Thread by @EHunterChristie

1/10
I see some fretting from certain commentators about how dangerous everything is and how we should reflect on bargaining and escalation and what our objectives really are. So, let's lay it out.

2/10
The current war is the worst situation in Europe since 1945 because it is:
-Active large-scale warfare by one of the nuclear superpowers
-Massive, unacceptable crimes being committed
-Based on highly aggressive revisionism about the balance of power in Europe and beyond

3/10
It is not as globally dangerous as German or Japanese aggression in WW2 - both aimed at expansion into enormous territories - but it is globally more dangerous than Stalinist aggression, which was opportunistic but calculated.

4/10
Putinist aggression is resentful and cruel. It is also incompetent and strategically arrogant. It is within the power of the West to derail Russia, as an economy and as a player in the international system, to a degree that Putin does not even understand.

5/10
The degree to which Putin has miscalculated, militarily and diplomatically, is hard to overstate. Effectively, his only hope is Western appeasers, which he can cultivate using threats with nuclear weapons.
But European states have clear interests, too.

6/10
For Europe, it is unacceptable to have a neighbour that invades European nations, commits massive war crimes, and uses nuclear threats not to ensure its survival but as cover to commit massive crimes against peace and against humanity.
This cannot be tolerated. At all. Ever.

7/10
The desired end state is a decisive military defeat for Moscow, with full and unconditional withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory, such that the entire 2014-2022 adventure fails clearly in the eyes of the world. Further, Russia must be unable to repeat such adventurism.

8/10
Europeans cannot accept nuclear blackmail, as it would forever endanger them in future. Therefore, the only rational answer to Moscow's nuclear threats is to ignore them, while occasionally reminding Moscow that Russia, too, could be completely wiped out.

9/10
Looking beyond Ukraine, the new European security architecture that is needed is not - at all - a concert of great powers, but a powerful and united Western block with a very strong deterrence and defence posture that makes it clear that an attack on Europe would be crushed.

10/10
There is nothing to bargain or to trade because we face a state that is antithetical to our civilisation. The only way forward is victory on Ukrainian soil (Moldova and Georgia should also be considered) - followed by containment and deterrence.