First, the Ukraine crisis is about Russian President Vladimir Putin, suffering from what historians refer to as the “rationality slippage” that comes with 22 years of autocratic power. Having grown more rigid and isolated with time – surrounded by sycophants and facing unanticipated Ukrainian resistance – he is doubling down on his premeditated, unprovoked, illegal, and immoral war.

Second, however, it is even more about the West, and whether we can reverse the “purposefulness slippage” among Western democracies of the past three decades, underscored by an erosion of democratic gains around the world since 2006. Putin is the result of our mass amnesia about what despots do when they are appeased for too long. Ukraine is the immediate, but not only, victim.

We responded too little after Russia’s cyberattack on Estonia in 2007, Russia’s Georgian invasion in 2008, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Donbas military intervention in 2014; Russia’s ongoing cyber and disinformation attacks on U.S. and other democracies; its repression and assassination of opponents; and now this unfolding international crime scene in Ukraine.

A flurry of weekend announcements signals a tectonic shift in Europe and no less significant a move within the Biden administration to a more assertive posture, suggesting a growing realization that Putin’s aggressions are as much a danger to Europe’s future as it is to Ukraine.