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Elaborate what? You pre-declare that US intervention must be a failure and the only question is when we recognize that failure. In that model, of course it'd be a failure. I just don't accept that model as something having to do with the reality.
Irrelevant for the question being discussed.
No, I think if they pushed smarter, and been willing to do different things, then yes, they could be. It's not a direct function of dollars spent or boots standing on the ground. At least not that alone. But again, this is irrelevant for the question discussed.
Again, policy failures in Afghanistan are not relevant here, as we're not talking about Afghanistan.
I didn't say "no one knows anything", I said exact picture years ahead is not possible to predict right now. That's not the same thing at all. If you demand "before we do anything, tell me and guarantee me you can exactly predict what would happen in a multi-factor hyper-complex event 10 years ahead" - then of course you won't be able to do a single thing. That's not how things are done. You have a general goal, and general means of achieving it - in this case, trim Russia's ambition of territorial conquest in Europe, and giving Ukrainians the weapons - and then you adapt your tactics depending on the circumstances arriving.
The war is already "escalated". That choice is past us. The question is - does the "collective security" arrangement in Europe survive, or do we go back to "every little country for themselves" and the inevitable endless bloodbath that follows that. There's still a chance to preserve that order, but it is going away fast. And more we talk about "when we already recognize we lost everything and should give up?" the sooner we lose everything, including all this nice cushy civilization we enjoy so much. It's much more fragile than commonly thought.
I can't even begin to understand what you mean here, but let me assure you in one thing. Contrary to the belief popular on many college campuses, adding swearing to your argument does not make it more convincing, it just makes you look more unhinged.
Observation of the existing facts. When somebody literally proposes as a solution for the war the situation from which the war started, I conclude he's either ignoramus or is lying to my eyes. When somebody proposes a bunch of non-sequiturs as a supposedly logical argument to a goal - I assume he is either bad at logic or is lying. Carlson has been proposing wildly illogical concept of if we let Russia consume Ukraine, Putin somehow would be friendly to the US (this is laughable to anyone who listened for the last 5 years of Russian propaganda, which has been full of mouth-foaming anti-Western paranoia, and their whole geopolitical concept is rooted at opposition to the West, which is weak and decadent and soul-less) and somehow commit himself to fighting China (despite Russia having zero motive for that and tons of motives to the contrary) - and doesn't even bother to support his fantasies with anything but other wild stories (like the stupid biolab shit). That makes about as much sense as saying if only we helped Hitler to introduce common sense banking regulations, he'd be off the whole Jews thing - about that level of silliness. Vivek is simpler, he's just playing ignorant. He's proposing a solution which he must know - since he is not actually dumb - is not solving anything because that's where the war started. But it sounds nice to people who are ignorant in the matter, and makes him sound like he has solutions for everything to people that want somebody to have solutions. And also to the people who think "fuck Ukraine, better give that money to me!" but are ashamed to say it aloud, so they are looking for someone to say the same but in a smart way, so it doesn't sound asshole-ish but geopolitically smart. That's all his play, the whole con. Fortunately, he's also irrelevant since there's no chance he'd be anywhere near any real power anytime soon.
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