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The Big Serge has a good overview of the RU-UA war. The TL;DR is that Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel, hence Germany's reticence to send Leopards. One should understand that Europe's and even America's production capacities have atrophied badly over the decades. Losing hundreds of tanks - the number that Ukraine is asking for - isn't something you replenish within a year.
Serge's prediction that Ukraine will lose the war "gradually, then suddenly" seems plausible given Russia's attrition strategy. If we assume that Russia will win this war, then the question needs to be asked.. how much will actually change? Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important and the population is likely to be hostile to Russia, meaning that to integrate it into Russia proper will be difficult if not impossible.
I keep hearing hysterical rhetoric that the West must win this war or... something something bad. It reminds me of the flawed 'domino theory' that was used to justify the Vietnam intervention. While I don't think NATO will ever proceed towards direct intervention á la Vietnam, I can't help but think that too many of the West's elites have trapped themselves rhetorically where Ukraine's importance is overblown for political reasons (so as to overcome domestic opposition towards sending arms) and it has now become established canon in a way that is difficult to dislodge.
The whole Ukraine-Russia war is a geopolitical jackpot for the US. Ukraine is now universally considered properly European, when nobody cared about the country before the invasion. US interests in Europe are secured for another decade and the Russian war effort will inevitably be crushed under Western industrial superiority.
This scenario where Western arms can be donated to a capable military that directly kills Russians was the dream of American Cold War planners, and now it's a reality because of Putin's idiocy. Russia is currently serving as a warning example for Chinese military planners, so there's no way the US or its European allies will give up.
I strongly disagree. This position presupposes that the Russians are/were a siginificant geopolitical threat to American interests, and ignores the decades of prior American foreign policy that led to this postion in the first place i.e. in some sense, the US is just 'solving' a foreign policy crisis it created in the first place.
The first is an issue because Russian geopolitical interests since the crisis of the 90s have been strictly regional, limit to Eastern Europe (and not even all of it), Central Asia and not much else. These are areas of relatively little interest or importance to the US, other than the mostly ideological (but not much else) goal of "democratising" the former Iron Curtain. Even if the idea is to somehow stop the "domino effect" of a resurgent Russia controlling Eastern Europe (a pretty unlikely scenario relying on some questionable assumptions) the reality is that Russia is not capable of excerting global influence even if it were to gain control of much of the former Soviet Union/Russian Empire. It's economy is weak, population dwindling, technology stagnant. It would take many decades of miracles for Russia to ever develop the power and influence to be a serious global player as it once was. The US has spent a lot of time, money, manpower and lives that could be been used elsewherte.
Second, the US has deliberately (or at least intentionally failed to avoid) developing an antagonistic relationship with Russia in the first place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the first place. There was originally a real sense of optimism in the 90s for reconciliation between Russia and the US which was ultimately sabotaged (intentionally or not) by US actions which I have described in a previous comment on the Motte. US economic foreign policy towards Russia in the 90s is partially responsible for the creation of Putin's Russia in the first place. So it can be argued that the US, even if they are enjoying a geopolitical success with Ukraine, mostly just solving a problem they contributed to.
Third, even if Russia is weakened or neutralised by Ukrainian victory (whatever that entails), it's not exactly clear to me that will result in geopolitical success in the long term. The elephant in the room is China. A weakened Russia will almost certainly turn to Chinese patronage for support and protection, which would be a disaster for the US, give that China is that actual global geopolitical rival, not Russia. Even before this war, US antagonism towards Russia caused strange bedfellows as it pushed Russia and China together, two countries who have competing interests in Central Asia and would probably be weakly competing rather than weakly cooperating as they are now. If the concern is that the USA shouldn't cooperate/should be antagonistc to Russia on (liberal democratic) principle, fair enough, though I will point out that's not an issue with other counties and allies, most obviously Saudi Arabia. There are so a lot of actual really bad outcomes that could result from Russian collapse, including but no limited to: the rise of an extremist ideology in Russia, nukes being used (either by current Russia or successor state) the increase of global terrorism, including Islamic terrorism, based in Russian territory.
Lastly, it's not even clear if the US has gained any clear long term economic advantage. Yes, other countries have become more dependent on US gas exports, which is good for US gas industry, but this ignores the huge damage the supply chain and economic disruption has caused to the global economy, including the US (broken window fallacy?). Maybe the US gains a relative economic advantage over China (probably not significantly if at all), even if US citizens have to suffer for it. Increased dependency on US gas might also be short lived, because the lack of cheap Russian gas has renewed efforts in Europe and elsewhere to seek alternative forms of energy, though it remains to be seen how that plays out.
Your first two points are just a Mearsheimer-esque restatement of the "blame the US for everything bad in the world" philosophy. It's "boo outgroup!" dressed up in academic jargon that paints equivalent actions from the US as evil and unjustified, while those originating from Russia are claimed to be reasonable and defensive.
The US-led democratic world order cannot be upheld by the US alone. It requires buy-in from Europe and democracies in Asia. A Russia that didn't become entrenched in liberal institutions like the EU was always going to try to reassemble the borders of the Soviet Union, as it's basically a geographic imperative. This puts it at odds with the democracies of Europe, which thus puts it at odds with the US. Sure, the Russia of today is corrupt, has a relatively small economy, and has deep institutional failings, but the same could be said of the USSR, which was still enough of a match to be the US's primary antagonist for decades.
Increased gas revenues are not a major benefit to the US. Obsession with US gas is an element of pro-Russian propaganda to try to insinuate that the US somehow baited Russia into invading as a dastardly ploy to get rich off Europe's weakened bargaining position. In reality, gas is only a tiny element of the US economy, the vast majority of Europe's new gas isn't coming from the US, and the primary reason Europe was vulnerable to Putin's gas blackmail in the first place was because German Greens decided to scrap the country's nuclear reactors.
The main advantage is that it pushes the US and Europe closer together, hampering efforts by China to split the alliance. It also weakens the US's second most pressing adversary, one which was almost certainly always going to try carve out a slice of Europe for itself no matter what. Putin just jumped the gun and did it before the US was distracted with a crisis in Asia which will almost certainly happen in the next 10-20 years. Better to get it over with now while the US's hands are free than have to deal with both simultaneously.
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