That is literally their only choice. Ukrainians and Russians are dying by the tens of thousands. American soldiers would be better trained and better equipped than both sides, but they would also be dying in large numbers. We lost nearly 5000 thousand soldiers in Iraq, with complete and unchallenged air superiority, to disorganized religious radicals running around with 1950s era rifles and low-grade improvised explosives. We're all just vulnerable sacks of flesh and bone in the end.

And Americans would tolerate this for approximately 0 seconds. Consider how we feel about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that died or were killed during our invasion of Iraq (high end figures putting it in the millions), contrasted against the 5000 Americans who died. It's an entirely different sort of care when speaking of people you have no connection to as opposed to your neighbor or even your own son dying. When its other people, the real cost isn't truly felt.

I agree. It is absolutely in the interest of the American government to have Ukrainians and Russians die, preferably through the use of American weapons. The fact that America and NATO have been supporting the war rather than pursuing peace seals the argument.

Any news story that keeps the good versus evil narrative going is desirable.

> It is absolutely in the interest of the American government to have Ukrainians and Russians die

It is in the US's interest for Russia to deplete their military capability, and for Ukraine to not become part of Russia.

> The fact that America and NATO have been supporting the war rather than pursuing peace seals the argument.

How does NATO "pursue peace" in a conflict they aren't a party to? What exactly do you think they should do? One side of this war has the unilateral power to end it, and it ain't NATO, the US, or Ukraine.

If the US stops sending endless weapons and money to Ukraine, the war ends. If Ukraine agrees to concede the predominately ethnic Russian areas that Russia has occupied, the war ends. If Russia surrenders said territories to Ukraine, the war ends.

But nobody wants to concede anything. So the war will continue, undoubtedly with plentiful more opportunities to find ourselves in WW3.

Why should the Ukrainians want to concede?

Nobody has any reason to. Ukraine has made their biggest gains since the beginning of the war. Russia controls vast regions of land under no real threat, while Ukraine is facing a crippling energy crisis going into winter. And the US is weakening a geopolitical adversary and has been granted a defacto right to give the military industrial complex a blank check - something the political establishment has been longing for, for decades.

So I don't think anybody is anywhere near ready to concede. It's certainly going much worse for Russia than they expected, but being where we're at today is also far from what the US had in mind 9 months ago when this all started. It seems the most likely outcome for this war is a long, bloody, and expensive affair. The real issue is the specter of WW3 in the backdrop. There's an argument to be made that Zelensky sees that as a win condition (as per the topic of this thread), but fortunately it seems that neither the US nor Russia do. And they are the ones that get to decide if/when that happens.

> But nobody wants to concede anything. So the war will continue, undoubtedly with plentiful more opportunities to find ourselves in WW3.

Giving in to the nuclear and other blackmail that Russia uses will never get lasting peace.

All it will do is get Russia to invade again in the future. You only need to see, Moldova, Georgia, Crimea, and Donbas to see this.

The only real peace for this war is a peace where Russia retreats entirely from Ukraine, militarily defeated and it becomes clear to Russia that any future invasion will be met with an even stronger force.

Otherwise the little green men will keep appearing and the Russians will keep invading countries.