Subject: Re: Let’s See If This Pans Out for Putin
Huh? The French were the ones providing the trifecta of dudes, guns and money. You're making my point for me.

No, it's not. They provided some dudes, guns and money - but never enough to allow the Colonists to drive the British off the continent.

When looking at analogies, the mere existence of differences doesn't defeat the analogy. By definition, analogous situations are not identical - they have differences. What matters is whether the differences are relevant to the point of the comparison. In both the Ukrainian and American Revolution scenarios, you had a smaller army that had sufficient strength to avoid being beaten by the larger military force, but not enough strength to force the large military force out of the theater. So the fact that some of the Colonial soldiers were provided by the French, but all of the Ukrainian soldiers are native, is not relevant to the analysis. Both armies are large enough to persist in the fight, but not large enough to drive the other force out.

Apples/Oranges. When from 2020-2021 did Russia control all of the Ukraine? When was "Russia" - as its government is presently constructed - ever in charge there?

Not relevant. The fact that the British only held a portion of colonial territory with their military doesn't mean that their military was subject to being driven out by colonists, any more than the same is true of the Russians. When you have to hold territory by force of arms in a running gun battle against another army, you can only hold the land your army controls - which is never going to be very much of a country the size of the U.S. (or Ukraine). That doesn't mean you're in any imminent danger of having your army driven out.

The French were directly involved in the fighting in and around the continent. The parallels with NATO today simply do not exist.

Of course the parallels exist. The French drove up the cost of the British continuing the war. Just like NATO. That they did it through different mechanisms doesn't affect the pressure that they were able to put on the invading forces. King George had to abandon the colonies mostly because he couldn't pay for it anymore, and Parliament wasn't willing (or unable) to keep down that road. The West is doing the same thing to Russia. We're helping, massively - just in a different way the French did.