To what hell are we heading? This is a question we don't ask ourselves often enough when we think about the conflict in Ukraine.

Naturally, from the first hours of the invasion, we in the West wondered what we could do to support the Ukrainians, without going to war head-on with Moscow.

With reason. This invasion was revolting.

Russia

But as the weeks pass, the caution of the early days fades.

It is even disappearing, and we can see a direct confrontation between the Westerners and the Russians taking shape on the horizon. Or more precisely, perhaps, between the Americans and the Russians, with Europe as the battlefield.

Whoever is not willing to take the next step in the escalation of the conflict each time is accused of lapsing into culpable cowardice. The rise to extremes, without becoming inevitable, is increasingly presented as a credible hypothesis.

We do not know what face she would take. But we know that it would possibly represent a point of no return, as if the world had entered a spiral for good.

This is what drives Henri Guaino, French intellectual and former special adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy, to say that we are walking towards war like sleepwalkers.

Some consider negotiating with an authoritarian regime, and even more so with an authoritarian and invading regime, to be a morally acceptable gesture.

I understand them.

But we must ask ourselves if the rise to the extremes is more so.

You have to wonder, three months after the invasion, if there is a way out to prevent the world from igniting.

One-upmanship

This means that we have to imagine a scenario where each of the major players in this conflict saves face.

Because the other side is known: an authoritarian regime in disarray can be tempted by an absolute one-upmanship. Need we remind you that with Russia, this one-upmanship could be nuclear?