The fastest way to end this war is to give Ukraine more and better equipment. We could stop giving them supplies tomorrow and they still would fight Russia (probably successfully for a while, and probably even more creatively and with less guardrails from the US).
If you are convinced Putin will use a tactical nuke then his propaganda is winning. There is a reason he is using people like Musk to push this message.
If Russia successfully bullies Ukraine and the west with nuclear threats, second and third order effects will pile up that are much much much much worse than some inflation or a mild recession. There will be an explosion of nuclear states and nuclear threats. Everyone in the Middle East will obtain nukes. Japan and South Korea will want nukes. China will threaten Taiwan with nukes, and maybe Taiwan will try to develop them too (Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea all possess the technical knowledge and nuclear material to develop a nuclear weapon quickly).
For a fraction of the US defense budget (and a lot of Ukrainian blood) the US has severely degraded Russian conventional capability, added Finland and Sweden to NATO, and rallied Europe around the importance of common defense. The US involvement in this war is probably the best US foreign policy in decades.
The west caved to Putin in 2014 with Crimea, and that appeasement led directly to this war with the intent of regime change. If we appease Putin again and reward this territorial aggression, it is a certainty that this conflict will continue and the breakdown of Post WW2 norms against wars of territorial conquest will lead to worse wars soon.
If you are convinced Putin will use a tactical nuke then his propaganda is winning. There is a reason he is using people like Musk to push this message.
If Russia successfully bullies Ukraine and the west with nuclear threats, second and third order effects will pile up that are much much much much worse than some inflation or a mild recession. There will be an explosion of nuclear states and nuclear threats. Everyone in the Middle East will obtain nukes. Japan and South Korea will want nukes. China will threaten Taiwan with nukes, and maybe Taiwan will try to develop them too (Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea all possess the technical knowledge and nuclear material to develop a nuclear weapon quickly).
For a fraction of the US defense budget (and a lot of Ukrainian blood) the US has severely degraded Russian conventional capability, added Finland and Sweden to NATO, and rallied Europe around the importance of common defense. The US involvement in this war is probably the best US foreign policy in decades.
The west caved to Putin in 2014 with Crimea, and that appeasement led directly to this war with the intent of regime change. If we appease Putin again and reward this territorial aggression, it is a certainty that this conflict will continue and the breakdown of Post WW2 norms against wars of territorial conquest will lead to worse wars soon.