>> That an aggressor nation can walk into another country's sovereign territory and annex it with the blessing of a sitting US president is a disgrace.
They did that first in 2014 under Obama, and again under Biden. The current situation has no criteria for an end - it's an endless conflict. Trump is going to move towards resolution of that and the fighting.
There's still quite a bit of Europe that Russia wants to plunder for resour... I mean... influence. All of Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, the Balkans - anywhere that used to be a part of the Warsaw Pact - is a target.
Appeasing Putin now will likely see another military action in the next decade, especially if the US significantly reduces or totally ends its commitment to NATO.
To be fair, the US has done nothing but harp on its allies in the organization to increase their g_ddamn defense spending for the better part of three decades now, and only some of them have truly taken it seriously since 2022. Even if spending levels are increased now, it won't have enough of an effect to see battlefield dividends for several years, if not at least a decade. The end result is that the US will be the security backstop for a Europe that has taken American willingness to get into a possible thermonuclear war for granted, in the face of more Russian incursion, no matter how poorly handled that incursion might be.
The UK and France also have nukes. I'm not sure about the UK, but France at least would shield NATO and EU with the nuclear umbrella even if the US leaves NATO. Finland, Romania and Poland might want to ask France if it minds sharing.. ideally before the alliance gets so weak that Putin decides to test our resolve.
> France at least would shield NATO and EU with the nuclear umbrella even if the US leaves NATO
This is absolutely not the case. The French nuclear arsenal is controlled separately to the joint NATO command and the French have traditionally made it very clear it is for the protection of France, not NATO. Indeed France left NATO for years partly over this and only rejoined in 2009.
Macron has opened discussions about a "pan-Europe" nuclear shield, but be very clear: if Russia was to use battlefield nuclear weapons in say Poland, there is no expectation that France would respond. There is an expectation that NATO would respond (or there was last year.. who knows if NATO is reliable now?)
sucks to be Poland or Finland then, I guess. some tactical nukes ought to soften up whatever conventional forces are defending Warsaw and Helsinki. maybe Trump can meet with Putin in Saudi Arabia again to broker some peace accords.
...seriously, if I were Finland I'd be looking at starting a sovereign weapons program.
IIRC the UK and France have enough nuclear weapons to decimate an industrialized economy. The UK also shares some of its nuclear weapons program with the United States through the servicing of its Vanguard class submarines at King's Bay, GA.
They do not have enough to create an exchange that could wipe out human society, which is the deterrent that the US brought to bear.
If you are Vladimir Putin, with enough infrastructure to possibly protect yourself and your ruling class from an attack of 120 warheads, but not 1700, your calculus for the use of nuclear weapons - particularly the tactical type, of which Russia has many - changes considerably if the people with 1700 warheads are no longer going to use them against you.
That an aggressor nation can walk into another country's sovereign territory and annex it with the blessing of a sitting US president is a disgrace.