Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reenergized the Trans-Atlantic alliance in a manner unthinkable just two years ago. President Donald Trump entered office in 2017 with a deeply skeptical view of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the role of the United States as the world’s policeman and guarantor of European and Pacific security.
In 1940, President Roosevelt, faced with a reluctant public and Congress, employed bold stratagems to deliver military aid to beleaguered England. Today, President Biden, faced with a pro-military aid public and Congress, resists giving heavy arms to Ukraine. Ukraine is requesting those weapons (MiGs, artillery, armored vehicles) to retake territory. Biden refuses to deliver them. This must change.
In 355 B.C., Athens stood down. The previous thirteen years of war in the Aegean were the latest episode in a long struggle to regain the lost empire of Pericles, and a failed episode at that. The Gallipoli peninsula, the strategic northern-Greek city of Amphipolis, and various Aegean islands all defied Athenian conquest. Exhausted and bankrupt, Athenians turned inward. Under the leadership of Eubulus, they focused on trade, infrastructure, and the welfare state.
