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I addressed most of your points in my original post. Ukraine isn't of real important to US interests, but the US has made it important to them for some (ideological) reason.
Calling Russia an existential threat to the US is ridiculous. How are they an exetential threat exactly? The only way I can see this as realistic is Russia a nuclear power - but then war and antagonism only increases the likelihood of nuclear exchange, not decreases it.
This is a good point, but this pivots the argument from "beating up Russia is good because Russia is an actual serious threat" to "beating up Russia is good because it's a scare tactic to keep the Europeans under American influence". It also basically concedes the point that Russia is an enemy of the US's own making. Although, I'm not really sure how important keeping the Europeans on tight American leash is given that the future geopolitical battle ground is primarily East and South-East Asia.
Yes, but it wasn't occuring 25 years ago, but began occuring as a result of the deliberate antagonism towards Russia from the US over this period. That was my point - there is easily an alternate reality where Russia and China are instead regional rivals rather them cooperating as they are now.
I will expand, Russia’s very existence as a hostile nuclear power is an existential threat to the United States as it currently conceives itself, the uni-polar world leader of capitalist liberal democracy and the largest influence in European culture. When they remove their nuclear arsenal, capable of causing human extinction, they will go back to just being a regular enemy. To be clear I am not acting as an advocate for all ideological reasons, but rather stating they are operating under the logic a great power operates under.
Russia being usefully used as an enemy does not mean they are secretly a friend. Europe makes up ~25% of the worlds nominal GDP. Even excluding cultural, racial and intellectual ties, that figure alone should justify the US’s interest in it. Especially given that Europe united, would have more wealth/population than the US and could ideologically drift from it. The reason that the East and Southeast of Asia are the coming battle grounds is that the USA and liberal capitalist democracy has already nearly won in Europe, these last 25 years have been a clean up operation.
Even during the Sino-soviet split they were funding the same proxy-wars together. Refusing to sanction the Soviets for wars like in Afghanistan. I am sure you know most of this, the USA did not expand NATO passed Germany till 1999. Yet in 1992, a mere year after the dissolution, Yeltsin was already in China signing a "Joint Statement on the Foundation of Mutual Relations , in which the two countries pledge to establish good-neighbourly, friendly and mutually beneficial relations" among 24 other agreements. By 1996 they were shipping advanced weapons production capabilities to China, though at this point ascribed to a response to possible NATO enlargement, as some Eastern European states declined joining Russia's Commonwealth of Independent States. If the Russian’s would like to play a junior partner role to the Chinese instead the Americans/EU then that is their choice, however I doubt they will bend the knee to either unless forced. They could have formed another powerful regional block, that is aligned with NATO sometimes, but not worth the USA giving up half of Europe for, as was Russia’s desire at the end of the Cold War. Please do not link Stalin's 1954 proposal to join NATO.
What exactly are you envisioning here between the USA and Russia? The United States does not view Russia as a current or future world superpower. They are viewed as a falling regional power with an oversized military and nuclear arsenal, temporary products of a bygone era. There is not going to be an even split of what the USA considers it’s sphere of influence with a country that has a smaller GDP than Canada. Ukraine and Belarus will likely join the EU and NATO. Probably also Russia at some point, but as just an ordinary member. And we will likely see Ukrainian soldiers in Americas next foreign war akin to the Poles in Iraq.
Personally, I would have preferred any integration travel more slowly to not spill any European blood, but I don't believe the parties involved are as sentimental.
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