The downside to the US is immense, including the end of NATO or what remains is nothing but a facade, and trade conducted in Euro’s and roubles not the US dollar and even the potential end of the EU.
What is the US strategy to win, and what does winning look like?
The upside is the US emerges more powerful, richer, and more influential than before. And the US has already won. The only question is how big the victory is. Right now, it looks like it is pretty big.
Most or all NATO nations have announced defense budget increases, which means in part buying weapons systems from the US and accepting US military doctrine. Plus there will be two new NATO countries, Sweden which has been neutral for over 100 years, and Finland which has been neutral for almost that long. That’s a slam dunk victory right there. The US is the de facto leader of NATO, which means the US is more influential in that arena than before. NATO power is increasing and therefore US power is increasing. And many former Warsaw Pact countries are donating their Soviet-era arms to Ukraine in exchange for modern US EQ, which we are happy to sell to them and ring up the profits.
Similarly, Russian military equipment has been objectively shown to be junk. Nobody wants that stuff. Militaries want to buy superior US/NATO equipment, which again is largely manufactured in the US, to our specifications. This weakens Putin and anyone allied with him. If you want good military EQ, gotta play ball with the US.
Putin has cut off natural gas supplies to Europe. This made the US the largest LNG exporter in the world. Gas sales that used to go to Putin are now flowing to the United States at premium prices.
Putin’s busy buying drones from Iran and shells from North Korea. That’s like a high school kid buying weed from a sixth grader. Going forward militaries will have to decide if they want to buy garbage, scarce EQ from Russia, or buy quality, abundant EQ from the US/NATO. Which would you choose?
On the home front, US politicians who are sympathetic to Putin have been busy scrubbing their websites removing any statements of their past support. “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”