Global Eyes

Zelensky's address. Qatargate 101. How Orbán gets away with it. China's Covid Götterdämmerung. Why can't we have Warp Speed II? Book reviews. And more ...

Belgian authorities found these banknotes where they really ought not to have been. Credit: Police photo, Belgian judiciary.

It’s back! Substack is back! And it didn’t even lose my draft!

In case you didn’t hear: Substack was down.

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Preface: I just finished watching Zelensky’s address to Congress. If Putin’s as demoralized as I am heartened by what I saw—and I expect he will be—he’s gnashing his teeth and wailing.

You know how Americans always do the right thing after exhausting all the other options? I can’t tell you how gratified I was to see the US Congress behaving like the United States Congress, for a change, with everything that implies. (As opposed to a flock of sniveling and fractious meatheads.) It was a wonderful display of American unity and resolve, which was as valuable as any weapons system. The world (Putin, particularly) understands that if the United States is committed to Ukraine, Ukraine will win—that’s just math, really. But he also understands that four times out of five, the US loses its appetite for these things, forgets why it ever got involved, and winds up tripping over its own feet racing for the exit. His entire strategy is to erode American resolve—and wait. But those scenes in Congress showed that’s not working. (We’ll draw a curtain of charity over the tiny Putin cheering section. I barely noticed them. They looked like a handful of snot-nosed whiners, not a major force in American politics.)

That came as a surprise to me. I didn’t realize the sight of Zelensky would elicit a display like that. And if it came as a surprise to me, it must have come as an even greater (and far less welcome) surprise to Putin, and for that matter to American adversaries everywhere.

I don’t know for sure that the world is safer because of it, but my instinct is yes, it sure is.

It was an important turning point, and not just for Ukraine.