It may very well be true that the USA under Trump has already essentially become allies with Putin’s Russia in terms of geopolitical goals.
I’m unsure if I’m reading that somehow the common goal in WWII of the Soviets and USA/Europe - once Hitler thought it wise to create a second front with the Russians, perhaps after seeing their rather poor performance in the Winter War with Finland, which was influenced on the Russians as a double-secret part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact pact.
Had the Nazi’s won at Stalingrad, rather than losing and getting chased back to Berlin, losing all the way, the outcome on the Western front would have been much different. Had the Nazi’s not invaded the Soviet Union and the Soviets remained co-belligerents with the Nazi’s moving Westward, the last stand would have been in perhaps Paris and that may well have happened in late 1943 before Eisenhower had his pieces in place for anything like D-Day.
So in the 21st century if Europe unites and decides it’s a good idea to take on Russia and at the same time land in Canada and surgically take on only red states, is this offensive going to marshall together between Alberta and Manitoba and plunge southwards into Montana and the Dakotas? Sure, try and carry a million troops into the Hudson Bay without half the ships being sunk by US submarines. Any invasion of the USA is ludicrous.
So Europe keeps that plan on hold while they take on Russia, who no longer have the seemingly endless infantry they had in WWII. I doubt the USA would either help or hinder Europe in that scenario and China would find it a really good time to grab some of Eastern Russia and South Korea.
The next plausible conflict we’re likely to see is what China’s navy can do to take Taiwan and if Trump is inclined to interfere with the US Navy. Sure, last year Trump made some veiled remarks about China and Taiwan, “Chine knows what I’ll do” yet that was last year and Taiwan has seen how the USA has turned on Ukraine.
And that leaves out what Iran and Israel might decide to do. Iran only has a huge standing army and pretty decent air force. I suppose only the CIA/MI-6/FSB and maybe Mossad knows if Iran has any nukes ready to go in any capacity.
And that still leaves out what Pakistan and India might decide to do. Heck, they might just start off lobbing nukes at each other.
In any scenario, no country with nukes is going to capitulate without resorting to using them. The movie WarGames depicts the WOPR computer playing out lots of eventualities and all of them lead to Global Thermonuclear War with no winners. I don’t recall any of that being written off as Hollywood fiction. It’s MAD and Dr. Strangelove and “We’ll meet again”.
