G.I. Joe

Agee with this, not least because so many Western European leaders have expended too much political capital (as well as actual financial capital) to easily turn around and say "Actually, I've changed me mind".
In the UK there is an election this year but the dividing line between the Conservatives and Labour over Ukraine is practically non-existent. If, as the polls indicate, the next government will probably be a Labour one, it is unlikely there will be a softening of support. The Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Defence Secretary and Shadow Foreign Secretary all have spoken in support of continuing aid to Ukraine on at least the level the UK presently does (admittedly I don't think it's enough but, luckily for everyone in the UK, I'm not in charge!)
Although it's not for me to speak for France, I think it highly unlikely that President Macron would cut off aid after his recent speeches and announcements. And the next Presidential election there is not until 2027.
As for Germany, I wouldn't presume to preach to a German what may happen in Germany   
And @poesel, you forgot the Danes  Pretty bang up support they're giving.

Ok, 'Western Europe'. Let's say that is: Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, UK, Norway, Sweden, Austria & Germany.
AFAIK, Austria is the only one of those who is still dependent on Russian gas. The rest has its own gas or other sources. Personally, I can say that my gas prices are back to 2022 levels.
The 'push for peace' fraction in the current government is holding support for Ukraine so much back that we are only in the #2 spot of supporters... (depends on course how you count, but you get my point).
And last but not least, we already have many Ukrainians here, and it is not like all of them are working.
I refute your theory that 'Western Europe' will throw the towel. The support for Ukraine has been pretty steady overall. Look at Norway & the Netherlands for some prime examples. We all know what is at stake if Russia wins.

I understand it was a simple case of”d#$k gets hard, brain gets soft!”

Robin Williams had a great gag about men having both a brain and a penis, but only enough blood to run one of them at a time.

Ignoring Trump for the moment as I personally don't think that he is the determining factor.  The war will not end regardless of the US.  This is Ukraine's decision and EU support will continue.  Not sure why you assume the EU will just follow the US on this.  What could happen is a drop in US support levels but there are many in the GOP who want to continue support for Ukraine to the point they helped force the vote in the house despite Trump.  It is worth watching the response to MGT's motion to vacate on C-Span.  She got booed from both sides of the aisle for what was essentially her reaction to Ukraine aid passing.
Russia has made clear what it wants from this war and those demands are not ones Ukraine can or will concede to.  If there is a push you can be sure that references to Munich "peace in our lifetime" will be blasted everywhere.

Not really for this forum but don't be so sure, so quickly..
Trump can't even get 100% votes of the core Republican base. Nikki Haley who stood down from the primary campaign has gotten close to 20% of the Republican base in vital swing states without campaigning!!!
There are a lot of Republicans that won't be fooled a second time around and will vote Biden instead.
You should look more carefully at what is actually happening than assume he will win. There are some strong headwinds, and not just his potential jail time for contempt of court.
Personally I would comfortably bet some donuts that he won't be reelected...
 

At the end of the day, we're all human...that always cuts both ways.

At the end of the day, we're all human...that always cuts both ways.

I'm reminded of the people in the thirties who refused to believe Nazism could take hold in Germany. "But but but... Its the land of Goethe!'

Just to pile on, the military conservatives arguments are getting weaker and weaker.  There is no military on earth that is going to prepare or go to war as they would have in 2021.  We ignored Azerbaijan-Armenia but we cannot ignore Ukraine.  The harsh reality is that our adversaries in all directions are going to work very hard to make sure our next wars are not “ideal”.  Our ability to make war “ideal” is in fact the historical anomaly and frankly it has a single data point - Gulf War.  Every fight we have been in since then has been far less than ideal by adversarial design. Why?  Because they do not want to be Saddam in another freakin Gulf War scenario.
So forget ideal.  That ship has sailed.  We are going to be looking at acceleration of trends and collisions of others.  The flip side of this whole Abrams thing is the Russian experience.  Russia has lost in the order of 3000 MBTs and around 5600 AFVs.  It is not the horrendous losses, it is what they accomplished with them - largely defensive deadlock and limited tactical gains…after three operational collapses.  The lesson here is that battlefield friction has fundamentally changed.  It has changed for everything, not just the precious tank.  Cheap, many and ISR have hunted heavy and expensive into very limited utility - not zero but much more limited than we ever imagined.  This is a large system failure.
We are pretty much at the point where only truly fanatic devotees of the old conventional system are even arguing.  Most modern military complexes are wrestling with how deep this hole is or is not.  We know we are looking at a shift, we are all arguing on how much.

This! The National prejudice attitude that many on this forum seem to have toward Russians tends to color their comments and lead them to dehumanize and demonize the Russian people as ignorant savages who are always drunk, raping and killing babies. Yes, possibly the conscripts and prisoner “volunteers” are more brutal and resigned to their deaths than seems the norm. Can you say Igor Sikorsky, Tolstoy, Tchikovsky? Not everyone is ignorant, uneducated, and brutal. No one should be surprised by Russians who make intelligent and insightful statements. I see the same ignorant and prejudicial statements about every opponent the U.S. has ever faced. It’s much easier to kill a fellow Human being when you make that person out to be so inferior to you.

There is a good Phd thesis in that comparison somewhere. I think by far the most obvious difference is that the Japanese upper classes considered military service to be the most honorable profession there was, and they meant it to. Their army did not consists of societies rejects. Russia seems to consider the war a chance to practice some quick and dirty eugenics, as it feeds the meat grinder with prisoners, minorities, and the poorest of the poor.
One of the things both cultures share though is that they have their roots an enormous societal disruption. Japan had the quickest, all be it arguably most successful, entry into the modern world of pretty much any country on earth, And Russia has seen its entire system turned upside down twice in a century. 

Not a US Army master sergeant, but an Imperial Japanese officer in 1943 or 1944? Totally. The parallels are worrying for threading the needle of defeat-without-total-collapse. It takes a lot to shake a society to its senses once it's decided that glorious death is as good as victory.

Assuming a straight translation, this cri de coeur was written by a starshina (senior NCO), so perhaps born around 1980?
Say what you will about Russia sux, but.... I just can't imagine a US Army master sergeant of similar vintage (high school diploma late 1990s, maybe some college) being able to organise their thoughts in writing in this way.
Compare the late Roman chronicler Ammianus (5th century AD):
The affair caused more joy than fear and educated flatterers immoderately praised the good fortune of the [Emperor Valens], which unexpectedly brought him so many young recruits from the ends of the earth, that by the union of his own and foreign forces he would have an invincible army. In addition, instead of the levy of soldiers, which was contributed annually by each province, there 
would accrue to the treasury a vast amount of gold.
TL:DR  For all its dysfuntions, Russian civ clearly had some things far better to offer to the world than what they are showing now... a country where chess is a spectator sport. Those of us with Russian friends would agree with this, I suspect. (But no doubt foreigners with educated German friends thought some of the same bemused thoughts in 1941)
...I can't even begin to imagine the fury I would feel, were I a Russian, at the cynical throwing away by Putin and his mafiya of an entire generation that includes among the 'meat' many well-educated and motivated people.

Sorry my friend, but it was the CSS Virginia that fought the USS Monitor. It can be very confusing to those who haven’t studied the American Civil War (including most Americans) but it is very understandable because of how the battle has been recounted since the day it occurred.  The Merrimack was a U.S. Navy ship that was burned by the Confederacy at the start of the war. It burned to the waterline. The Confederates raised the hull of the ship, and rebuilt it from the hull up. They then Commissioned the ship the “CSS Virginia.” To this day, I hear U.S. Historians refer to “the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack,” and they are wrong. 
 
your comparison was dead on though!

Maybe?  To my mind, setting aside the whole “loose nukes” problem which is definitely a global destabilizing issue, I think it is a question of good ole money.  With a functioning and weakened central Russia state apparatus, China can cut deals to access Russian energy with a macro organization that can still marshal the infrastructure and security to access that energy and sell it to China.
If Russia tumbles into a bunch of provinces/regions/warlords access to that energy gets a lot harder and more expensive.  China would have to negotiate with a bunch of goons of various levels of stability (and possibly in conflict with each other) to try and get the energy out of Russia and back into China.  Also smaller warlords cannot necessarily run oil and gas industries.  China might have to go all Africa and go in and do it themselves.  This all drives the access cost up.
China may be able to do some land grabs.  But these come with all sorts of problems, not the least of which are a bunch of angry Russians.  I think we have a fundamental flaw in our western thinking that nations invade other nations for resources.  I mean, “yes” technically it can still happen, but in this day and age it is far more advantageous just to have a target nation roll over and sell you the stuff while they also go to the trouble of taking it out of the ground too.  China has seen what “you break it you buy it” looks like from our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I am not entirely sure they are ready to jump on a colonial bandwagon.  Especially in a failed-state Russia - this is akin to trying to bathe a cougar, sounds like fun right up until the damn thing starts getting wet.  
But hey, could be China has done the math and thinks it might work out.  But I still lean toward China is looking to make lemonade out of Russian lemons at this point.

This is how it’s done. Respectful, illuminating and useful. Thanks, lads.

Where did you get the idea? They were very effective as tactical bombers, only vulnerable to interceptors due to low speed. Where the enemy air cover was absent or not effective, StuKas worked very well. 

I wonder how much the F-4 Vietnam experience plays in to this (I'm probably mis-remembering the aircraft involved - apologies if so - and possibly this is one of those 'truisms' that turns out to be an urban myth or at least not quite as simple as usually described).  The F-4 was initially designed without a gun / cannon, since it had air-to-air missiles that would supposedly render the gun obsolete - anything dangerous would be destroyed by missiles (or destroy the F-4 by missiles) before they ever got close to gun range. Turns out that the anti-air missiles didn't perform as reliably as hoped, and they did find themselves in dogfighting range without a gun to fall back on.
New versions were quickly developed that did have a gun, and all US planes since then, including the F-35 which is very much meant to not be a dogfighter, still carry a gun, because the cost of including it is relatively small, and the downside of not having one if you happen to find yourself in a situation where it's the best option is comparatively large.

+1
Oh, how I wish we could like your posts right now...

China is in a weird spot.  They need Russia weak and dependent so they continue to have access to cheap energy (and maybe the odd land grab).  But they do not want Russia to totally win, it would 1) really set off the US and West, and 2) A re-energized Russia doesn’t sell cheap energy as easily.  And then they do not want Russia to completely fail and fall apart - see access to cheap energy.
They are kinda threading a strategic needle like we are, but from the other direction.  If they had to accept “less” from their perspective it is likely a Russian short win the West signs off on.  They avoid economic punishment from the West and still have a shot to access cheap energy because a Russian short win would likely still see the West no longer buying said cheap energy.
Whereas the West likely wants a Ukrainian short-win.  Russia taught a visible lesson and still in penalty box.  But in a slow decline, not a full on freefall. And China’s problem in the longer term.

I had intended originally to add the observation that it's possible to over read Chinese intentions from news like this. Xi certainly bestrides the landscape in China but it's a huge economy with a long border with Russia. Chinese companies that are seeing complications in EU/US trade are going to be sorely tempted to make it up on the very favorable terms Russia will give. Even Xi has limits on how much of this he can control. 
All of that said, your point about the moderate aims of China and the US is spot on. An entirely collapsed Russia is as big a danger as the sclerotic revanchist Russia of the moment is and both powers know it.

I really do not think the US or China are in a good position for a major economic war at this point.  Both are in post-COVID recovery.  I think China can push...but just enough.  Same goes for the US but maybe can push a little bit harder.
As to NATO/western arming up and re-thinking...too late. I think this is why China is actually internally PO'd at Putin for starting all this, and then getting bogged down.  Of course us re-arming is going to mean buying more stuff from the Chinese (like steel).  

Democrats fully intend to forestall any attempt to overthrow Johnson...if he puts through a Ukraine bill. There will be enough Republicans to go along and make it happen. In fact, only three or four would do.

Yeah, he obviously doesn't know the history of Afghanistan or Czechoslovakia/Hungary or he would be making that comparison not Iraq 2003. He kinda says that if war was a computer game you could save-scum your way to a flawless victory against impossible odds. But he doesn't say how. 
War is about mistakes - you can't run a "what if" scenario based on your side running a flawless campaign with perfect knowledge of both thr enemy and yourself