U.S. and Europe Should Stop Congratulating Themselves
Stirring rhetoric about Western unity and resolve in the face of Russia’s brutal attacks may sound impressive, but it’s as likely to backfire as the response to Sept. 11 did.
Biden’s high-flown speechifying could be counterproductive.
Photographer: Omar Marques/Getty Images
Cold War language about Western unity and the “long fight” against autocracy has become more rousing as Russia flounders in Ukraine. It is time to start worrying that the response to Vladimir Putin's aggression, led by U.S. President Joe Biden, might cause more widespread damage than even the Russian despot had planned.
One only has to recall the Western reaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. After that atrocity, politicians and journalists freely indulged in the kind of spine-stiffening rhetoric Biden used in Warsaw last week. Those few dissenters who warned against self-congratulatory hawkishness — including the late writer Susan Sontag, who pleaded, “Let's not be stupid together” — were viciously attacked.