You reveal the core problem for Ukrainian allies on either side of the Atlantic, which is that this war is much more important to Russia than it is to anyone else (not including Ukraine).
Even if so, it's a poor course of action to invite the defending leader to a talk, and ask publicly for his unconditional surrender _under a threat and praising of the invader_
US most certainly has anti ballistic missile tech, however wasting exposing it on Russia is something that is not worth it when there are more capable nations on the line.
Russia is special. They're a sophisticated adversary with a drastically different warfighting doctrine. They still optimize airframes for dogfighting, are laser-focused on hypersonic tech, and we don't officially know how good their missile defense is (probably excellent, or at least good enough to be dangerous, which is a bit of a theme).
They have a much lower defense budget, and have been forced to actually be creative and clever about problems, as opposed to our throw-money-at-problem-ergo-win approach.
tl;dr Russia is not a fun opponent, and they culturally really enjoy statecraft so best to stick with statecraft.
>and we don't officially know how good their missile defense is
we do know. Its mediocre at best.
The thing about Russia that most people don't get is that even before all of this happened, there was no money to be made in terms of talent for stuff that requires engineering. Everyone who was smart was leaving the country so they could make much better salaries elsewhere.
They are a full scale paper tiger, none of their stuff even from cold war era is as good as the propaganda claimed.
The Russian planes true stealth metrics are never going to get published. Russia will exaggerate it, US will never reveal that it can be actually detected. Russia had their latest fighter at the Chinese air show, and it was FAR from stealth.
Sure there is a 0.1% chance it may be able to hold 2 circle or one circle against F22, considering that no F22 has ever flown publicly within its full maneuverability envelope, but it sure as shit would lose to the flying supercomputer that is the F35 because BVR missiles that are smart enough to avoid countermeasures are a thing now. Some even use optical tracking.
As far as ICBM defense goes, we did this back in 2002:
If Russia could bomb kyiv more than they have, they already would have. They literally dont have the strength.
Nukes would likely drag Europeans into the war formally, which Russia cant handle. They dont have resilience, and their oligarchs dont want a nuclear war any more than we do. At the end of the day they are cowards; once their actual livlihood is at stake they will cut and run to save whats left.
Russias only actual card is political division. Biden effectively gambled the US would be more politically resilient than it actually is, and appears to have been wrong. Putin gambled he could manipulate enough in the US to turn the tide.
Now that Trump has exposed it, imo it actually increases the risk because now one warning Nuke can maybe whip his followers into line.
Ultimately today Z played new cards. He saw the writing on the wall, knowing agreeing to Trumps current deal would likely be the (eventual) end of his country. So he appealed to the US voter. This bypasses Trump so it was never going to end well. Now the next phase plays out. Trump tries to discredit z; if he wins its over. If he loses we go back to the Biden plan, rebranded as the Trump plan one way or another.
Strategic victory for Putin in the meantime. JD isnt cut out for the big stage is my main take away.
One nuke and the whole of NATO will back down. To think that we could respond to the limited use of nukes conventionally is extremely naive, and to think that the limited use of nukes can be responded to with a limited use of nukes w/o escalation to global nuclear war is -quite frankly- stupid beyond belief.
My own sense is that Putin waited Biden out to see what might happen in the 2024 elections, and now that Trump is back and conciliatory there is no need for him to escalate to limited nuclear war. And my sense is that Trump understands Putin's limits and that is why Trump is keen to make peace on terms vaguely approaching a complete capitulation to Russia -- for Trump it's not his war anyways, so for him it's not so much capitulation but something that can be sold as another domestic political victory over the Democrats and the Washington establishment.
This could escalate the war, but Russia does not appear to be in a position to escalate right now.