Who said anything about appeasing? Fighting for the best peace deal you can is not "appeasing".
NATO is never going to escalate with Russia to the point Ukraine gets all it's territory back - and Putin knows that. NATO isn't stupid - Ukraine isn't worth expanding the war beyond Ukraine into Eastern Europe. They have neither the financial resources nor the support back home. They are willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives, but not their own grip on power.
So if we know how this all ends - Ukraine giving up territory in exchange for peace, then why not pursue that instead of throwing another million lives and hundred billion dollars into the chipper and getting the same deal in 3 years instead?
> Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west
No, it means the US is turning it's back on the neoliberal geopolitical position that grinding down competing powers through proxy wars is always worth it in the end. George Kennan died long ago, and it's time to let his geopolitical strategy die too.
It's a position that only existed since WW2, and one that has gotten the US involved in dozens of wars since then, often at a greater cost than the benefit in the end (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq).
How is it not appeasing when "finding the best peace deal" equals "letting an agressor state keep a chip of neighboring state", even more so when this repeats every few years?
Read again what Putin's stated aims are. Hoping for a peace deal with a totalitarian, expansive state does not work. It didn't work when it was "just Crimea", it won't work when it's "just some towns they took by force".
It's utterly naive, given all his history, to think Putin will just acquiesce.
Even if your geopolitical assumptions are correct, Trump and Vance's behaviour yesterday - humiliating a war leader in front of the worlds media, using the rhetoric and tropes of the invaders he is facing was unbelievably disgusting.
Who said anything about appeasing? Fighting for the best peace deal you can is not "appeasing".
NATO is never going to escalate with Russia to the point Ukraine gets all it's territory back - and Putin knows that. NATO isn't stupid - Ukraine isn't worth expanding the war beyond Ukraine into Eastern Europe. They have neither the financial resources nor the support back home. They are willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives, but not their own grip on power.
So if we know how this all ends - Ukraine giving up territory in exchange for peace, then why not pursue that instead of throwing another million lives and hundred billion dollars into the chipper and getting the same deal in 3 years instead?
> Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west
No, it means the US is turning it's back on the neoliberal geopolitical position that grinding down competing powers through proxy wars is always worth it in the end. George Kennan died long ago, and it's time to let his geopolitical strategy die too.
It's a position that only existed since WW2, and one that has gotten the US involved in dozens of wars since then, often at a greater cost than the benefit in the end (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq).