So because Putin will resort to desperation that is reason for the US to back down? Terrible logic. I’d hate for you to have been making policy in the 1930s, kinda remind me of another person that believes in appeasement. The war has started and the Ukrainians did all that any country would be expected to do. Their leaders have stood together and their people have sacrificed blood in ways on few Americans alive today could understand. Allowing Putin a victory in Ukraine betrays everything we’ve fought for since WW2. Helping Ukraine repel Russia sends a signal to Russia and China. Appeasement sends one as well, a bad one. Tiny, you may be a dove, but even you have to know that this is a win at all cost situation. As the Ukrainians say so intelligently “if Russia stops fighting there will be no more war, if Ukraine stops fighting there will be no more Ukraine”.
If Trump wasn’t a pussy and scared to stand up to Putin, the only answer would be “go home and well lift sanctions and normalize relations.” He’d also establish with him that his expansionist dreams are over. Putin has no real option but to accept those terms and if he doesn’t we will provide the Ukrainians everything possible even offensive weapons turning them into the neighbor they claim they were afraid of anyway. And the use of nukes in any way would be the red line.
Putin is a lot of things but dumb isn’t one of them. We can isolate Russia in a way that would make them a third world country. We’ve chose not to do so in hopes of a working solution. But that would be the threat I’d hold over their head. Close them off from every market and sink or confiscate their shadow shipping. We’ve actually played nice with Russia to this point.