Thread by @bctallis

How to deal with #Russia
- Short thread based on my talk at #LennartMeriConference 2023. #NeoIdealism

1. Ukraine's war is our war - & must be won.
That means restoring UA's 1991 borders & ensuring UA's ability to defend them - & the people within them.

2. After victory we have to get #Ukraine into #NATO & the #EU as fast as possible.
- As @SwedishPM has said:
This should be merit based but cannot again be an excuse for going soft or going slow on UA's accession.
- we have to institutionally tie our future to UA's.

3. We have to overcome any residual fears of #Ukraine's victory and #Russia's defeat.
As @EliotACohen said in Warsaw - RU must lose & know it has lost:
on the battlefield, its offensive military capability for 10 years & has lost Ukraine for good.

4. We should not be afraid to embrace the systemic competition against autocratic regimes
- but we have to equip democratic societies to win: militarily, economically, but also ideationally. We have to have the right mentality & ensure the substance behind our claimed superiority

5. We must focus resolutely on deterring & containing #Russia.
- over time this *may* spur change in RU but this is not our priority.
- we must focus on stopping RU from doing harm beyond its current borders.

6. To properly deter & contain #Russia we have to improve our deterrence & nuclear IQ
- too many western societies lack understanding of how effective deterrence works
- we strengthen our deterrence by boosting our will & ability to fight - precisely so that we don't have to.

7. Boosting capabilities & communicating our effective effective deterrence will also help counter nuclear blackmail.
- we have effective nuclear deterrence with Russia and China & need to explain that more clearly to our populations, taking lessons from e.g. UK, US & NCEE.

8. If we do think about #Russia we must stop valorising illiberal elements within the so-called Russian opposition (eg Navalny).
- & stop the endless hunt for 'good Russians' which obscures the fact that we have a Russia problem not a Putin problem.

9. - BUT, we also need to stop buying into BS Russian exceptionalism: there's no reason why, over time, RU *cannot* become a democratic, liberal state
To claim otherwise fuels the dangerous exceptionalism that lets Russians think they can get away with especially awful things.

10. We also need to drop any lingering great power exceptionalism of our own - we need to drop the great power lenses that see CEE thru the prism of Russia & Inso-Pacific thru prism of China.
- We need to arm ourselves like great powers but see the world like smaller states.

11a. Lastly, we need to fix our own roof- & more than that, do some serious home improvement.
- #Russia works in the cracks in our societies that we made. We need to fix those - but more generally build societies that are politically, economically &environmentally sustainable.

11b. We rightly claim that liberal democracy is a superior system - but we have to make its benefits more tangible to more of our people.
- we have to offer meaningful hope of progress to turn the costs of geopolitical, tech & green transitions into investments in a better future

And that's how we deal with #Russia
- by prioritising #Ukraine's victory & equipping ourselves to win the systemic competition against autocratic regimes.
Its fundamentally about ensuring free societies can not only survive but thrive. #NeoIdealism.