Thread by @VladVexler

The politically correct view on the Ukraine war is that Ukraine must be made to win.

Politically correct views are often wrong. But in this case, the politically correct view is right.

This makes for a strange public debate.

Quick thread.

#UkraineUnderAttaсk

Many people argue for the right position, but largely by accident.

Many people take a moral view on the war: they are outraged by the ghastliness of Russian aggression.

But they can't justify why they think what they think.

At this point, the following questions arise.

What if the West's current strategy turns out to be enough to prevent Ukraine from losing, but not enough to make Ukraine win?

What if our current strategy is a recipe for a long war that destroys Ukraine without benefiting it?

That is, what if Chomsky, Jeffrey Sachs, Mearsheimer, Kissinger are right?

They are wrong.

But, the vehement moral dismissal of them is rarely backed up by good arguments.

The basic argument against Kissinger et al is this:

Putin is not fighting a war against Ukraine. Ukraine doesn't exist in his mind. He is fighting an existential war against the West & the current international order.

Ukraine is a frontier on a wider pattern of escalation.

This means that the sort of argument @anneapplebaum makes is fundamentally right.

So long as we put all our actions through a nuclear filter.

https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1529923898904657929?s=20&t=6lHMzkMXOwjk6qC_jY5RBQ

Just as much as the idea of an off-ramp for Putin is an illusion, so is the idea that use of nuclear weapons by Moscow can be ruled out on the basis of some elegant rational choice calculation. That just ain't so.