Russia will never fight NATO because NATO will never face up to Russian aggression. When Putin seizes the Baltic nations, Western "leaders" will argue that the costs of liberating the Baltics would be so horrific that the effort should not be undertaken. Instead, a "strategic" dialog with Russia will be proposed as an alternative. Naturally, Russia will say it wants peace and only "liberated" the Baltic nations because of local instability caused by Western fascists. NATO commanders, meanwhile, will have neither the personnel nor the equipment necessary to fend of continued Russian incursions because with the USA gone from NATO thanks to the 2nd Trump administration (2025 - 2028 and onward...). And of course the lessons Russia has learned from its invasion of Ukraine have in any case rendered all NATO doctrine and equipment impotent.

The end-game is a Europe that pays fiscal tribute to Russia, further enriching the Russian elite, and a USA that is isolationist and so internally dysfunctional that it will be easy for an ultra-right group of nationalists to seize and retain power indefinitely in the name of "saving" the nation. Thus neutered, what was formerly the most powerful nation on Earth will degenerate into a fissiparous backwater that plays no meaningful role in world affairs and continues to collapse economically as the world order on which it depended no longer exists.

The ultimate beneficiaries will be Russia and most of all China. But don't worry: the mindless dullards who reliably vote Republican in the USA will think they've won a "smart & stable genius" victory so all's well that ends well.