Take the Ukraine funds and accept the border enforcement deal!

The Republicans need to be placated because the alternative is catastrophe.

Russia attacked Kyiv this morning with missiles and drones, wounding 53.

By Robert Zubrin

Senate Republicans have offered Democrats a deal. They will approve US$60 billion to pay for arms for Ukraine in exchange for funds and enforcement reforms to strengthen US border security. Democrats need to grab that deal straight away.

To be clear, I think it is outrageous that the Republicans have put a price on their support for the defense of the free world. But still, they are offering that support in exchange for that price. This being the case, that price needs to be paid. The alternative is total catastrophe.

If the US cuts off its support for Ukraine, that country will fall to Russian invasion. In that case, Russia will be greatly strengthened both materially and technically, and its armed forces will be advanced to the borders of NATO allies Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Furthermore, Russia’s strategic weakness along its southwest border, which constrains its ability to invade the Baltic states, will be cured.

With Ukraine’s army deleted from the West’s order of battle, the US would either have to send 500,000 of its own troops to Europe to defend the continent or—more likely, given the rise of the Putin Republicans—watch NATO collapse, as first the Germans, then others, cut their deals with the Continent’s new Russia-China axis overlords.

With the US discredited as an ally, Taiwan will have no choice but to capitulate to China, while Japan and South Korea will be forced to initiate crash programs to develop their own nuclear arsenals. This will turn Asia into a tinder box for Armageddon. Even if global war is somehow avoided, the new world order will be anything but beneficial for the United States, as America’s enemies depress our economy by dictating the rules and outcomes for international business.

But America won’t have to wait that long to feel the outcome of a Ukrainian debacle. When Biden chose defeat in Afghanistan, handing over 40 million Afghans to the Taliban, he lost much of his political clout. If he chooses defeat in Ukraine, he will be utterly crushed by Trump in the fall. That could potentially mean the end of our constitutional Republic. So there is no choice. The Democrats must either accept the deal or watch the world go up in flames.

As for the immigration and border enforcement changes the GOP is demanding, let them have them. If they turn out for the good, take credit for the compromise. If they turn out for the bad, let them take the blame. But for the love of God, dear Democrats, take the deal.

But President Biden must do more than just take the deal. He must decide to fight the war to win. His policy of slow-rolling arms delivery to Ukraine needs to be abandoned, as it is both morally depraved and imbecilic. It is morally depraved because it has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. It is imbecilic because it risks losing the war. Its principal author, NSC Director Jake Sullivan, needs to be dismissed, and replaced by a competent advisor committed to victory.

Because victory is both necessary and possible. Ukraine has mobilized a large and brave army. What it needs to prevail is air power. The United States has 2,000 F-16s that we no longer use for any other purpose but target practice. Armed with long-range air-to-ground stand-off weapons and supplemented by a readily available arsenal of long-range ground-to-ground missiles and drones, these could cut off the supplies reaching the Russian front from behind. Under those conditions, the Russians’ extensive frontline defenses will need to be abandoned, and like sentry boxes without sentries, will readily be overrun by a victorious Ukrainian advance.

There may be some in the Democratic Party ranks who see a political opportunity in allowing Ukraine to collapse and then blaming the catastrophe on the GOP. This is unacceptable. In 1940 FDR did not allow Britain to fall so he could blame the disaster on the America Firsters. No, within a month of the Dunkirk evacuation he sent the British a million rifles, 7,000 field artillery guns, and 100 million rounds of ammunition. That is how a president needs to behave in a crisis. Biden is president. The buck stops with him.

Again, I fully understand that the GOP position is totally asinine. But consider the following thought problem:

Little Sally is drowning in the ocean. The only other people present are her grandfather, who can’t swim, and a lifeguard.

Grandpa: Save her!

Lifeguard: I will only do it if you pay me $100.

Grandpa: No way!

Little Sally is Ukraine, the lifeguard is the GOP. Biden is in Grandpa’s position. Should he let Sally drown rather than submit to the lifeguard’s extortion? Because that is the moral equivalent of the current political situation. Giving the GOP their way on immigration regulations is an insignificant concession compared to the consequences of a Ukrainian defeat. Regulation changes can always be undone later. A Russian conquest of Ukraine cannot.

Even if all the Democrats’ progressive wing cares about is the immigration issue, they should consider this: In the wake of an administration debacle over Ukraine, Trump will almost certainly take the White House. The immigration policies he will enact will be far more draconian than anything currently being proposed by the Senate Republicans.

Furthermore, should Putin conquer Ukraine, he will inflict massacres on that country not only to crush any potential resistance but to intentionally flood Europe with millions of refugees to stoke the fortunes of ultra-right wing parties allied to the Kremlin.

So President Biden, you now have a choice. Herd the Democratic cats in Congress to accept the deal and achieve a victory that will secure Europe and restore global deterrence, or accept a catastrophic defeat, leading to the collapse of the Western-led world order, global chaos, and quite possibly, the end of the American republic.

Take the deal, Joe. Take it and run with it.

Robert Zubrin is an American aerospace engineer. A version of this article was published in the Kyiv Post.

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Claire: I couldn’t agree with this more—if the argument rests on the correct premises. But I’m not sure it does. Is the GOP sincerely offering this deal? Or is it throwing up obstacles with the goal of hanging Ukraine out to dry?

The reporting about this is confusing. Here’s Jonathan Last making the same case, in the Bulwark: Biden should cave on immigration.

But also in the Bulwark, on the podcast, David Frum argues that the GOP is using the issue as a way to cut off funds for Ukraine while blaming Democrats for it. Here’s his article in The Atlantic to the same effect. If Frum is correct, it’s no accident that the reporting on this is confusing:

“We’re not going to negotiate in the pages of The Atlantic.”

That was the response I got from a congressional staffer when I pressed for some details, any details, on what really separated Democrats from Republicans on aid to Ukraine.

In other words, they’re obfuscating this deliberately.

“[I]n the multilateral negotiations among the White House and Republicans in both houses of Congress,” Frum writes,

the normal process of offer and counteroffer seems to have broken down altogether. I stress the word seems because getting clarity on the state of play is very difficult—as the response I received from the congressional staffer suggests.

On December 6, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued the following invitation to Republicans: Write an amendment detailing everything you want, and the Democratic Senate majority will let you bring it to the floor for a clean vote. That offer was rejected by Senate Republicans. How do you get to “yes” when the other side refuses to state its terms?

And indeed, that is indeed what Schumer said, beginning at about minute 5:00:

I have promised my Republican colleagues that if they agree to move forward, I will give them an amendment vote for a border package entirely of their choosing, no conditions. This is a golden opportunity for Republicans to present whatever border policy they want, and our side will not interfere with the construction of that amendment in any way.

It’s been reported that Senate Republicans will make another attempt to craft a border proposal and share it with Democrats because the last proposal was so far away from what anyone could accept on our side. [My emphasis.]

Well, I have a suggestion for my Republican colleagues: vote with us to begin debate and then bring that proposal to the floor as an amendment. We can debate it right here, right here, on the Senate floor. If Republicans vote no today, and reject the opportunity to offer a border amendment, then what the heck is going on?

Republicans said they want border. It’s they who have injected border into the Ukraine issue, even though the two are unrelated. And now they’re getting a golden opportunity to offer border at sixty votes. If that is not good enough for them, then what are they doing? Let’s not forget, Mr President, it was Republican Leader and others on the Republican side in the House and Senate, mainly from the hard right, who demanded that border and Ukraine be tied together. Well, we’re willing to give them an amendment! That’s what they’ve asked for! And now they’re spurning that offer.

Why hold up Ukraine aid if they can’t even present a border package that can pass the Senate? We’re asking ourselves this question. Has border been nothing more than an excuse for the hard right to kill funding for Ukraine, and too many other Republican Senators who are not part of the hard right are going along? I hope that’s not true.

The “last proposal” to which he’s referring—I assume—is H.R. 2. As Frum puts it:

H.R. 2 is certainly transformative. It would rewrite the asylum system from top to bottom; it passed the House in May by the narrow margin of 219–213. All Democrats present plus two Republicans voted no. H.R. 2 is obviously going nowhere in the Senate. For that matter, it’s not at all clear that H.R. 2 would have commanded a majority in the House if there were any prospect of its becoming law. H.R. 2 was an easy vote to please the Fox News audience without any need to weigh potential negative consequences.

Here’s H.R 2, introduced by Ted Cruz as the Secure the Border Act. Cruz says:

The Secure the Border Act will resume construction on the wall, tighten asylum standards, criminalize visa overstays, increase the number of Border Patrol Agents, defund NGOs receiving tax dollars to help traffic illegal aliens throughout the heartland, prohibit DHS from using its app to assist illegal aliens, and more.

Here’s a letter to Congress from the NEA, urging them to reject H.R.2. (Why are they lobbying on this issue? What does this have to do with education?)

On behalf of our 3 million members and the 50 million students they serve, we urge you to VOTE NO on the Secure the Border Act of 2023 (H.R. 2). Votes on this issue may be included in NEA’s Report Card for the 118th Congress. 

This bill would severely restrict—in effect, shut down—the US asylum system with burdensome new rules. It would also restore Trump-era medieval solutions to modern-day problems, like resuming construction of a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico.

Asylum seekers and their families would be required to wait in detention facilities or outside the United States before their claims are heard—harmful and traumatic for all involved, but especially children. To discourage people from seeking asylum in the first place, the bill would bar nongovernmental organizations—even those with religious affiliations—from working with the US government to shelter or support immigrants.  

The treatment of unaccompanied children, an especially vulnerable population, is downright alarming. The bill would decimate current safeguards, which have bipartisan support, and destroy the U.S. protection system as we know it. As a result, more children could become victims of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and extreme violence.

We know the immigration process has long been in desperate need of attention, but H.R. 2 is not the answer. NEA is committed to working with Congress to advance sound solutions that protect those who seek refuge in this country as well as our immigrant students and educators.

If this is what’s at issue, I’m with Robert and Jonathan: Pass it. Screw the NEA. Screw the asylum-seekers. No, these aren’t policies I favor, but every argument Robert makes is correct. Give them what they want.

But here’s Frum’s theory:

The border is Biden’s single greatest political vulnerability. A recent NBC poll puts the Republican advantage on immigration at 18 points and border security at 30 points. Suppose Republicans did extract a big border concession in 2023; suppose they got everything they wanted. Then suppose their policy worked, and the flow of asylum seekers really did taper off dramatically in 2024. Would not the result of that success be only to strengthen Biden’s reelection chances and hurt Donald Trump’s? Maybe the reason Democrats are having so much difficulty getting to “yes” with Republicans is that many Republicans are committed to “no,” regardless of what the offer is.

Would the GOP really be willing to sacrifice not just Ukraine, but what remains of American honor and any hope of arresting the world’s terrifying slide into Hobbesian chaos? Are they truly willing to invite global war? To send their own children to die in the war they’re inviting? Yes, Frum argues, presumably because they’re too witless to understand that this is exactly what will ensue if Ukraine loses:

The premise of much of the reporting about the negotiation is that Republicans sincerely care about the border and are using Ukraine and Israel as leverage in order to get their way on their higher priority. But for some Republicans, at least, stopping aid to Ukraine seems a priority in itself. A few actively subscribe to the pro-Putin politics of the far right. Others—including Speaker Johnson himself—started as supporters of Ukraine but have bent their view under the influence of anti-Ukraine party spirit. (Johnson supported the initial tranche of Ukraine aid in March 2022 but had defected to the anti-Ukraine side by May of that year.) Whatever each member’s motives and story are, the result has delivered them to the point where immigration-for-Ukraine no longer looks to them like a win-win deal.

I fear he could be right. Axios recently reported that Donald Trump is entertaining the idea of asking Tucker Carlson to be his running mate. Melania is in favor, apparently. The two men, they report, “talk a lot.” We know what Carlson is.

Trump loathes Ukraine even absent Carlson’s influence. He’s hardly been shy in expressing this. Many members of Congress have no higher goal than pleasing Trump, not even saving their own kids. (Either that, or they’re just too thick to understand that only Ukraine is standing between Russia and their kids.)

Biden has said he’s open to “significant compromises on the border.” If House Republicans are actually concerned about the border, this is the best opportunity they’ll get—at least so long as Biden’s in office and they don’t hold the Senate—to do something about it. (You can be sure that if they allow Ukraine to go under, Democrats will not be entertaining any further proposals.) If they’re not willing to negotiate, it can only mean that they don’t actually give a rat’s ass about the border. They’re using it as an excuse to sink Ukraine.

I don’t know what’s really happening. If there’s any deal on the table, Democrats must take it.

If there isn’t, the GOP has chosen dishonor and we will have war.

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Related

Ukraine’s partners need to stand united against Russia’s illegal war. From the prime ministers of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and the president of Finland:

… This is a critical time for Ukraine, for Europe and for global security. Lessening support to Ukraine now is not an option. On the contrary, now is the time to harness support and stick to our plans for how we will help Ukraine be successful in the war, rebuild the country and defend itself in the long run. Russia is eager to exploit divisions. We must continue to stand united against Russia’s illegal and immoral war just as we have done since the invasion. Otherwise we risk a world with less freedom and less security for decades, if not generations, to come.

How we act in supporting Ukraine is being closely monitored. Our message must be that we cannot let them down. We must show that our beliefs in human dignity, freedom and justice are not negotiable. We will not allow an aggressor to dictate the terms of European security. The Ukrainians fight courageously for their country’s very existence. For freedom, for democracy and for the right to decide one’s own future. Over the last 22 months, they have inspired and impressed the world and continue to do so. Ukraine needs our continued support, our partnership and our solidarity more than ever. Their fight for freedom depends on our perseverance in staying the course. Our shared security depends on it as well.

Now is not the time to tire.

Norway just put its money where its mouth is:

So did Denmark:

Doing well by doing right. American support for Ukraine:

… It is right to stand by Ukraine in this war. It is a situation of unusual moral simplicity. Ukraine was attacked in violation of international law, and is defending itself. Russian occupiers in Ukraine commit war crimes, which cease only when territory is liberated. Russian propagandists say the goal of the elimination of the Ukrainian nation as such. 

And America has done well by supporting Ukraine. It is a situation of unusual strategic gain. Ukrainians are fulfilling the entire NATO mission by themselves, absorbing and halting a full-scale Russian attack. Ukrainians are deterring a Chinese offensive in the Pacific by demonstrating how difficult such an operation would be. Ukrainians are defending the notion of an international order with rules, making war elsewhere less likely.

And there is an important way that doing right and doing well come together. Ukraine was attacked as a democracy, and is defending itself as a democracy.  It is historically unusual for a dictatorship to try to destroy a democracy by force. That Putin’s Russia is trying to do so reminds us that we are a historical turning point. On one side of the scale are Russia’s ruthlessness and resources. On the other side are Ukrainians’ sacrifice and our support. Their sacrifice will be enough, if our assistance will be enough.

Historians will look back at these two years of war and marvel at how much the Ukrainians did for their allies.  I expect they will describe this turning point for what it was, including in its moral dimension. What I can’t predict is which way matters will turn, since that depends upon us, and what we do in the next few days. We have an unusual chance to do well by doing right. Will we take it?

While the West dithers, the future of the world is being decided in Ukraine:

… Western unity is increasingly in question, with US support for Ukraine becoming hostage to political infighting and pro-Kremlin forces winning national elections in the EU. Meanwhile, pledges of new aid from Ukraine’s partners have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war. This is fueling a growing sense of jubilation in Moscow, where many believe recent developments vindicate earlier Russian predictions that any Western resolve to oppose the Kremlin would prove short-lived.

Unsurprisingly, Putin is now more confident than ever that he can outlast the West in Ukraine. … While the Ukrainian people are Russia’s immediate target, it would be a grave mistake to assume Putin’s revisionist ambitions are limited to the reconquest of Ukraine alone. On the contrary, if he succeeds in subjugating Ukraine, it is clear from Putin’s own words and actions that he will go further.

On the domestic front, Putin has succeeded in transforming Russia into a highly militarized dictatorship, while preaching an ideological crusade against the Western world that can only be sustained through perpetual conflict. On the international stage, he has burned his bridges with the West, reoriented the Russian economy away from Europe, and is busy building an international axis of anti-Western authoritarians together with China, Iran, and North Korea. … For Putin, the invasion of Ukraine has always been part of a far broader historic mission to end the era of Western dominance.

… If Putin is permitted to realize his dream of a turbulent new world order, the Russian invasion of Ukraine will provide inspiration for authoritarians around the globe and serve as a template for acts of aggression on every continent. This unraveling of the existing order is already evident everywhere from the Caucasus to South America. In recent months, it could be witnessed in Azerbaijan’s lightning seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel, and Venezuela’s saber-rattling against neighboring Guyana.

If the current geopolitical trajectory continues, it is only a matter of time before today’s escalating instability penetrates the borders of the European Union and the NATO Alliance. With Western leaders demoralized and discredited by the fall of Ukraine, it is far from certain that either institution would still have the requisite strength to survive.

Even if a major war between great powers could be avoided, Western governments would find themselves obliged to prioritize military spending and dramatically increase defense budgets. The days of squabbling over a few billion dollars to arm Ukraine would soon seem quaint in comparison. International trade would also suffer as the global peace dividend of the past three decades evaporated in a climate of mounting distrust and hybrid hostilities. It is entirely possible that the years from 1991 to 2024 will soon be viewed as a lost golden age of comparative tranquility.

None of this is inevitable. While the world is clearly changing with new centers of power emerging, the collective West still has more than enough economic, military, and diplomatic weight to shape the future for decades to come. The real question is whether the leaders of the democratic world are prepared to match the soft power they have long taken for granted with the kind of hard power necessary to thwart Russia’s destructive agenda.

For now, too many people in the West seem far more afraid of defeating Putin than of actually stopping him. They remain in denial over the scale of the civilizational challenge posed by Russia, and continue to labor under the comforting delusion that some kind of compromise can return the world to the prewar status quo. In reality, a confrontation with Putin’s Russia can no longer be avoided; it can only be won or lost. The Ukrainians are more than capable of delivering this victory, but they require the tools to do so. If Western leaders choose not to adequately arm Ukraine, future generations will view their decision as one of the great geopolitical turning points of the twenty-first century.

Test of the West. Liberal democracies face a perilous crossroads: Each moment of Western hesitancy in supporting Ukraine deals a chink in the armor of liberal democracies, in turn pushing the price we may all have to pay to defend our freedoms higher and higher:

There are times in history when those who enjoy the fruits of free societies are tested. Is that blissful anodyne existence of easy criticism, free discourse and relaxed harmony, something which they genuinely value, or are they willing to trade freedom for tyranny when times get tough?

Such time is now. …

Across the pond, there seems to be some incertitude. Born from the furnace of its own revolutionary war, the US has been a staunch ally of liberty. But is that sense of individualism eroding back into isolationism, carried forward in a current of cynicism?

The US does not have some unspoken mandate or responsibility to use its vast military and financial capability to come to the aid of other nations. There is no presumption that the US is sitting there waiting for a phone call to sacrifice blood and treasure to bail out others. But in every stage of human development, there are always nations that command the moral, material, and manpower superiority to provide that role, and the question is whether they have the strength of character to recognize that unfortunate and, perhaps, unwanted position, and to heed the call. …

The danger of an autocratic dark age engulfing large parts of the globe is a real and serious threat. The coordination of these axes opposed to the liberal and democratic vision of humankind gets stronger by the day. This, it should be said, is largely fueled by the western world’s weakness.

At every check point at which we fail to believe in ourselves, the lessons of brazen conquest become clearer. Push onwards and the West will buckle. Even if the US Congress was to approve aid tomorrow, a few weeks of dithering suggests that there are fractures within the US’s self-confidence or international conviction. Maybe another year of this will open those cracks wider? And so, the forces against freedom are emboldened.

Each moment of hesitancy delivers a stronger conviction that liberal democracies can be hounded into a corner. The price that we may ultimately have to pay to defend our freedoms rises higher and higher. …

There isn’t much leeway in all this. The decisions taken in the coming months could ramify across decades, potentially even centuries. Democracy, the liberal order, the freedoms of an open society—they are not a system of government that bubbles up from the wreckage automatically. They must constantly be clearly stated and defended. Anyone who holds these ideas to be valuable must do it, but the most powerful nation that can do it has a special responsibility.

Will the US stumble in the cause of freedom? At the eleventh hour, when the resolve, energy, and fortitude of all those who love liberty are tested to its limits, when easy excuses and slogans for election campaigns are cheap, will the US, at this moment, lose its focus and its nerve? We will find out. And upon that outcome, a great deal will rest.

What’s at stake and what’s needed: It imperative that the seriousness of the situation is understood and that the US does not allow Russia to get away with murder of people and nations:

… The war in Ukraine is attributable to a failure of deterrence by the Biden administration. The disastrous pullout from Afghanistan marked President Biden as a weak leader and encouraged President Putin to try his hand at Ukraine. When Biden declined to deter Russia with promises of direct military assistance to Ukraine, Putin again felt he had a green light to invade. Only when public opinion nevertheless demanded that the US government support Ukraine did the Biden administration take a stand, but even then slow-played the provision of arms and other support, allowing the Russians to entrench and deliver the stalemate which now prevails. In addition, the ongoing vacillation in US policy fuels the current Russian onslaught in Ukraine.  

If the Republicans are reluctant to fund the war, well, President Biden has given them leeway to do so. Instead, the President should stand up and declare that the US intends to see the war through to victory. If the Republicans want to champion a loss in Ukraine, let them own it. If Republicans want to run on “I’m the guy who lost to the Russians,” let them run on it.  The Republicans are rapidly getting used to losing elections they should win. But if the President thinks vacillation will win him political support, it won't. It will only reinforce a view of him as a weak leader.  Biden needs to stand up and clearly declare that the US is playing to win. …

… While Russia’s economy is large compared to Ukraine’s, it is chump change compared to the US economy, which is 14 times larger as measured by current US dollar GDP  The comparison is even more ridiculous if Ukraine’s broader set of allies is included, which together with the US, have a GDP 27 times that of Russia. The notion that the US and Europe are somehow unable to keep pace with Russian military spending is absurd on the face of it.  This is the equivalent of a 270-lb. man being afraid of a 10-lb. child.  Indeed, the IMF projects the US economy to add the equivalent of two Russias to 2028.  

The question is whether Republican leadership intends to lose to a Russia which qualifies not as the high school varsity team, not as the junior varsity, but as the eighth grade pick-up team.  Does House Speaker Johnson really intend to be remembered as the guy who lost to the eighth graders? One would hope not. It’s time to stop fooling around and get back in the game.

… None of this should be construed as antipathy to many Republican objectives, including accountability for Ukraine funding and reinstating border control. No one has garnered more coverage in the right media than I have regarding the border, and no one has been more critical of administration border policy than I have. Notwithstanding, it’s time to stop fooling around with Ukraine’s funding.

As a conceptual matter, beating Russia is not particularly hard. We have a bigger stack of chips at the poker table. A much, much bigger stack. With that, our strategy comes down to a predictable call-and-raise. Whatever the Russians put in, we put in more. And if we want to save money, we reach across the table and take the Russians chips away from them. Right now, we need policy that is steady and confident, with the awareness that we are the big boy at the table. It will still be a long war, but we can easily regain the upper hand.

War or peace? Dictatorship or democracy? Europe’s future is on the line:

I have been in more than 20 European countries this year and I have seen two Europes. Across large parts of the continent, you’re still in a Europe where high-speed trains waft you across frontiers you hardly notice, as you travel seamlessly between highly integrated liberal democracies resolved to solve all their remaining conflicts by peaceful means. But take an old slow train just a few hours to the east and you are spending time in bomb shelters and talking to badly wounded soldiers with tales from the trenches reminiscent of the First World War. …

Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 ended the post-Wall period—the one that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989—and we are now in the formative years of a new period whose name and character we don’t yet know. In politics, as in relationships, beginnings matter. The first few years after 1945 set the basic parameters for a European order that lasted decades thereafter, as did the years immediately after 1989.

Intellectually, European leaders know this. It’s the subject of a thousand politicians’ speeches and thinktank webinars. Russia’s war against Ukraine has significantly changed attitudes to security in countries such as Germany and Denmark, not to mention Finland and Sweden, catapulted from long-standing neutrality to NATO membership. But emotionally, and in the wider society, it’s much less clear. Earlier this year, a student at Göttingen University asked me if I thought there would be a new European generation of “22ers”—their commitment to building a better Europe shaped by the impact of the largest war in Europe since 1945. I’ve been asking that question all over the continent ever since, but the feedback is not encouraging. Even in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, people shake their heads and say “not really.” In places farther west, such as Italy, Spain, Portugal or Ireland, the negative is even more decided.

Partly this is because of the very robustness of the European order built since 1945, and both widened and deepened since 1989. People living in countries that belong to NATO and the EU still don’t really believe that war can come to their front doors. With a heap of problems at home, from inflation to struggling welfare states, they are understandably reluctant to face up to the daunting challenges all around us, from war in the east to migratory pressures in the south, from a melting ice cap in the north to the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency in the West. And their politicians hesitate to give it to them straight, for fear of not being reelected. …

Which of the two Europes will prevail? It’s the question I’ve been asked everywhere this year, since obviously historians must know the future. But the answer lies not in any inevitable historical process but in ourselves. It’s up to us.

A guide to Poland’s new prime minister:

While presenting his political program to parliament ahead of a confidence vote on Tuesday, December 12, Tusk said his proposed new government would call for the West’s “full mobilization” in support of Ukraine. “We will call loud and clear for full mobilization on the part of the free world, the West, in support of Ukraine in this war. There is no alternative,” he said. “I can no longer listen to politicians who say they are tired of the situation in Ukraine,” he added.

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See also:

• Miscalculations, divisions marked offensive planning by US, Ukraine, an excellent two-part series by the Washington Post.

• What the Washington Post missed about Ukraine’s counteroffensive, also excellent.