Professor David Gibbs walked through the escalation ladder rung by rung.
Start with what Europe already did: harassing and briefly seizing Russia's uninsured shadow-fleet tankers.
Moscow's cleanest answer isn't a missile at NATO soil, which a winning Russia has no reason to risk.
It's grabbing European-flagged ships in the Pacific, where Europe's navies barely exist and Russia's is strong.
Then the question lands in Paris: your freighter sits in a Russian port, what now?
The answers being floated in European capitals were unthinkable two years ago.
Feeding the fire, the EU's top diplomat reportedly said she'd like to see Russia broken into pieces, which is demanding surrender from a country holding around 1,800 deployed warheads.
Even Trump has said he doesn't believe Putin wants to attack Europe, and the conversation agreed: 6.5 percent of GDP is not what conquest budgets look like.
On the other front, the promise stands that a resumed war means Iranian reserve missiles reaching the Gulf's lifelines, water included.
The night's darkest point was simpler than any scenario...
The world has lost its fear of nuclear war, and fear was the part of deterrence that actually worked.
@WeTheBrandon
