(19-01-2023, 02:14 PM)cityhantam Wrote: [ -> ]The most important point : ..... if US agrees! 
But will US agree before Russia is significantly weakened by the war? 
I agree that US is unlikely to agree to a peace deal, but not really because of Russia per se.
Although a lot of people like to frame this whole conflict as a smart strategy from US to stir up trouble to weaken Russia with little costs, this war is actually very damaging to US in the long term as well.
If we look at the situation as it is now, the pluses for US from this war is more than offset by the deeper minuses. The pluses from US POV is naturally the strengthening of NATO and control over EU, maybe some small money to be made by the military industrial complex through selling arms to EU and a weaker Russia.
However, the really dangerous minuses that are seldom mentioned are as follows:
1) Busting of the myth of the so called financial WMD through SWIFT ejection – The fact that an economic midget like Russia can somehow survive this nuke is living proof that this tool can at best do only moderate damage to the real threat, China. This has serious implications on the rest of the world who are now deciding on where to stand in the G2 contest.
2) A much more weaker EU that needs security from US more at the same time also needs economic and trade with China more. Various forces are pulling apart EU in different directions and it is getting harder and harder for EU to even maintain a façade of unity. Once this unity collapses, there runs a real risk the entire Europe could split into different sides sitting at different camps. That will be a disaster for US.
3) The Russians are in a desperately dire situation and are now forced to subsume under Chinese influence. They are dependent on the Chinese for money, they have no choice but to cede Central Asian influence to China and open up their Far Eastern territories to Chinese investments. The real development here is not that Russia is moving closer to China, but that it is moving under China.
4) Yet another “abandonment” of another friend fresh from the Afghanistan debacle. Bullshitting a bunch of MLRS, Javelins and Switchblades on mass media might work for the masses, but leaders all over the world know exactly what is happening i.e. US has no intention to really help Ukraine win the war and everyone can see the situation deteriorating rapidly for the Ukrainians. Again, this will have deep impact on how the rest of the world, including US allies, position themselves in the G2 tug of war.
Is the US aware of this increasingly national interest damaging war? Yes I suspect most US leaders are aware of that, but the irony is they can’t stop. They’ve whipped up public sentiment to such a high strung emotional level that anyone who dares to suggest talking to Russia now will be instantly labelled a traitor to freedom and democracy. Their only option now is to maximize whatever pluses they can milk from the saga to mitigate future loses.
