Christopher S. Chivvis is a war gamer who studies strategy and is said to be the former "US national intelligence officer for Europe." Today he writes for The Guardian (U.K.) an especially pessimistic analysis of what he believes are the two most likely outcomes in Ukraine.
Outcome one is a further escalation by the Russians leading eventually to a nuclear exchange, perhaps limited to theater, perhaps wider afield. Outcome two is a bitter peace with a puppet government in Kyiv and pressures to oppose that outcome in various ways leading to Russian reprisals perhaps in the Baltics or Scandinavia. See his bottom line:
The chances that Putin emerges strategically weak are real. But that does not mean the US can win. It will have to settle for a picture that is much uglier than it was before the war, and the sooner Washington accepts that, the better.
I wish I could point to obvious holes in Chivvis' analysis.
