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Notes -
How does this make it harder for Trump to de-escalate? The U.S. already enjoys near-total leverage over Ukraine. Calling a Russian bluff is purely improving our leverage against them.
Not by much, mind you, and I can’t say I endorse the brinksmanship…but conditional on it working as intended, I don’t see how Trump’s options are any more limited.
I think it depends on what form of deescalation you're talking about. If we just pull all funding and equipment then things will deescalate as Ukraine will fall over in a few months. This is easy regardless, and maybe slightly easier if Biden fucks things up enough that Russia refuses to negotiate since Trump can just say he tried but Biden mishandled things too much so his only option is to just pull out.
The other form would be some sort of negotiated settlement, how this plays out is less within the US's control. Russia is having a lot of success now with Ukraine facing serious infantry shortages. There are no weapons systems or equipment we can send that would make up for the lack of bodies Ukraine has to actually man it. Russia might just prefer to continue the grind for another year or so, capture the rest of the territories they annexed, see if they can push Ukraine to a complete collapse. Further escalation makes it harder to bring them to the negotiating table.
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