Putin's war on the peoples of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine

On February 18 Sheridan noticed that:

… the number of Russian soldiers on Ukraine's borders continues to increase and is now somewhere between 130,000 and 150,000.That is enough to invade Ukraine, given the superiority of Russian equipment, aircraft and firepower. It's probably not enough to occupy a nation of 44 million people indefinitely.

But despite that rare flash of insight, Sheridan by 23 February is totally pessimistic and defeatist:

Here we come upon another intensely strange and paradoxical moral dilemma. The future of Europe may turn on how hard the Ukrainians are willing to fight for their freedom and independence. Yet if Moscow goes for a full-scale invasion, the superiority in quality and quantity of Russian arms must mean eventual defeat for the Ukrainians.

So should they fight or should they just surrender, because the result will be the same in the end anyway?

Evidently Sheridan has not learned much from having been on the losing side in Vietnam.

Given the superiority of American equipment, aircraft and firepower it wasn't enough to occupy the small nation of Vietnam indefinitely. That "superiority" just meant the American aggressors did more damage than the French before them. Of course the Vietnamese did not fight when and where the Americans wanted them to. They retreated and hid and fought when it suited them. The American "superiority" did not mean "eventual defeat" for the Vietnamese. Help from the rest of the world was important, especially from the American people and especially from anti-war US soldiers who killed their officers and broke the US army. The key point was that an expeditionary army of half a million was not enough to occupy another nation "indefinitely".

Sending NATO troops to Ukraine would not be particularly helpful. Russia has complete local dominance in its region (land, sea and air) and would defeat NATO in such battles. But if the West wanted to do more than just send arms and other supplies to the Ukrainian resistance it could certainly cause serious military problems for Putin instead of just making speeches. For example Turkey could and should close the Bosphorous to bottle up the Russian fleet (as could and should have been done over Syria). NATO naval forces would be completely dominant everywhere else and could cut off most of Russia's revenue from trade. It would be up to Russia whether it wished to escalate from a losing position or would prefer to withdraw quickly. A lot of lives could be saved if the West was not so completely gutless. But the peoples of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine will still win in the end. The long-term result will be regime change in Russia again.