually bollocks much more often than not. But we will perhaps discuss this another time.

Historically Russia only attacked countries on it's Western border after being attacked itself?
If that ain't a remark to laugh about, I don't know what is.😐
 

This is the view from Western Europe. 
For most people in the Baltics and Central Europe it is absolutely clear, that the Ukraine is fighting this war on our behalf. Every Russian soldier killed by the Ukrainians is someone our soldiers will not have to shoot at. I have a son of military age and another one who will be in a couple of years, so as callous as it sounds, I would gladly have the Ukrainians fight that fight for our money.
For what it is worth, I do not exactly understand why countries in Europe further to the West are not worried more. We are the next border after Ukraine, but the Netherlands are not exactly on the far side of the Moon either. 

Do not get me wrong - the discussion on this forum has been positively scholarly and gentile compared to other corners of the internet right now.  I think we have some leanings among the group, some stronger than others.  I do tend to want to ensure that any discussion around stuff like this be given the broadest treatment possible.  So for example if we are going to start doing maths, let's do all the maths.  If we are going to argue for human security issues, lets call spades, 'spades' and underline the inconsistencies.  You will remember that I was just as hard on the whole warcrimes discussions that hijacked us last year.
The "firmly against DPICM" has not occurred here, it occurred places like my own government.  I am just not a fan of it taking root here without being challenged anymore than the even more distasteful topics we have had to cover.  I am firmly in JonS's camp on "why dumb DPICM, when we have HE PGM?"  Further, I am also in the "PGM DPICM with a 100% (or at least comparable to dumb HE) dud rates" camp.  The issue is that context appears to have changed and we should change with it.  When I start to hear "DPICM bad no matter what because it makes baby Jesus (or certain Canadian political parties) cry", that would be when I start to push back and call out hypocrisy when I see it.  There are weapons that should (and are) universally outlawed - chemical, biological and nuclear/radiation are at the top of that list.  
Finally my own biases are showing when I hear from preachy political parties that basically did nothing to deter Russia from this war, even after 2014, beyond harsh language and finger waving.  "But now that Ukraine is using cluster munitions well we had better speak up!"  How about we worry less about which munitions are being employed in a war and work harder on stopping the wars before they start in the first place?  Perhaps that is my preachy windmill on a hill of sand to tilt at.

It would be the part when you stepped on the slippery slope of seeming to suggest that an older persons life was worth less than a young persons life.  I don't even disagree but is opens up a major hypocrisy hole in the position of the "think of the children!" side.  If the value of life is indeed transactional in nature (e.g. old people are going to die soon anyway) then that universal principle applies across the board.  The loss of children itself become transactional as well = relative morality.
In reality landmines, napalm, cluster munitions and fully autonomous "killbots" are less about the cost/danger/morality of warfare, and more about political power.   If it were about existential danger of weapons in warfare then we would have banned all nuclear weapons years ago.  There is even a treaty from 2017 but as you will notice even though 92 states signed on there is a whole lot of cricket sounds coming out of the Western world on this one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_Nuclear_Weapons
https://www.icanw.org/signature_and_ratification_status
I am pretty cynical about all this considering that the real existential threat to human survival - and yes that would be all the children - cannot get traction from anyone but the global South/3rd world.  Maybe this is a work in progress so starting small is the plan but considering our current situation the entire thing really feels hollow.  The landmine and cluster munitions treaty did exactly zero to prevent the Russian invasion, nor did it stop Russia for a millisecond in using these weapons with wanton abandon.  This should be a big hint that soft power/collectivism/whatever-the-hell-they-go-on-about is not a real thing without hard power to actually back up enforcement because people are the worst.  Our better angels have pointy tales and horns and no amount of pontificating or posturing is going to change that.  And here is the rub and why this whole thing is likely really upsetting so many in the liberal humanism/human security camp - if we were in Ukraine's position how long would our moral high ground be sustained? 
Maybe, just maybe, our righteous (and preachy) house is built on sand in the face of the old red gods.  We have just been rich enough and safe enough, for long enough to forget this.

The problem with "being concerned with giving Ukraine cluster munitions" is that the reason they are getting it is that we (the West) are running out of the non-cluster munitions that are possible to give. We should have built more factories, we should have had more stockpiles, we should have given Ukraine more sooner so the Russians didn't have time to dig in, whatever - but now there's a shortage and the dual purpose rounds are the one way to plug it short term we have.
The alternative to giving Ukraine cluster munitions is not giving them different, non-cluster munitions. The alternative is that they get nothing, more Ukrainians will die needlessly and Ukraine will possibly lose, sentencing anyone on the occupied territories to Russian terror and genocide, not to mention all the international repercussions of showing the West as weak and rules-based world order as a farce.
Would it be better to give Ukraine the same amount of ammo in non-cluster versions? Yes. But it seems we can't do that (for reasons that should be fixed for sure, but likely can't be fixed in the short term). So it's either dual purpose or nothing.
I say dual purpose.

Ah so somewhat more complex…now we are getting somewhere.   So what you are saying is that western deterrence is at risk of failing as Russia continues to prod along red lines.  As we have failed to escalate in the past it shows our hand in not really planning to escalate in the future.
Of course it really did not quite happen that way did it?  We did escalate in scope, scale and effectiveness of capabilities sent to the UA.  Hell you guys got Patriots…only Israel gets Patriots. We know it was viewed as an escalation as Russia came right out and declared it.
Now Russia is definitely playing silly buggers at the dam, and may even have a “soft nuclear incident” as they continue to play footsy with the west - it is kinda on brand.  And we will reply by finally giving the UA ATACMS and other higher end capabilities.  Moreover, I suspect we will get more comfortable with footsy of our own - precise military strikes into Russia itself - will start non-kinetic and go from there.  They have already started with SOF and partisan looking stuff (aside: Russia has also shown its cards on this one as these are “technically” direct attacks on the “motherland” but somehow we are also not in WW3 yet).  We will (and should) get nervous at all this as if we escalate too far we not only risk “the big one” we also risk driving support in Putin’s direction - which is not what it was about a month ago.
As to “narratives”, look I get the sentiment.  I am pretty sure that a younger and idealistic kraze did not join Amnesty International or volunteer for the White Helmets when Russia was doing worse in Syria…and now Ukraine is basically Syria.  But the good news is that unlike Syria, the West actually did get its act together and decided to “do something”.  

Of course I am not sure what you and a few others are expecting to gain by shaming or insulting the West writ large, especially on this thread.  I mean what is your theory of change here?  Do you expect us to riot in the streets?  Write our government and advocate…what exactly?  Do you not see the risk of alienating your biggest supporters?  I get the need to vent, I really do but maybe we aren’t the bad guys here.  The situation is all hell and sh#tty but the way out is going to be slow, no getting past that.
As to consequences for Russia.  Well beyond the obvious daily warcrimes and whatever comes next.  Russia did this: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/preliminary-lessons-russias-unconventional-operations-during-russo-ukrainian-war-february-2022
That is the real dark stuff.  Pre-meditated and planned in egregious detail.  I think normalization with Russia may be a generation away after this.  Which is very good news for Ukraine after this war because it puts you on the “front line of freedom” and that is a good place to be...unlike Syria.

If we want the Ukrainians to be able to afford to make these little distinctions in how to kill Russians, all we have to do is commit NATO's air forces to this war. It will be over in three days, and we can all feel really good that the the Russians died burning in their own diesel instead of something incendiary we dropped. In the absence of that, Ukraine is fighting an existential war where losing means the some combination of rape, torture, a train ride to the a Siberian gulag, and outright murder of essentially the entire country. That is a proven fact, the Russians have made it VERY clear.
Furthermore the sheer quantity of ordinance, whether mines or forty year old artillery shells with a 25% dud rate, used in the parts of Ukraine that have been fought over are already far past the point making vast areas unlivable, and unusable. Either the engineers come up with a better way to do de-mining or it is already a problem. 

No one is claiming the U.S. is run better than Finland, no really we do NOT make that claim. It is just that this rambling wreck of a system has produced the worlds most powerful military, and I simply don't care what budget shenanigans the President has to pull finish beating the Russians in Ukraine. Doubly so when Putin is actively manipulating and funding the worst people in our system.

This is the problem of where we were as western militaries; we never thought this sort of war would happen again.  We have been fighting dust wars against VEOs and insurgents for nearly 20 years, before that were interventions against opponents that had all the capability and operational art of a tethered goat with learning disabilities.  So here we are neck deep into a peer-on-peer proxy war of extremely high intensity sustained combat....who would have thunk it?
So defence industry and militaries have a complex relationship.  Those on the left would have us believe it is all the corporations "being corporationy", and there is some truth to this but in reality defence industry takes signals from defence itself and invests and develops in these highlighted areas.   We highlighted "demining" and AP threats and promptly forgot all about major combat breaching operations because ISIL does not build mine belts km long.  So now we are pushing what we have into Ukraine but a lot of it is last gen and sub-optimized because we are sub-optimized for this sort of war.  The big question after this war will be where to completely re-tool and where to be more conservative.  If history is any indication, we will talk ourselves into "well it is an eastern European anomaly", "Russia Sux" and "We would do it right", so we really do not need to do major overhauls.  The European powers did the exact same thing after observing the US Civil War (except it was "America Sux") which led to that little whoopsie we call WWI.
Here is hoping we go in other directions. 

I think the conflict in this thread might have arisen because there's a difference between politely reminding everyone that we don't know enough to be 100% certain and telling people that their conclusions are "copium" because of that fact.
"Copium" is a potent cocktail that leads to conclusions based largely on (very) selective reasoning, hope and a deep aversion to a particular alternative.  Copium is some structural steel bars welded over the top of your T-72 because 'Ukraine have Javelins; Javelins attack from above; I just can't bear the thought of how horribly vulnerable to Javelin attack I am in my tank; Steel is hard and can be used as armour; QED'.  Copium is "Intelligent Design".
The majority of the useful opinions and positions expressed on this thread are not copium-fuelled.  They are properly and more-or-less rationally built upon a firm base of relevant professional experience and critical analysis of both available data and historic trends.  That does not (and cannot) lead to a 'certain' conclusion but it can (and does) lead to a 'most likely' conclusion.  Implicit in the work done to establish such a 'most likely' conclusion should be an understanding of where the weaknesses in the assessment lie and it is welcomed when people politely remind everyone what those weaknesses are.  That is partly because it demonstrates an understanding and appreciation of the work done by the person who carried out the assessment in question.  It is even more welcome when someone steps in and offers an equally or even more well-founded alternative assessment and conclusion, especially if it challenges the previous 'most likely' case.  That's because it adds to the conversation and can be educational and important to think about.
So while I would agree that 'group-think' can be dangerous that doesn't mean it should be challenged for the sake of it; it should be challenged based on the merits of the position that is being 'group-thunk'.  One's confidence in a position/the imperative to challenge it should always be proportional/inversely proportional to the strength of the case made for it.  That leads to the fact that the position itself should actually be irrelevant when deciding whether it needs to be challenged.  If you really are concerned by the fact that positions in this thread are "constantly undermining Russia", rather than that they are poorly-constructed, then you are the one letting your aversion to that "habit" drive your thinking.  You are the one getting too close to the copium fumes.
Finally, if being collectively in agreement in the absence of 100% proof is one of the most dangerous things in society then we are all doomed, since there is no such thing as 100% proof.  I would argue that it is actually disagreement with the collective simply due to a lack of 100% proof which is far more dangerous, since it leads to indecisiveness and passivity in the face of important challenges. See the climate change "debate".  See any number of the "debates" that spilt all over the place in 2020-21.  See the crippling paralysis that struck the collective West when definitely-not-100%-proven-to-be-Russian "Little Green Men" appeared in Crimea in 2014.
Forget 100% proof.  Search for 'most likely'.  Understand why it is considered 'most likely'.  If you agree, cherish collective agreement.  If you disagree, then explain why and you will be thanked for it.

Ok, well I get the no echo chamber part but I also should be able to make professionally based observations without being accused of being a blind apologist hooked on “copium”.  And then when challenged by very weak counters and counter-challenge, I should not be accused of being a “commissar”.  You are of course free to have an uniformed opinion but I am not evil because I point it out.
This entire thing is an observation that on a UA mine breaching disaster - no debate on that, and trust me I have forgotten more about mechanized minefield breaching than just about everyone else you may meet - that RA artillery was tepid to the point of being odd for the context.  That suddenly turned into a crisis point of blind pro-Ukraine echo chamber building because in your opinion this observation was unmerited.  You did not back that up by any hard facts and have even admitted it is too early to tell.  Then when the freakin RA commander says through Russian MOD controlled media that his own artillery was very effective, your response is to crow on how that validates your own position.  When pressed your response was “why would Russia lie about such a thing?” To which I provided 4 different reasons…and now I am an echo chamber commissar.
FFS, you brought the weak arguments to the table and now we are to be punished for pointing that out…how is that not creating another echo chamber of its own?
We have been hearing reports of problems with RA indirect fire for months, this could simply be another data point - not a verdict on the entire Russian defence.  We will see in due time whether or not corrosive warfare will or will not work again.  Not every counter-RA observation is pro-Ukrainian or vice versa.  However, if you are going to start beaking off the least you can do is bring some actual facts or coherent observations to the party.  Unlike whatever social media, school or your friends/family or whatever told you, your opinion is not worth its weight in gold.  We do not respect it simply because you posted it.  It need facts, experience or something to support it.

And now we can talk about engineering in CM.  
They go with them to establish a bridgehead on the other side as quickly as possible.  Waiting for the clearing vehicle gives the enemy time to dial in/c-move, minute count here. They can also provide some direct fire support in breach, but I always questioned that one.  The bridge head can push out and then support follow on main forces.
If the clearance vehicle comes under fire there is no “backing out”.  Drivers cannot see the cleared lane, vehicles are going to move even slower, or simply risk slipping out of the safe lane and hitting a mine.
Now what could have been done is a night silent breach and then you crash the obstacle.  But obviously they had to go mechanical.  A well trained crew can do this op in 2-3 mins…unless it goes wrong…which It did.

That capability exists.  Not going to solve this problem unless you had a fleet of them.  If you did you could likely overwhelm the defences on the minefield and then crash it in multiple places.
People are wondering what the hell the UA is doing?  Exactly what we trained them to do, this is a western mechanized breach.  Now explosive breaching would be a better solution but I am not sure UA has that.  And if they do they are likely saving it for the main assault.

So at the beginning of this we talked a lot about Macro masking - how high level analysis missed the growing bow wave of counter-factual little details as the war unfolded. This led to wrong conclusions and deductions that took some analysts months to get over.
The meme social media phenomenon were are seeing now is going the other way - Micro masking aka confirmation bias.  Every streamed engagement is confirmation of what we want to happen, not what is actually happening.  Here I tend to focus on results and broader trends with a healthy dose of context.  We are maybe just getting into the UA offensive and the actual operational effects are unclear.  We will know once they are because we will start seeing them on the ground and broader battle spaces. Until then propaganda amplification is going to happen on both sides.
This would be why I do not really observe the progress of this war other than here and ISW. The noise leaks through the walls here too but we do try and maintain a semblance of sanity.  We definitely want Ukraine to succeed but if we are seeing these same actions in three months with no real progress, we are going to have to admit the UA is spent and this war is going to take a different trajectory to conclusion. No amount of meming is going to change the facts.  If we see major success and signs of RA collapse then we will know the other way.
We spent a lot of time crystal balling, now is time to simply try and figure out what is actually happening.

Oh I don't know. He has been good enough on his feet to arrange the destruction of the Russian military with only 4% of the US military budget, thoroughly pantsed the GOP on the debt limit fight and Americans 25 to 54 are working at their highest rate since 2001.
If that's not fit, I'll take more unfitness please.

Now it appears that it was 5 drones, not 20+ drones.  Armed with little explosives and, possibly, designed to not even detonate.  It was symbolic, not destructive.  But yet, here we are debating war crimes.   A lot of "what-about" comparatives to exponentially different levels of destruction and intent.   Trying to link Ukrainian actions to horrific events of the past--and it's quite possible this debate is nothing more than intentional Russian psy-ops to discredit Ukrainians and deflect from Russia's own behavior.
Let's put this in perspective.  5 light-weight possibly armed drones flying around a neighborhood of Moscow oligarchs versus  Russia's intentional and repeated bombing of civilian infrastructure with heavy duty weapons for 14 months.   There is no comparison.
Just my opinion, but how about we postpone this debate until if/when Ukraine actually starts intentionally bombing civilians? Until then, I think it's nothing more than Russian psy-ops.
 

On the drone strikes in Russia:
- far too soon for direct attribution back to Ukraine.  Even if those drones were Ukrainian made that does not mean they were targeted and executed by the UA. Ukrainian government appears to have denied and Russia has failed to attribute sponsorship or direct operation.
- these strikes could just as easily be Ukrainian sponsored but carried out by Russia resistance/insurgents - this scenario is far more disruptive and undeciding for the Russian government than a direct UA attack.
- these attacks could also be Russian government sponsored and carried out with captured or re manufactured Ukrainian systems. Given the light damage and lack of any real noted casualties, this could easily be a scare tactic by Putin on his own people to drive support narrative his way. Right now there has been no conclusive evidence either way.
- if this was a UA directed and executed strike well it was both impressive and not.  We are either looking at a behind the lines op with a lot of moving parts or a 500-600 deep strike.  It is not impressive in that it was imprecise and hit no serious targets beyond breaking some windows and rattling shingles in a “rich neighbourhood”.  This is what lend me to think it was third party or inside job.  Ukraine has demonstrated significant precision in its deep strikes - Kerch Bridge, airfields in Crimea, and those ships on the Azov in port.  So to suddenly be “blind lobbing” into Moscow is off trend.
- As to the legitimacy of the targets, well what were the actual targets?  We do not know. Those drones could have been aimed at a number of military targets but Russian EW drove them into those neighborhoods.  Those “rich people” could be leadership in the Russian government or military which would make them legit and any civilians as acceptable collateral - and here it gets into a whole lot of targeteering and legality issues.
- Effects.  Well a lot of them and more than a little muddled.  Ukrainian moral will be buoyed as they are finally hitting back so there is a symbolism there. Russians will be scared as their war comes home to roost; however, this is hardly “shock and awe”.  This will likely drive a lot of support Putin’s way to protect his people and do whatever it takes.  It will also likely provide fodder for anti-Putin sentiment as he did not protect them and drove Russia into this mess.  
The targeting of “rich neighborhoods” is interesting as it sends a message of class divides - this is more likely sign of insurgency, an inside Russian false flag job would have targeted common folk. In the West we will raise an eyebrow and scratch our heads a bit. I mean we start seeing dead Russian children and there will likely be a backlash (two wrongs not making right in many books) but this was not that. Ukraine does need to tread carefully here (and has), no point conducting operations that enhance anti-war support in the West.
Militarily it could pull more AD assets back into Russia proper and away from the main theatre, so in that way it could be shaping.  So overall a bit of a mishmash really.  All negative decision pressure but some could work for Putin and gang, while others do not.  Gotta be honest, to my eyes this looks a lot like third party backfield pot stirring - central question remains “by whom?”
Effective attribution is three layers deep: What happened?  Who did it? (an entire chain there from operator to sponsor).  Why did they do it?  Right now as far as I can see we do not even have the first one covered fully.

Russia terror bombs Ukraine for over a year
 

 
Moscow gets hit by a handful of small drones causing limited damage and no reported casualties. 
OMFG don't they know the allied terror bombings were a failure!!!

 

I have to say...and this is coming from the center left...that a lot of the antifa folks in DC were completely obnoxious. The BLM folks were what we would call around here 'good protesters'. They did their thing, acted coherently and didn't randomly attack whatever for the thrill of it...the burning of the lobby of the AFL-CIO being a particularly egregious example of the tendency to burn for the fun of it tendency of some of the Antifa folks. A lot of them looked like teenagers burning off covid isolation.
But...neither one had anything like the sheer nastiness of the radical right wingers. Patches like RWDS (that stands for "Right Wing Death Squad") and Confederate flags were routine and far more common than outright Nazi regalia. People telling my neighbors with a pride flag at their house that they "will come back for you later". Or the 100 or so Proud Boys that charged a police line my kid and I were behind because they were trying to get at BLM folks on the plaza on 16th Street behind us. Oh...and did I mention the guys with the long guns that got arrested at one of my places of business?
We got to see the monster with it's mask off...because they were sure that they were going to get a pardon sooner or later as they would tell DC MPD who had to deal with them...and I would strongly suggest you all take it seriously. Out of patriotism if nothing else. Nobody benefits more from it than Vladimir Putin.

I saw plenty of Nazi regalia, had guys sneer at my multiracial kid, etc in the years leading up to 1/6 in DC. Sure, we are sort of fly paper for the worst people but  anyone who thinks there isn’t a virulent underground of this stuff is kidding themselves. As we saw with Teixeira, we have a legitimate insider threat from reactionary extremists and it’s a thing we have to defend ourselves against. How does this tie into this topic? Just take a look at some of the more obscure names on Russia’s latest sanctions list. 

I have to say I am in awe of Ukraine.
They have done brilliantly on the battlefield both relatively and absolutely.  They have been both student and teacher.
Their president has been masterful at gaining international support and staying in the fray.
They are very good with opsec and consistent messaging
I think they have no equal when it comes to trolling.  This trans border raid is brilliant.  The sinking of the Moskva on the day the snake island stamp gets released.  The constant, truly funny and well done jabs.
The incredible people of Ukraine who are true patriots -your bravery is amazing but needed in this existential threat.

It is uncertainty, which is toxic to humans.  We mostly do one of two things with uncertainty, we push out and explore to remove it, or we pretend it does not exist.  
We were never apex predators in nature, middle of the food chain in reality.  However we had a big enough brain to be aware of where we sat in the food chain which created fear.  We then leveraged that to survive and evolve.  The fuel for a lot of our fear is uncertainty, the unknowns because in nature those unknowns could easily kill us for food.
So we will work very hard to remove uncertainty, it is a primary impulse.  To over simplify and dumb thins down, particularly when faced with highly complex unknowns is a very old human strategy.  One of the first things we did was to try and use substances to cope - alcohol, narcotics etc.  Than when we constructed faith and religion.  And now we have whatever the hell this era has produced with echo chambers and ideologies that embrace obtuse and willful ignorance as dogma.  Better to embrace safe lies and face unknowable truths.  And to be fair there is also a caloric strategy at play here as well. Brain chews up a lot of calories so in one embraces dogma one can stop burning calories on worrying about unknowns.
Certainty and uncertainty are also central to warfare.  I describe all warfare as a violent collision of human certainties.  It creates enormous uncertainty as social structures are fractured.  Uncertainty is a weapon in itself and can be projected onto an opponent.  We have been wrestling with uncertainty since 23 Feb 22.  We have all created mental frameworks that aid us in reasserting certainty - I know I definitely have.  This is not a bad thing so long as those frameworks remain on speaking terms with reality and the facts on the ground.  If the space between my mental certainty framework and reality becomes too wide, I am in an unreality space and that is when decisions get really shaky.
Now for any 8th graders out there.  We are afraid of the dark because we can imagine all the bad within it.  So we can either build flashlights or cover our heads and pretend it is daytime until the sun does come up.

Here is another: “full of sh#t and bad manners”.
You posted ignorant drivel, got called out, basically told the moderator to “shut up cause you can’t tell me what to do” like an over entitled millennial. And are now pushing post-truth fanboi lines like they are scripture.
Dunning-Kruger: “The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias[2]whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge.”
I just posted a half dozen reasons why you foundational premise is weak, your original post has zero merit, and you come back with “college boy eh?”  
It is a big internet there are all sorts of sites that will appeal to where you are coming from - good ol folksie wisdom and hard workin practical experience that “tells it like it is” in simple easily digestible one liners that will make you feel all sorts of clever. They distill the complexity of human conflict to 140 characters and offer easy answers to this scary complex old world.  You can learn all about “Elitist this and globalist that” and will no doubt hear all sorts of down home simple solutions that are so obvious.
And then we here can muddle along as best we are able because clearly “we just don’t get it”.