We spent 70 years, trillions of dollars hoping for the Soviet Union to collapse and now we want to protect the little countries? Russia can march in and take over all of them. It is one thing to bloodily capture countries, it is another thing to hold on to them. Even if Ukraine was captured, Russia could never hold on to it for long. It's just not possible

Yes it is and it was possible to hold on "little countries". They have installed their puppets to rule every place they once had control over.
They have planted some ethnic "unrest" in most ex-soviet countries.
If this is not utter, total control I don't know what is..

So, you are saying it is ok to allow Russia to have some sandbox play with post-USSR countries, where trying to hold them would mean extreme amount of pain, suffering and deaths?

It is ok because you don't care about them? Or is there another reason?

1) the killing stops? In your fantasy postwar world, the Ukranian army and the Donbass people will roast marshmallows around a giant bonfire and sing Katyusha??

2) no one is saying they should sign over the entire country?

And I also disagree that a nationality is responsible for the crimes of the government

I think that illusion evaporated about 48 hours after the Ukranian invasion started. Afghanistan didn't exactly go well either. PooTin prefers puppet regime change.

That is indeed correct. Which is perhaps the other thing that bothers PooTin about Ukraine...he doesn't want democracy on his doorstep for fear it might be contagious.

I am saying it's a soviet problem .... not mine. We cannot save the whole world!

I mean march in "in theory"....this would be beyond the Russian capabillity

Precisely this.

And right to our face.

Ok, so we established that you don't care.
When would you start to care? When Poland would be annexed? Or only when Austria? Does the war need to be by your direct border to start caring?

Wake up at the back of the class there.

The Soviet Union did collapse on December 26, 1991.

As Putin demonstrates daily in Ukraine, Russia is just a pathetic shadow of the Soviet Union.
At the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Bloc represented 9% of the world’s population and 10.5% of its economy.
The equivalent numbers for Russia and its allies (the ‘Putin Bloc’) in 2020 are 2.5% and 3.5%.

Now Putin is wiping out hundreds of thousands of his own working-age people, it will take Russia decades to recover financially.
Made worse as the world slowly moves away from fossil fuels which are Russias main exports.

The US certainly has to be concerned not only about China, but also Saudi Arabia. They basically spat in Biden's face whilst rolling out the red carpet for Xi. They are definitely not the allies they once were.

The US must certainly be concerned if Russia, China and the OPEC countries are conspiring to topple US (and/or US dollar) dominance.

Press reports about a Polish police officer injured by a present from Ukraine, it is now reported this was a grenade launcher that he fired in his office... what!!

Well, I have been studying Russian since February to help the fellas get acclimated….jk

I dont deal in theoreticals, as much as I would like to see how brave and willing to sabre rattle the Poles are when they are actually invaded, I don’t think the Russian army ever steps foot into Poland. If they did, they would be stopped in short order. (by the US and UK, the rest of NATO would still be scratching their behinds by the time the conflict ended)

Yeah, the details are still sketchy, but its seems like it's just bad luck and lack of knowledge (Ukrainians gifted him with a grenade launcher and police officers, unless youre in the US, are not used to such weapons so probably misfired.)

can't really blame MBS given all of Biden's pre-election posturing. Biden made a lot of noise over it and basically snubbed him and only came crawling to beg for oil.

the reality is that US and Saudi's are intertwined for business reasons only. US has not much in common with values or culture. they're happy to overlook and keep quiet human rights abuses there to keep oil flow and keep selling arms to them.

China can do business with Saudis and Russians and are happy to leave the politics out of it.

I bet that in that unlikely case the Balts, the Czech and the Finns would be game. The Germans would talk about "Zeitenwende" and wear ribbons.

Urban sprawl and the impossibility of being a pedestrian in Riyadh is indistinguishable from Houston metro area

An impossible dream to topple US dollar dominance, currently, the US currency composition of official foreign exchange reserves worldwide is around 60%.
The US dollar also accounts for around 88.3% of daily trades in the foreign exchange market.

The Chinese renminbi accounts for just 2% of global payments, is involved in approximately 4% of forex trades internationally and makes up around 2% of foreign currency reserves globally.

The Saudi ryal accounts for less than 1% all round.

Speaking Serbian natively must be of great help.

The "elite" in both Saudi and the US is only interested in filling their pockets.

If by the culture you mean alcohol drinking then in my time the causeway linking Saudi Arabia to Bahrain was lined at night with Saudi Rolls Royces sleeping off their Bahrain alcohol.
If you mean religion then there is little difference between Muslims and evangelicals on topics like LGBTQ, gay marriage, adultery, science, and trying to fit rules written over a thousand years ago to today's world.