Surely Ukraine just needs to allow EDF to build few nuclear power stations on long term agreements to end their dependence on Russian heating oil?

Its surely just that easy... for a small and relatively powerless nation to product nuclear power under the watchful eye of a very powerful nation that doesn't want it.

Ukraine already has 15 reactors generating about half of its electricity. (Including one famous one).

Ukraine receives most of its nuclear services and nuclear fuel from Russia, but is reducing this dependence by buying fuel from Westinghouse in the USA.

Just do more of this. I doubt Russia will attack a US concession that's building a nuclear plant.

Oh yes! We won't care about the middle east, so none of that bizarre cowtowing to the Saudi king that the US Presidents always do (I think largely to get on the post-term massive slush money that flows from the Saudis to former presidents, which I have no direct knowledge up, but seems obvious)

The Navy will lose a huge reason for its existence: securing the seas for supertankers. There are so many countries we won't care about anymore. Iran. Iraq. Venezuela. Nigeria. Really, by extension, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, etc. Then again they'll just keep building up the China boogeyman to keep their money, regardless of its validity.

As you pointed out, Russia will face an existential crisis, I think oil revenue basically keeps Putin afloat. A total collapse of Russia is pretty risky due to the nukes, but we'll see.

I think you are too optimistic about Israel. These other countries can be dropped easily but Israel is a huge liability that I don't know how the US will get rid of. I do feel confident that the winds are starting to fly against them slowly but I don't have my hopes up. It will likely be a generational shift that finally does them in but IDK. What do you think?

If the US drops Israel someone else will pick them up (like Russia or China or India). The country is developed, produces tons of IP, and is armed to the teeth (and has nuclear weapons).

But this is lala-land thinking. As long as the United States remains on the UN Security Council (which is equivalent to saying as long as the UN continues to exist in any practical form), both Taiwan and Israel will remain our client states.

Israel is not a US client. The directive influence is the opposite of the direction that it would be were that the case, and the reason for that is exactly the thinking you articulate: “If the US drops Israel someone else will pick them up”.

If the US drops Israel, it paves the way for economic sanctions against the country for their dealings of Palestinians. This is why they got really triggered over BDS. They cannot be swayed militarily or via protest but economic is a whole different ballgame.

A lot of European/Asian countries would like to distance themselves from Israel but cannot due to US influence. Furthermore losing the US support loosens their investments into the country and siding with China or Russia would cut a lot of economic ties to the US for sure.

>But this is lala-land thinking. As long as the United States remains on the UN Security Council (which is equivalent to saying as long as the UN continues to exist in any practical form), both Taiwan and Israel will remain our client states.

Thats my point, if US leadership decides that Israel is no longer worth the liability, then that entails allowing the UN and its member states to start putting real pressure on Israel. Again, you might think this is lala-land but we are seeing small changes starting to happen as the internet has helped to expose Israel and act as a counterbalance to mainstream talking points.

With Millennials and Gen-Z starting to come into power we are seeing even more pushback. I don't realistically see meaningful reform until Boomers are pushed out. While all this is happening in the West, Israel has made a turn towards hard right wing and I feel this will be a strategic error long term as the pendulum is swinging back to hard left in the western countries.

The incredible thing is a calcified Russian system with access to way too many nukes collapsed within our lifetimes and the West adequately prevented nuclear disaster. We ended up with the current farce of a government as a byproduct, unfortunately.