Which would be the best case scenario and the worst case scenario on the current war between Russia and Ukraine?
Which would be the best case scenario and the worst case scenario on the current war between Russia and Ukraine?
Also, is America benefiting from the war?
Worst Case: Pretty simply, one side or the other starts a nuclear war. Which would be the end of most life as we know it. "Tactical" nukes are not nearly as small scale as they might lead you to believe.
Best Case: There's really not a great outcome of war. That bloodshed stops immediately and people can start to rebuild.
Practically speaking: At some point in time Ukraine will have to come to the negotiating table. They could have done it a long time ago, but they didn't. The biggest question mark is what kind of terms Russia would accept at this point. Would they even believe any concessions from Ukraine after Minsk was found to be a sham? I can't speak to that, I have no idea what Russian officials are thinking, but I would be surprised if they would accept anything short of unconditional surrender. There was a time where I think they would have accepted indepencent for Donetsk and Luhansk, along with a guarantee of Ukrainian neutrality. I am not sure that is enough now.
EDIT:
Your additional question. US arms manufacturers benefit from every war, more customers. The average USian is not going to see a shred of those benefits unless you are a lockheed executive.
A nuclear war would not end life on earth. Climate change is a far, far bigger threat than any nuclear war. And tactical nukes are merely big bombs. Mariupol or Bhakmut were destroyed by conventional bombs, they're still destroyed the same.
And you analysis is very poor.
In a full scale nuclear exchange between two countries that have enough firepower to glass the planet several times over, yes life as know it currently would be ended. No, 100% of all life would probably not be destroyed, but irrevocable damage would be done. Being concerned about climate change and not nuclear war is bizarre, do you think nuclear war wouldn't damage the climate? For those who didn't die in the initial blasts or the resulting nuclear fallout, the lasting effects of nuclear war on the climate would be staggering. I do not understand how somebody who claims to be worried about the environment can literally be advocating nuclear war.
Downplaying tactical nukes as "merely big bombs" is the most assinine take for justifying nuclear war I have ever heard. A tactical nuclear weapon is still a nuclear weapon. You are still talking massive shockwaves and radiation that will poison the surrounding environment and will absolutely have devastating effects wherever they are used. They are not conventional bombs and should not be thought of as such.
That isn't even factoring in how likely it is that one side will escalate to strategic nuclear weapons should any nuclear firepower be used. There are strategic nuclear weapons that exceed the bomb of Hiroshima by 100x in some cases. Some of which the US has stationed in NATO bases.
Worst case: nukes fly, WW3 starts
Best case: there is no realistic best case possible and i don't want to pointlessly speculate about it.
The worst case scenario is indeed the escalation into a nuclear war. It's unlikely it'd escalate into a full nuclear mutual destruction. In fact, Russia using a nuclear warhead would mean its swift death. West would not use nukes if Russia don't nuke them specifically, but they would militarily invade Russia. China would even help for that.
USA benefit a lot from this war. First, they're getting rid of a major opponent without fighting themselves. The number was 5% of US budget was used to destroy 50% of Russian army without a single us citizen dying. Make it 10 or 15% until the end of the war, but Russia is a third world country now. Iran is providing them weapons. USA will now be able to focus on China.
Secondly, US economy will benefit from rebuilding the military arsenals. And the destabilisation of Europe means US influence strengthen when it was weakening before.
There are 3 outcomes from the war: Ukraine victory, Russia victory, or frozen war.
If Russia wins, it'll be bad. They will use the victory to fuel more imperialism and war could spread in Europe. It might be a blow for the US reputation too as a pacifier of the world.
If it's a frozen war, it won't be so good. US reputation would be blown the same and it'll probably be back to war in a few years.
If it's Ukraine victory, it'll settle nato's position. Ukraine will begin a process of joining EU, and maybe nato. Russia will be humiliated and it'll take it decades to come back from the blow. China would lose an important ally with this. It could have consequences in the UN.
The way Russia recover from a defeat will matter a lot depending on whether it'll explode or not. If it explodes into several countries, there'll certainly be war in Asia for decades. With countries with nukes. If it stays Russia, it'll grow anger and probably make trouble in Asia and Africa.
This leads to the different kinds of victory for Ukraine: victory with territorial losses, full victory, or full victory with humiliation of Russia.
If the war grow too hard for either side to go further, they could try a peace treaty. Then it would depend on if Russia would keep some territories, especially crimea and/or dombass. In some cases, Ukraine could take the loss and Russia would consider it a win. This would ensure Russia stays a country, and if it leaves enough territory to Ukraine, the west would also consider it a victory for them.
In case of a full victory from Ukraine, that is Ukraine recover all of its territories, Russia would be humiliated. If a peace treaty leads to this, it'd be the same. Here I consider that Russia would be fighting to the end.
The third one would be if the Russian army or government was to collapse. This would probably lead to the end of Russia. But it is quite unlikely.