This isn't a boxing match... more like a potential bar brawl. It's also a bar brawl where the protagonists have pistols in their waistbands, only in this case the pistols fire nukes, which makes throwing punches at jaws a prospect that could lead to all sorts of unpleasant places.
The US managed the Cold War by not throwing punches at jaws, but by containment, isolation, trading space for time (as The Curmudgeon aptly put it) where necessary, and letting the antagonist rot out from the inside, with a bit of occasional help. This isn't the Cold War - Russia hasn't anything like the global network or capacity that the Soviet Union had - but Russia's poorly managed and vulnerable economy is still a weakness, and there's no reason a similar strategy can't work again. It will take time, of course... but it really necessary to start swinging punches at jaws, given where that can lead?
Of course that strategy can only work if Europe is on board and actively participating... but since the threat is to Europe in the first place, you'd think they's at least be willing to discuss it.
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