ODESA—Western voters have been offered two thoroughly unsatisfactory propositions on Ukraine. On the one hand, leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz ask them to support a country whose survival they describe as essential, without making sufficiently clear how their policies will secure it. On the other, leaders (or aspiring ones) like America’s Donald Trump, Germany’s Alice Weidel, and France’s Marine Le Pen offer various routes toward disengagement, without accounting for what a Russian victory would eventually cost the West.
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Neither camp offers a credible strategy for victory or for restoring the West’s long-term economic and military dominance. Macron and Merz declare Ukraine indispensable, then fail to match that judgment with sufficient resolve, investment, and firepower. Trump, Weidel, and Le Pen would squander Ukraine’s strength for the (far from guaranteed!) prospect of cheaper trade with the country attacking it. Western citizens are being asked to choose between leaders unwilling to commit enough to win and politicians prepared to sell defeat as an achievement. Neither camp’s approach adequately protects the West’s ability to remain powerful, prosperous, and sovereign.
There is no doubt in my mind that helping Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion is our moral obligation. But I do not need convincing, and repeating that argument will not persuade people whose capacity to care has been worn down by years of crises. A household struggling with higher prices, or a voter worried about immigration and deteriorating public services, may have little attention left for Ukraine. Others never cared in the first place. Governments cannot build a durable policy on the expectation that everyone eventually will.
However, those people still care about their own security and their children’s prospects. They want their country to prosper and retain control over its future. Any European seeking to lead must explain what Ukrainian victory would secure for them, what defeat would endanger, and what winning will require. Voters should understand what they stand to gain from Ukrainian success and what they would pay for its defeat, regardless of how much sympathy they feel.
European leaders have acknowledged those concerns. Emmanuel Macron told the French public in March 2025 that “our own security is under threat as well.” Germany’s government explicitly links Ukrainian sovereignty to German security. Substantial assistance has followed. But the situation still demands greater determination than Europe has displayed.
