He meant prosperity for him and his cronies.

> Oh. I was assuming that Russia responds to NATO getting involved by targeting NATO cities. Basically, would NATO intervention over Ukraine be worth losing their cities and economic centers?

Why would Russia do that though? They would only stand to lose in that scenario because they would face equal nuclear retaliation.

What is increasingly worrying about the war in Ukraine is that on the one hand, Putin seemingly cannot afford to back down, yet on the other hand, at the present rate, he is seemingly losing the conflict. That is backing him into a corner. The million dollar question is whether he will escalate to prohibited weapons (nuclear / chemical / biological) to compensate. As I've argued, it's a big gamble for him and he does not strike me as an irrational actor, just one who's been misinformed and did not expect the west to get involved.

Frankly, what I expect to happen is for the Republican party to take congress and for them to use that to try to stifle financial and military support for Ukraine. They've already shown support directly and indirectly for Russian interests, so it would stand to reason that they'd use the excuses of cost and isolationism to throw Ukraine under the bus for their authoritarian ally.

> Also, the nationalists that support nukes and believe in whatever ideological propaganda are most likely lesser educated (not finishing high school or did not go to college) and most likely live out in the non-tier 1/2 cities.

I think you put too much credit into what nationalists believe. We're talking about authoritarian countries where the state controls the media and messaging.

> And with the trade restrictions the EU and US is putting on China, the CPC does see that extreme sanctions will eventually be put on them for whatever BS reason, so they may think that eventually Europe and the US would refuse to do business with them anyways.. so they won't be losing any customers or trade partners if they wipe each other out.

This is mistaken. Europe and the US do not want to sanction China and China does not want to be sanctioned. The problem is that China is starting to challenge the present American hegemony in a variety of ways. The Americans' recent cut off of China to advanced chip market is an expression of trying to slow down China from fighting the US. If China goes after Taiwan, it would be another challenge to the status quo. China does not have to do these things, but they don't want to be under the Americans' thumb. And we all just get swept along with all of this as rich people fight for wealth.

> Now, the ruling CPC would disagree with that view, but I suspect Xi can't really side with NATO or the US on this issue over Russia without committing political suicide.

Your post assumes the nuclear weapon use would escalate to full out nuclear war, which is even more unlikely than nukes being used in the first place. What is likely to happen is American and European conventional forces becoming involved and pushing Russia back to their border.

Further, if we see Russia use a nuclear weapon, China's position of continuing to trade with them becomes very difficult. All China cares about is furthering its own economic interests, so that would be a poor development for them. They do not want escalation, they want the status quo of a weakened Russia to get more favourable resource deals from them.

> I mean, i guess China is evil but not insane, that's a good thing i guess?

It would be harder for China to continue to do business with Russia exploit the situation if they escalated to nuclear weapons.