Edward Hunter Christie is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He served as a NATO official from 2014 to 2020
We're on the verge of being check-mated by just one man, namely Vladimir Putin.
He overreached so much, we could've wrecked him, his regime, his expeditionary forces, and to some extent even his country. But he could count on his cattle-like population to just obey, obey, obey.
And he could count on decades of chosen weakness on the part of European leaders to simultaneously give him tons of money and power by buying his oil and gas and refuse to have any serious military strength.
And he could count on the West's nuclear policy "experts" to be fully predictable little meat robots - all he had to do was imply a few threats and the seed of fear was planted, guaranteeing that no American troops, and no European troops, would stand in his way.
And he knew he could count on, especially, Biden, Scholz, and Macron being ultimately too afraid to directly stop him.
Once the key Western states were on an intermediate trajectory of helping Ukraine somewhat, but not too much, and with any strong actions completely off the table, he then only needed to gradually erode the resolve of the Western world and to create distractions and diversions elsewhere.
In that, he could count on the incredible brittleness of American democracy, where you can brainwash tens of millions of voters just by buying some key influencers, which in turn gets you half of one of the two political parties to get legs of jelly in front of Moscow while they talk bombastically about everything but Moscow.
Sensing the weakness dish was close to ready, he did the same trick he'd done in 2015, when he'd seen he couldn't get more in Europe - open a 2nd front (at that time, Syria, and then our elections).
First, he's been tearing through the Sahel region with near-complete impunity, expelling France while America remained passive.
Then he tested the waters: what if Iran openly helps Russia to attack Ukraine? Can the war be broadened, or will the West smack Iran down?
We did nothing of any seriousness, and so the aid only continued - Iranian Shahed drones are raining down on Ukraine on a regular basis to this very day. And that also emboldened Iran within the Middle East.
Putin likely encouraged the Iranians and Hamas to attack Israel, but even if he didn't, it's clear that our failure to act against Iran made the Hamas attack against Israel more likely.
This opened a second front in the global confrontation of the revisionist states against the Western order, and a perfect excuse for weak-willed Republican politicians to pretend to be strong by supporting Israel while dropping Ukraine.
And it isn't over.
God knows what Putin is about to do to the oil markets, but he obviously visited KSA and UAE for that reason, and the Iranians visiting Moscow today can hardly be a coincidence - in addition to everything else they would wish to coordinate.
And where are we now?
US assistance to Ukraine is on course towards drying up and it cannot be fully replaced, even with massive efforts on the European side. Just as critically, longer-range weapons aren't being sent, F-16s aren't being sent.
And we also have unchecked obstacles to helping Ukraine coming from Turkey, from Hungary, from Slovakia, even from Poland. This is catastrophic, and it is pathetically weak and dishonourable, too.
There is much blame to go around. But more than that, the costs and the dishonour are disastrous.
Those who have the misfortune of being trapped within the Russian sphere of control will be crushed in a neo-Stalinist purge. The Middle East will continue in semi-controlled and costly chaos. China is emboldened and arming up fast.
Europe still hasn't properly woken up and can't handle its own neighbourhood.
And America's prestige and place in the world are crumbling for all to see.