I kinda suspect China is the same, but we’re yet to see, and hopefully never see any invasion of Taiwan..
I agree with your implication. The military forces of Russia are not paper tigers. Don't believe the hype. But at the same time, you don't want to fight proxy wars? Ok. Great. Then don't screw with other nations. If they hadn't messed with Ukraine, they wouldn't be fighting a proxy war.
The system works, again, because each of the major powers are comfortably confident in their ability to destroy the other 3. There is therefore, nothing to stop us from fighting a proxy war with Russia, because Russia will never use hard power to do anything about it. Unless Russia is suicidal, and they aren't, they will not escalate to a direct conflict with us.
If there's anything that their gloriously failed sneak attack on Ukraine has shown us, it's that yes, yes they are. Imagine if the most advanced weaponry they were facing wasn't small amounts of slow-coming ancient hand-me-downs employed by people who have barely even trained to use them . . . .
Ukraine would of course be toast without arms and intelligence from the West, but neither have any interest in starting or perpetuating the war. Russia's folly is convenient for the West though.
I don't think this is strictly true. Cutting Russia of from unimpeded Black Sea access and draining their resources in a (for America, cheap) proxy war are both in Western interests.
Before February 2022, I would have bet a big sum on Putin never authorizing a full-scale Ukraine invasion. There was just too much to lose and too little to gain theoretically…yet he did it anyways.
The US economy has more of a closed loop in that it consumes much of what it produces.
China on the other hand imports most essential commodities and pays for them with the proceeds of exports.
Yes, "simplifying" to the point of getting it completely backwards.