Common sense doesn't always prevail but to many hands are left out to lay any one particular hand down as the winner. There's what you spoke of and it would go well and align well with kissing goodbye to the era of pipeline distributions the globalist have planned as their plans would need a whole new process of delivery to countries dependent upon carbon intensive emissions for their energy needs, like the ability to bring in LNG. This is one way to send an a sounding message across to the masses. With this scenario though that would include Russia going hand in hand with it, probably if so through the global partnership alignments that unspeakably spoken gave them or guaranteed them a large chunk of the China markets transition from coal. That's three quarters more population than they are currently serving. I know they were promised the rehabilitation of two providences into green efficiency housing, it didn't state if that was within or outside of Russian borders or just what Russia considers is theirs. Maybe the object into the invasion was to get rid of what Russia considered the problem or cause of the ongoing prior war between them and the hard right. You can't rebuild something that would constantly be jeopardized by warring factions within the providence. If that is the case than Russia may not even care they actually get the area's and pull back as long as the area's were cleansed of the problem.

As far as the Rand paper if you read it closely it isn't something that came from within Rand and excerpts of it was taken from parts of other editorial opinions, it was immersed with whoever wrote it's opinions. Professional analysis writers it would be pretty uncommon to see them throw in barbs also. Not that I would completely toss out the message being conveyed, especially today after hearing what John Kerry said about the inflation reduction act giving them the ability to build an industry on green energy, something that Germany was way out ahead of the US on and the reason Trump called them out on being an expansionist foreign power encroaching upon other nations and that the US would reject that type of interference. In regard of what he said, how far the US would go to stop the encroachments, leaves this scenario rip for analysis on intent to crush the green economy Germany has built over the last decade and get it to implode in upon itself. I was just saying myself last week that the only way I seen a stop to all this was to take out Germany. That was in response to if this was really about the greens against those who object to the agenda than why hasn't Putin or why didn't Putin go for those green titanium mining operations they built in Ukraine or Germany, or if the war expands into a nuclear situation than Germany, working in unison with the EC, who is working hand in hand with the WEF, Germany would be the most logical for a nuclear strike as they are the ones who has built the industry inside Germany that is enabling this all.