A dire and vivid narrative! A lot of baseline assumptions without evidence (and watch out for the attribution errors - believing one can see inside the mind of another. I’ve not heard anywhere that Putin might have a fatal illness. However, playing through such scenarios is I think valuable - if only because it can shake people out of their own scenarios based on imperfect and partial information. I personally suspect that none of us are being fed the full story by the media. I remember about a week ago there was a plea by NATO governments for the media to stop reporting on the details of military aid to Ukraine....it was only helping the Russians. So, I would rather not have access to perfect information.

On the main point, I agree that appeasement is a losing game. You never stop a bully by giving in to him. NATO needs to stand up for Ukraine. Remember - we also have nuclear weapons! We act as if we don’t .