I’ve seen speculation that it would be an internal face-saving maneuver where losing to NATO is preferable to losing to the Ukrainians. Theory being that it’s the most likely scenario where Putin doesn’t get ousted and KGB‘ed to the back of the head.
It's not "losing to NATO is better than losing to Ukrainians". They already lost their own war against Ukraine. Attacking NATO would be a complete destruction of Russia and of Putin himself. Assuming there would be a war between NATO and Russia, they have nothing left. Russia cannot win. But what would happen after? It's not like Putin would be forced to flee or be killed, replaced by someone "better" and it's back to daily business. They'd potentially establish a buffer zone under NATO control to prevent that from ever happening again, to also keep Belarus in check. Russia would lose access to Crimea and the black sea, and probably St Petersburg and the Baltic Sea. They'd potentially lose most of their remaining allies, except for those who do not care about NATO or EU anyway, like NK, where both would probably keep the same amount of relevance in world politics and economy. And what's worse, while losing to Ukraine is a political loss and the military loss can be propagandized as "if only the NATO wouldn't have supported them I would've won, trust me bro", a war with NATO would be a total, complete, no longer explainable loss. There is no propaganda that can save from that. And given that weird patriotism (victory day and the bullshit parade), there is always the more or less subtle notion of military and ethical supremacy, and this whole idea would break down as well. Losing to NATO will only make it worse in all aspects.
I’m wondering if antagonizing NATO actually has the purpose of pulling more Chinese support for their war. As you said, traditional hostilities against NATO would end in a loss of a lot and potentially a power grab of a NATO friendly government in Russia that China doesn’t want.
Then again a collapsing Russia is a land grab for China.
Exactly. China doesn't really want to openly antagonize Europe either. They do their stuff, Europe does their stuff, and mostly both try not to interfere with each other's business too much. Sure, there is stuff happening that could be counted as offensive, like some tariffs and the evil Chinese hackers and spies, but in general it's a "live and let live" situation. The trade relations are mutually beneficial for both sides, so there's nothing too crazy happening. They won't openly commit into a war in front of European doorstep.
In my opinion, China has no real interest in Russia anymore, after they've shown they're a dud. China's foreign policy is pretty aggressive, as it mostly seems to be the question of "does this benefit us", and if it doesn't they simply won't do it. There aren't really diplomatic ties with China, since they are also often presented as the enemy and the "bad guys" in western media and politics, and it seems like they've embraced it, focused on themselves and did their own shit. As long as there is a cash flow, the relations to Russia are held up, but as soon as it's no longer profitable, which seems more of a "when" and not an "if" question, I don't think that there will be a lot of friendship left over.
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They can't handle one, so they'll take on like 30 more? What...?
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