GDP of West vs. Russia

Because we are not at war with Russia. If "the West" were to go to war against Russia, the western forces would very quickly completely overwhelm the Russians, leaving the Russians no choice but to use tactical nuclear weapons. As long as it is Ukraine vs Russia, nucs are off the table.

I don't want that.

But neither do I want a strategy of giving Russia what it demands or suffer a blow from a tactical nuclear weapon.

When the Soviet Union broke up, Ukraine agreed to give its nuclear weapons to Russia, and in return, the U.S. agreed to defend Ukraine if Russia attacked it.

I think we are treaty-bound to aid Ukraine.

Yes, and we have ignored that. I guess Ukraine shouldn't have depended on that agreement.

Exactly, hence the current strategy of giving Ukraine the means to defend themselves but not committing US or NATO troops.

engineer-

If Russia used tactical nuclear weapons, would the nations that are helping it (e.g., European countries, India, and China buying oil or gas, China and Iran selling drones) stop helping?

engineer-

We shouldn't have helped Ukraine unless we were prepared to provide Ukraine with enough men (e.g., soldiers) and armaments to win.

We (i.e., Ukraine) will lose even if we magically give Ukraine all the armaments it wants. They don't have enough men.

I disagree. As I see it, there were three options.

1) Do nothing. Ukraine fights valiantly, Russia occupies and enslaves the country, a budding democracy falls and China starts putting the final touches on its plan to take Taiwan by force since the West is clearly not willing to take action. The smaller democracies in Eastern Europe formerly under Russian control realize that the US and Western Europe don't have their backs and they are on their own. They pull away from the West and start to suck up to Russia becoming versions of Bulgaria. (Remember this war came about because Ukraine went from sucking up to Russia to moving towards the West.)

2) Do everything. Go all in attacking Russian troops, send in ground forces, etc. Russia loses badly. (Ukraine stymied an overwhelming Russian attack using left over cold war weapons and homemade drone weapons. Modern weapons would have been much more telling.) Russia results to tactical nuclear weapons to level the battlefield. No telling what happens, but China almost certainly comes in on the Russian side, maybe India as well.

3) Provide significant support to Ukraine. Ukraine battles Russia to a standstill, even gains back some ground. Russia loses badly on the international stage. China pays lip service to Russia but secretly loves how weak Russia looks and how it has to crawl to them for support. (China makes it clear that use of nuclear weapons without direct western intervention will not be tolerated.) The Russian military is tied down so no more adventures like Chechnya and Georgia and the shenanigans of Russian mercenaries in Africa slows to a crawl. European countries that were entwining their economies with Russia pull away from them. Ukraine embarrasses Russia over and over, blowing up key bridges, sinking ships, killing generals on the battlefield. US intelligence gets a treasure-trove of data about how Russian weapons perform and how NATO weapons perform against them The protracted war creates domestic strife in Russia. Key N. European countries like Sweeden and Finland decide to join NATO, something Russia has be against for decades.

Given these options, I think the one we chose was clearly the optimum. Do you have a different take on what the options were?

engineer-

I think the Ukrainians have run out of men to draft. It is reducing the draft age to try to deal with that.

Meanwhile, I think an increasing number of men are illegally immigrating out of the country to avoid the draft.

Russia has several times the number of young men and doesn't need to give priority to public opinion.

I want Ukraine to win, but it doesn't appear doable without additional troops. The U.S. appears unwilling to provide troops (presently, we are not sending even bullets).

I think it is immoral to ask Ukrainian young men to keep fighting unless we will provide them with enough men and materiel to win.

Lyndon Johnson concluded the Vietnam war could not be won but kept on fighting because it would have hurt him politically to quit.

So thousands more American soldiers died in a war the Presidents did not believe in.

You make it sound like the West is forcing Ukraine to defend itself from invaders who kidnapped their children, loot their homes and cities and bomb their churches and hospitals. While the Ukrainians would I'm sure love to have some help on the ground, they know the facts and are just asking for help to defend themselves.

I've laid out my position, but I'm not sure of yours. Are you suggesting western troops enter Ukraine?

engineer-

I'm suggesting that as far as I can tell, though Ukraine is desperate for more armaments, armaments are not enough for it to win or even to hold on.

They need more men. They are running out, and the ones they have, have been fighting for two years are exhausted.

They don't have enough available young men, and it's getting worse.

Without more troops, I unhappily think they will lose.

That certainly is a possibility. I think a suitable endgame for them is to sell Crimea to the Russians for several billion dollars, enough to erase their debt to Russia and have Russia pull out of the rest of Ukraine in return for relief from sanctions. Like all conflicts, both sides should be thinking about what a solution might look like and right now, neither side is being very realistic about that.

engineer-

I don't follow "enough to erase their debt to Russia...."

What debt to Russia?

I don't have a better plan to end it. And I do want to end it.

Before the "Orange Revolution" in 2004, Ukraine was controlled by a Russian puppet who engineered significant loans from Russia to Ukraine to make Ukraine indebted to Russia and hence a satellite state. When public protests overthrew the puppet government, Ukraine was saddled with extreme debt that Russia used to try to leverage Ukraine back into its fold as well as removing the favorable prices Ukraine had been paying for Russian natural gas. The EU stepped in to try to negotiate a settlement, but in the end Ukraine defaulted on its Russian debt obligations.

My proposal to end the war is:
1) Ukraine would cede Crimea to Russia in lieu of paying the debt owed. The people of Crimea are historically Russian and Russia has controlled Crimea since 2014, so this isn't all that terrible although Ukraine has stated that they consider Crimea as part of Ukraine and want it back. This is a concession to the Russians, but also removes a significant burden from the Ukrainian economy.
2) Russia would renounce the four Ukraine providences it "annexed" after the invasion and remove their troops. They control some of that territory today (but not all of it), but it was never part of Russia. This is kind of a concession to Ukraine, but not a big one since that was always Ukrainian land.
3) The west would consider the issue closed, remove the economic sanctions on Russia and release the significant Russian foreign reserves they have frozen. This is a major concession to Russia but would also relieve significant tensions all through Europe.

We should move you to the U.N.

Perhaps you could bring about world peace.