I weirdly agree with most of your rant, Max, even though I have a much different view of Ukraine than you.
To me you are falling for the social bubbled armchair warmonger's view of Ukraine.
It's something that should never have happened, it could have been avoided if Russia's concerns after the Maidan had been listened to, and acted on.
They are not doing anything different than the US would have done if the countries of South America had created a military organisation "SATO", headed and actually funded by Russia, and or China, and Mexico signed up (at least in principle), and started genociding the remaining folk in Mexico with still US / Western leaning sympathies or connections, (everyone still still wanting to speak English), whilst amassing Russian long range weapons in Mexico, all aimed at the US.
Actually the Russians exercised real restraint, imho, they put up with it for eight years before they finally copped, and when they did cop, it wasn't an all out invasion, it was just a special military op, headed straight for the Biden family business, and all the other Ukrainian dirty dealings.
Putin was doing what any gangster would have done, he went straight for the "Safe" of his rivals, but it looks like the cleaning started well before they got there.
If anything Putin might have underestimated how much damage the US was willing to inflict to get things cleaned.
The first 50Bn was just a cleaning fee, disguised and painted to look like something to help Ukraine. It didn't help Ukraine it all, it destroyed it.
But the cleaning job was done. It's actually ridiculous to think a border country the size of Ukraine could ever resist the full military might of Russia (which it still has not seen, and hopefully never will), after it had poked it all that time, we shouldn't be surprised it got its "ass truly kicked", if we are brutally honest.
More war money poured in there now will just cause more damage, more loss of life, and if US soldiers did ever appear in Ukraine, that would be the end of all Russian restraint, it would be the start of WW3, the nukes would be flying in all directions before we could blink, including in US.
And honestly, nobody in Europe seriously expects Russia to invade beyond Ukraine, at least we didn't before, but now NATO is signing up all the countries along the border with Russia, potentially inciting yet more war, but this time much harder to predict where it will start, now it's spread all along the border with Russia.
There are a few of us have written stories about this Max, it's not an isolated view, that NATO is a busted flush, now it's doing more harm than good, it lost its reason for being, the moment Russia chose to use the military option.
It was a deterrent, but now it's the opposite, an inflammant, a grand provocateur, that needs to cause trouble to try to justify its existence.
And look, is it not burning a pile of energy we'd rather not be burning right now?
I would love to see it solar powered, it would be a very interesting social challenge, to see if a war machine could be solar powered.
I don't think it could, because it would no longer have access to profit, it would not be able to exercise that dishonest energy lie internally in the way needed to enslave everyone within the organisation, to carry on doing what they all know is completely bullshit business (Graeber "bullshit jobs", extended), whilst destroying the planet.
We seem to be similarly seeing that last part, maybe, that the planet has a huge energy problem - us to date, as long as we keep practicing the planet robbing, planet burning, energy-lie of profit.
The only reason NATO still exists is like that of any other bullshit business, to keep bums on seats. Give them all unconditional solar indexed money needed to monetize solar, and they'll all go home, and stay home, no more trouble.
So I'd say stop throwing good money after bad, unless it's maybe solar indexed stimulus Max, stop wishing for it, and I bet that is what Trump would say too, he won't see any point funding a lost cause. The cleaning has already been done.
Anyhow this doesn't make me like Trump, or hate you, I share your disdain of Biden, Trump, Putin, our own undemocratic leaders here in UK, the undemocratic leaders of all of Europe, it's just one big gangster domain, they squabble over who is gonna take what, and hundreds of thousands of commoners have to die for that.
I share also your concern for the environment, because that is shaping up to kick all our asses, much harder and much sooner than they can know, because they haven't done the maths and the Systems Engineering needed to get the full extent of the problem, they would never have funded it, because the conclusion of it is that they need to stop burning all that energy they used to get rich, and when we do stop, theyll get to keep their dirty money but they won't be the leaders of the pack in the future any longer, there won't be any human leaders, we will have all future wealth, the product of creation instead of destruction, dirtributed as it always should have been, the way it is in nature.
To me you should look away from human leaders now Max. Anticipate a new non-human leader.
Cheer it on.
But make sure you choose the right one, no pretenders.
It has to be solar powered, the voice of the sun.
Right there we should see the real grand authority of nature.
The currency of nature is energy, the sun is the only issuer and enforcer of it, we either use it or burn.
Not using it, as profit requires, is destruction.
Usiing it means also monetising it. By that we will be monetising creation, rather than destruction, as it had to be at profit.
Going to war, before we at least sort that out would be a complete cop-out, but worse, it would be suicide for the entire species.
Never mind Trump or Biden, if you really want a cool future, or actually any future at all, set up ChatGPT 3.5 to become the new controller and leader of your country.
Honestly if you good folks there in the US could see a way to doing that, you would be leading the world again, and you'd never look back.