Best case scenario: Russia wins decisively, West witnesses a humiliating Saigon-like defeat of their fascist proxy regime in Ukraine, NATO loses all credibility and disintegrates. Western imperialism and US hegemony go into fatal death spiral. Global south goes on to liberate itself from neo-colonialism with the help of Russia and China.
Worst case scenario: Russia stumbles at the finish line, is unwilling to see this through to the end and pulls out even though they are winning. US capitalizes on this, using color revolution style means and separatist terrorists destroys and colonizes Russia. Western imperialism is strengthened and emboldened to try and do the same to China, US hegemony is reimposed on the parts of the global south that have resisted it so far. Fascism is victorious in Ukraine and gains so much prestige from its victory that we witness a global resurgence of fascist regimes and fascist movements which become increasingly normalized.
Is America benefiting from this? Yes and no, America is benefiting in the short term by making money selling more weapons and fossil fuels, by neutering Europe as a competitor through breaking it’s relationship with Russia and binding them closer into vassalge to the US. In the long term this war has accelerated the demise of US global hegemony, it has depleted Western arsenals, triggered an economic crisis in Europe which will overall weaken Western imperialism, and shown the global south that it is possible to defy and resist the US and the collective West, that they are paper tigers.
The US has massively miscalculated on this one and things will only get worse for it from here on out. Ukraine stands no chance of winning on the battlefield, and at this point even direct Western intervention would not change that. Nuclear war not really a realistic possibility anymore, Russia has no need to use nuclear means and in fact doing so would be a massive boon to the US since it would galvanize the West to commit even more to the war, and the US probably wouldn’t use nukes first either, though desperate it knows it needs to conserve its strength for the war on China so they cannot afford to get into a mutual nuclear destruction escalation spiral with Russia leaving China intact.
Time will tell. I think a lot of the other responses here are being unrealistic or simply unaware of the current state of the conflict and of the current mood in Russia and the Russian leadership. A freeze of the conflict is very unlikely to occur any time soon, and the fantasizing about a Ukrainian battlefield victory or the envisioning of nuclear war scenarios due to Russia using nuclear weapons are both very far from reality. Though not as detached from reality as the lunatic commenter here who keeps insisting that nuclear war would be no big deal… Of course nuclear war is always a danger that we have to take seriously but it does not look anywhere near as possible anymore as it did in the beginning of the conflict when there was the danger of the West doing something incredibly stupid because they had deluded themselves into thinking Russia was weak. Now i think the failure of the counteroffensive has cooled their jets and they are more focused on just keeping the conflict going or achieving a freeze so that their election chances next year are not completely fucked. Other than that they desperately want to move on and focus on China which they see as by far the more important conflict.
Best case scenario: Russia wins decisively, West witnesses a humiliating Saigon-like defeat of their fascist proxy regime in Ukraine, NATO loses all credibility and disintegrates. Western imperialism and US hegemony go into fatal death spiral. Global south goes on to liberate itself from neo-colonialism with the help of Russia and China.
Worst case scenario: Russia stumbles at the finish line, is unwilling to see this through to the end and pulls out even though they are winning. US capitalizes on this, using color revolution style means and separatist terrorists destroys and colonizes Russia. Western imperialism is strengthened and emboldened to try and do the same to China, US hegemony is reimposed on the parts of the global south that have resisted it so far. Fascism is victorious in Ukraine and gains so much prestige from its victory that we witness a global resurgence of fascist regimes and fascist movements which become increasingly normalized.
Is America benefiting from this? Yes and no, America is benefiting in the short term by making money selling more weapons and fossil fuels, by neutering Europe as a competitor through breaking it’s relationship with Russia and binding them closer into vassalge to the US. In the long term this war has accelerated the demise of US global hegemony, it has depleted Western arsenals, triggered an economic crisis in Europe which will overall weaken Western imperialism, and shown the global south that it is possible to defy and resist the US and the collective West, that they are paper tigers.
The US has massively miscalculated on this one and things will only get worse for it from here on out. Ukraine stands no chance of winning on the battlefield, and at this point even direct Western intervention would not change that. Nuclear war not really a realistic possibility anymore, Russia has no need to use nuclear means and in fact doing so would be a massive boon to the US since it would galvanize the West to commit even more to the war, and the US probably wouldn’t use nukes first either, though desperate it knows it needs to conserve its strength for the war on China so they cannot afford to get into a mutual nuclear destruction escalation spiral with Russia leaving China intact.
maybe i’m high on hopium but the best case scenario looks increasingly likely imo. we’ll see how the 2024 offensive goes
Time will tell. I think a lot of the other responses here are being unrealistic or simply unaware of the current state of the conflict and of the current mood in Russia and the Russian leadership. A freeze of the conflict is very unlikely to occur any time soon, and the fantasizing about a Ukrainian battlefield victory or the envisioning of nuclear war scenarios due to Russia using nuclear weapons are both very far from reality. Though not as detached from reality as the lunatic commenter here who keeps insisting that nuclear war would be no big deal… Of course nuclear war is always a danger that we have to take seriously but it does not look anywhere near as possible anymore as it did in the beginning of the conflict when there was the danger of the West doing something incredibly stupid because they had deluded themselves into thinking Russia was weak. Now i think the failure of the counteroffensive has cooled their jets and they are more focused on just keeping the conflict going or achieving a freeze so that their election chances next year are not completely fucked. Other than that they desperately want to move on and focus on China which they see as by far the more important conflict.