Nastypastie

No. It will not lead to the eventual end of international law. International law might come to an end eventually, but it will not be because we stayed high. If anything, it might come to an end because we went low.
I think you are missing some very basic fundamentals about this war, the relative strength of modern day Russia and the west, how the modern world works in general, and a few realities of warfare.
1. It isn't about going high or low. Russia is making gains in Ukraine right now because there was a gap in western aid, not because the west is sticking to the high road. Now that fresh aid is on the way Russia's window to make significant gains is going to come to a close, even if they keep going low. It will not reopen unless there is another gap in western aid. It has absolutely nothing to do with going high or low. Russia going low is not giving them an advantage on the battlefield, the gap in western aid is. Us going high is not putting Ukraine at a disadvantage on the battlefield, the gap in western aid is.
2. The west is massively more powerful than Russia. The US GDP in 2022 was ten times the Russian GDP. The combined members of NATO (including the US) have twenty times the Russian GDP. If you add in our Pacific and Asian allies it comes out to thirty times the Russian GDP. Now, as we have been painfully learning over the last two years, overwhelming economic superiority does not instantly or automatically translate to a superiority in military industrial production. But, as I expect Russia to very painfully learn over the next (I'm throwing out a guess here, based largely on the mediocrity principle, that we're right smack dab in the middle of this thing) two years, it does translate to a greater potential to expand military industrial production. And it translates to greater economic endurance. Russia cannot keep up current levels of spending forever. The west can keep up current levels of aid to Ukraine (or even many times the current levels of aid in monetary terms) pretty much forever. So the west absolutely has the capability to enable Ukraine to win. The only factor is western will to continue supporting Ukraine, and to hopefully expand support for Ukraine. Provided that western will to support Ukraine doesn't break, it is impossible for Russia to win even if they go low and we stay high. Going low or high isn't even a factor.
3. Going high isn't just about principle, it's where our strength comes from. I mean that literally, not in the vague feel-good sense in which the power of love somehow enables the heroes of a story to overcome impossible odds. Our strength (both military and economic) is literally derived from our alliances, our credibility, and the rules based international order. The United States has a massive network of alliances. You may notice that China and Russia, both of which are far more willing to go low, come up a little short on allies.
4. Going low doesn't actually work. This may be a bit difficult to grasp, particularly since we've been inundated with pessimists who think they're realists for so many years. But just because something is dirty or unethical doesn't make it effective. As one example, Russian assassinations on British soil were probably a factor in why the British have been so enthusiastic in providing support for Ukraine (the small amount of material they've provided has more to do with a lack of material to provide than with a lack of will to provide it). As another example, I have been reading about increasing use by the Russians of chemical weapons in Ukraine. These are outlawed in warfare under international law, so is about as clear a case of going low as you could imagine. But there are reasons why it was so much easier to outlaw the use of chemical weapons in warfare than it was to outlaw the use of, for example, cluster munitions. Chief among them is that cluster munitions are extremely effective, while chemical weapons aren't particularly effective. It was easy to outlaw chemical weapons because their cruelty is far out of proportion to their battlefield utility. They're better than nothing, but they're difficult to maintain and generally less effective than an equivalent amount of HE would have been. The fact that Russia has resorted to using chemical weapons is a sign of desperation, not a sign that these are actually effective weapons. So far I believe all of the recent Russian advances have been credited to artillery and local air superiority, not to their use of chemical weapons.

Anyone else feeling that the RU info ops are at a fever pitch right now?
On Youtube I'm seeing videos from once relatively benign sources like Balkan Mapping, that have turned decidedly pro Russian in the last year or so. Daily video gets released and its, as expected, music and everything, glorifying the push into Kharkiv. Whats more interesting is that within 30 minutes of release there are hundreds of comments both in Russian and English, speaking like the Russians have already captured Kharkiv city, destroyed the entire Ukrainian army and will be in Berlin in 80 days (not even joking, that was an actual comment).
I've even seen something similar happen with a piece from the Hindustan times, claiming that the Russians were advancing Sumy (when they are clearly not). I mean, not typically my go to for news lol, and it is right wing, but its still a relatively reputable news organization.
So what is actually happening here? Are the Russians just cranking up the algorithms?

Anyone else feeling that the RU info ops are at a fever pitch right now?
On Youtube I'm seeing videos from once relatively benign sources like Balkan Mapping, that have turned decidedly pro Russian in the last year or so. Daily video gets released and its, as expected, music and everything, glorifying the push into Kharkiv. Whats more interesting is that within 30 minutes of release there are hundreds of comments both in Russian and English, speaking like the Russians have already captured Kharkiv city, destroyed the entire Ukrainian army and will be in Berlin in 80 days (not even joking, that was an actual comment).
I've even seen something similar happen with a piece from the Hindustan times, claiming that the Russians were advancing Sumy (when they are clearly not). I mean, not typically my go to for news lol, and it is right wing, but its still a relatively reputable news organization.
So what is actually happening here? Are the Russians just cranking up the algorithms?

Striking Russia with US weapons is a decision for Ukraine, says Antony Blinken (msn.com)
Not sure whether this has been posted or not.
 

ISW was reporting as far back as March that Russia was planning large scale information operations that would continue through May. So I'm not surprised.

Hang on, this kid is 18. The conscription age was just lowered to 25. He has 7 years to make a few kids and basically be exempt until he's in his 40's.
This whole thing looks like a complete nothing story. What is he even complaining about? He can cross the desertion bridge if Ukraine drop their conscription age down to 18.

Hang on, this kid is 18. The conscription age was just lowered to 25. He has 7 years to make a few kids and basically be exempt until he's in his 40's.
This whole thing looks like a complete nothing story. What is he even complaining about? He can cross the desertion bridge if Ukraine drop their conscription age down to 18.

Hang on, this kid is 18. The conscription age was just lowered to 25. He has 7 years to make a few kids and basically be exempt until he's in his 40's.
This whole thing looks like a complete nothing story. What is he even complaining about? He can cross the desertion bridge if Ukraine drop their conscription age down to 18.

There's a new Kraut. He makes the case that in about the only way is the term Eastern Europe still relevant, is that it defines a bunch of people who really are not a fan of Russians (or imperialism).
 

As a lawyer you should know better that it's much more than just an 'attitude'. It's an entire legal framework underpinning the political ideology of liberal democracy.

Yes the west can sponsor whomever they like, the enemy of my enemy and all that, but there is much more going on here with the particular case of Ukraine because Ukraine has made it no secret that it aspires to joining the EU. As a matter of straightforward facts:-
Ukraine will never join the EU if it does not uphold EU law - indeed it has to adopt EU law in order to be a member. Membership means compliance with the ECHR and its rulings. The ECHR enforces the core principles laid out and agreed upon by the union of liberal democratic states. Some of those principles cover the protection of minority groups and protection of individual freedoms etc.. This is just the way it is. You cannot cherry-pick the core ideas of liberal democracy anymore than you can cherry-pick the legal framework and membership of the EU.          

To follow up.  I also do not think most people realize just how weird this moment in history has become from a military power standpoint.  The Cold War came off the back of WW2 and was actually an exercise in downsizing to fit the requirements of the intense strategic competition between the two global power poles.  Defence and Security architectures were largely scaled down from their WW2 architectures to fit the Cold War environment.  The competition then became sustaining competitive advantage in that context, along with negotiations with an evolving social calculus that occurred rather slowly (eg civil and gender equity).
We then won the Cold War and re-scaled again.  We first created military power to intervene in sustaining the global order. And then after 9/11 built the architectures aimed narrowly at a problematic niche.  Social evolution continued but began to accelerate as the Information Age emerged and began to deepen.
And then in just a few short years - let’s take 2010 for arguments sake and say 14 years - we saw the re-emergence of a Cold War-looking strategic competition, a hyper acceleration of the Information to whatever the hell this thing is now and, the largest pandemic in over a century.  This has driven social change pressures to crazy levels - like “let’s storm capital hill/defund cops/cancel-mob rule” levels.
And suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, we are seriously talking about military requirements we have not seen in over 35 years. NATO has just run the largest exercise since the Cold War and we likely had to build things we forgot entirely how to do.  HQs and staffs, force generation, and military capability have all changed dramatically but we are still looking at a massive upscaling requirement to align with strategic realities.  Don’t even get me started on intelligence and security architectures, which have been entirely focused on hunting terrorists and now are being asked to consider under the threshold strategic disruption against other states - those are enterprises that take decades to get right.
We may look “ok” but we are not “ok”.  We have a very significant expansion in front of us in order to 1) create deterrence,  2) contain expansion of influence, and 3) create new strategic options…on top of an already stressed out social situation - f#cking “woke” is the least of our problems.  Rebuilding entire defence and security strategic power structures to be able to do what we found challenging over 30 years ago while the fabric of warfare appears to be rippling under our feet; while our domestic populations appear really intent on losing their f#cking minds in about 30 different directions at once…is our new Tuesday.
At this point senior military staff don’t care if someone is gender-fluid, multi-racial and bestiality adjacent - if they can fill a chair better than the forest of traffic cones that we currently have…welcome aboard!
(did that video get all that?)

Eh, there wouldn't even be need of invasion. They would likely happily join a Russian bloc, along with Serbia, if Putin proposed it.
Austria didn't get even the weak denazification process Germany experienced after WW2. Its political institutions are weak and riddled with corruption, and half the population would gladly embrace the kind of reactionary conservativism Putin is preaching. If you go to a rural taverns in Austria, it is not unlikely to find SS and swastika flags hanging casually in the backrooms where the "local patrons" meet with local politicians, as of recently sometimes next to Russian flags. 
Orban has successfully removed democracy from Hungary. He would join without even blinking.
Serbia? Vucic, the current president, was a government minister while Serbia was still in the casual rape camp and ethnocide business. The average Serbian is filled with nationalist revanchism because "NATO attacked us for zero reason at all", "the genocide is a dirty lie but they deserved it" and "we must reunite Yugoslavia". Half of Bosnia is for Serbia basically what Donbas was for Russia, except with a far better point, because there are actually Serbs living there who threaten to genocide the other half of Bosnia every other month.  
Turkey might stay neutral or decide to join. Aggressive, religion-infused nationalism is rampant in the country, Erdogan has removed democratic institutions, and the economy is in the gutters. He might see an advantage in joining the "living piss-poor in dirt-huts but believing in the absolutely superiority of your nation" club of Putin. 
That attitude actually the big connecting factor between all these nations, even when we look at Trumpists in the US. An absolute belief in national superiority coupled with the absolute willingness to be pissed on by corrupt oligarchs. 
I foresee the "GDR separatists of Eastern Germany being liberated by Russia" as more likely than an attack on the Baltics. Russia already has its fingers dug in firmly in these countries, they just need to be connected by a land bridge.
Let's not forget, Russian nationalists don't think in "Ah, of we can't get Kiyv in 2026 we might as well give up". 
Even soft-spoken commenters on Russian politics like Vlad Vexler are very clear on this. "If we don't get Berlin in 2030, we try in 2035. If we don't get Berlin in 2035, we try in 2040...." The whole nation of Russia is building itself for a permanent conflict with the West through all means. Putin's brainwashed children will do it in 2100 and beyond. 
That doesn't mean that Russia will succeed, we just have to be real about their mentality and how many in the West would join them. Even a 5% separatist movement (completely realistic numbers in Austria or Germany, if they could get weapons) that locks shoulders with the Russian Army is a good way to massively disrupt a country.

Its not viable to up armour to upper surfaces of a tank. Modern tanks are already extremely heavy on the top armour by historical measures with around 40mm or so and it makes them crazy heavy as it is. You'd need about 50% more than that to even stop shell fragments from a close burst from a 155, let alone an EFP or a shaped charge. It's long been the case that its only viable to stop HEAT from the frontal arc and even then that has been since the advent of composite armour. When you think about the surface area you are talking about compared to actually quite small armoured front section of a tank you can imagine how having in any way comparable armour on the roof would simply not be possible. Pretty much at any scale.

Its not viable to up armour to upper surfaces of a tank. Modern tanks are already extremely heavy on the top armour by historical measures with around 40mm or so and it makes them crazy heavy as it is. You'd need about 50% more than that to even stop shell fragments from a close burst from a 155, let alone an EFP or a shaped charge. It's long been the case that its only viable to stop HEAT from the frontal arc and even then that has been since the advent of composite armour. When you think about the surface area you are talking about compared to actually quite small armoured front section of a tank you can imagine how having in any way comparable armour on the roof would simply not be possible. Pretty much at any scale.

Yes, but at the moment I am guided by the 0.7 liters of Madeira I drank. Rain outside the window, live concert of Depeche Mode 1993. And the lack of obvious successes of the Ukrainian armed forces. 
Many of my childhood friends are afraid of this call. But I think. that this is the duty of everyone who lived carefree in the 90s

Many to sink it, even with the light aluminum hulls of today. The problem with ships is the volume. Pierce a tank and you're bound to hit something good, pierce a ship and most likely you hit a bunch of empty space and non critical equipment. You really want semi armour piercing or blast fragmentation for straight explosive yield vs ships.

Not to mention current loiter times. With half hour endurance a unit is looking at needing 48 small drones to keep a single unit in the air doing CAP 24/7. More if you count lost time for takeoff and recovery.

Not to mention current loiter times. With half hour endurance a unit is looking at needing 48 small drones to keep a single unit in the air doing CAP 24/7. More if you count lost time for takeoff and recovery.

M113 TOW's are AMAZING if you can get them properly hull down so its literally just a dudes head and the tube poking out. You wind up with literally 20x BMP1's flinging dozens of those horrible ATGM's at you vainly as your crews pick them off one by one.

Any professional worth their salt would 1) not have access to enough information to outline recommendations in any detail, or 2) if they did have access to enough information would not say anything as it would likely violate security.
So what that major caveat up front; generally (and not pulling on anything but open sources/unclass) I would recommend:
1.  Continue shaping until major RA cracks form.
2.  Widen those cracks with pressure to the point the RA are forced into dilemma.
3.  Exploit that dilemma into a collapse and take enough ground to keep the West happy without over extending.  While at the same time pushing hard enough to put RA back into a position where you can repeat the process.
More simply put: Corrosion - Cracking - Concussion.  Do not stop until you hit a point where you cannot sustain defensive superiority against extant RA capability (which is a pretty low bar) as this would also be over extension.
Tactically I would recommend to continue with what works - Infiltration, Isolation, Annihilation, Exploitation, along the entire RA operational system.
Last point - when do we know when to stop?  If nothing is working we likely have to admit Defensive Primacy and either wait for a development to break that, or start thinking about a frozen conflict.  If massive C4ISR superiority, deep strike and infantry are not enough to break the RA defence - then admit we are in a new ballgame and start playing it.

That thing doesn't look close to the sort of yield needed to shift that span. Troll farm out in force in that comment section too.

That thing doesn't look close to the sort of yield needed to shift that span. Troll farm out in force in that comment section too.

Looks exactly like these from December. Israeli supposedly.
 

Rusi - Russian Tactics in the Second Year of the Invasion of Ukraine
Hot off the press. That's my afternoon sorted.

Picture wasn't Sparrow. It was HARM (non-pointy tailfins) or a non-western weapon.