1) is only a better scenario if Ukraine actually prevails in it, which is far from certain. If they ultimately crumble anyway, it's the worst of all scenarios.
Also note that Russia lacks the strength to conquer Europe. If the US completely abandon Europe, they could probably take the Baltics, but not much further.
And keep in mind that US investment funds have trillions of dollars invested in Western Europe, all of which would be gone if Russia actually conquered the continent. So if it ever looked like Russia was about to break through in Europe, the US would have no other choice than to come to their rescue, no matter how isolationist the current POTUS (Trump, Vance, etc.) is and how much he would hate to do it.
Meh. If Musk really wanted to, he could easily find some flimsy excuse to shut it down. He has no real reason to do that, so it's a hypothetical - but if I were Ukraine, I wouldn't want my national security to be based on "b-b-but he signed a legally binding contract".
Even if Russia is stronger than I think, which I cant deny, and Ukrainians will have to eventually flee west, they still prefer to kill some of attackers before retreating over the western border.
If somebody comes to hurt you, your country, take your fatherland, and you need to run away, wouldnt you like to hurt him first, to make him regret?
USA has some investments in Europe, hovewer Putin might make some deals with Trump, that he will partially respect USA investments and do not confiscate all goods.
Since Putin and Trump like each other its possible they meet a compromise to split European wealth amongst them.
Remember Putin doesnt give shit about wealth. He wants power, he wants his place in Russia history as the one who brought Berlin back into Russia ownership.
So basically the deal could be: some of the money goes to Trump/USA, while power and fame goes to Putin. Everybody happy.
Its possible that's where Putin ambitions stop, he might even leave western Germany alone, as he is quite old already, but we dont know if Russia next dictator will go further or not.
You say that Russia is weak, and they are, but in Europe we dont have any armies, so we are even weaker. The only big army we have in Europe is Ukrainian, and the collective west is about to tell them to surrender to Russia.
Our best army, we are surrending, because european and american people are "tired" of giving them just like 1% of their gdp to assist Ukrainian war effort. Because "the war is too long".
"Too much" for voters to pay for security. They are "so much tired".
Do you REALLY expect same voters to defend Europe collectively?
Or everybody will be looking for excuses instead?