"It was only for illustrative purposes."

Not for me. I'll be single from here on out.

"...none of them needs and wants proxies."

All of the present conflicts I am aware of are certainly, or may be, depending on how you look at them, proxy wars, and this dramatically proves your point. Turkey has HTS acting as it's proxy governing Syria, while Israel seems about to take over backing Kurds from the USA as it's proxies against Turkey, while the US is about to take possession of Gaza from the Palestinians and develop it for it's proxy Israel... or is the USA Israel's proxy there? After a while the incestuous nature of proxy wars makes it hard to properly identify who's whose proxy.

You have well put the point to the matter, and I agree with you that issues which are openly discussed by the principals tend to be more easily resolved. The USA and Russia using the Ukraine as their proxy could hardly better illustrate the principle, as the EU factions involved seem close to shattering Europe over it, with Thierry threatening to coup Germany (and France) as they did Romania, seem to have done to Poland, might have tried to assassinate Robert Fico of Slovakia over, and turned Meloni for, while Orban of Hungary decries the war, and is determined not to be dragged into it, which all the peoples of all these republics actually vehemently agree on, regardless of their politics - none of them want to die in ditches over it. Odd that the EU turns out to be the deadly enemy of Europe because of this proxy business. Best to follow Trump's lead, DOGE the EU into submission, and send migrants back to fix their own countries while ya'll tend to yours.

I reckon Trump will move Zelensky off to the ~$40M mansion in Miami that Volodomyr paid for with military aid swindled from Biden for the purpose, carve up the Ukraine with Putin, Tusk, and Iohannis, and puts an end to the matter by summer. Perfidious Albion will do everything in it's power to bollux the deal, because they want to profit from weapons sales, and Trump will convince Starmer (if he lasts) that selling weapons to the KSA (supported by Indian troops and US mercs) to slaughter Iranians with is even more profitable than killing Ukrainians, because there's oil in it. That'll leave Israel to handle Erdogan, which needs doing, frankly, keep Russia fixing up the Ukraine and Putin off the IDF's back long enough to turn Syria into Greater Israel along with Gaza Lago Trump Resorts and Casino, where the new King of Israel will redomicile.

Or maybe the whole thing goes off, adds China in Taiwan and N. Korea tackles S. Korea, Pakistan and Afghanistan jump in on Iran's side, N. Africa pops off because the Palestinians really don't want to become Egyptians, Libyans, and Cypriots, but mostly because (((they))) really want to kill us all anyway. I read it on the internet. Why would anybody lie on the internet?

Thanks!