Peter Beinart excoriates the doughface liberals who during the Cold War put anti-imperialism before anti-totalitarianism and demanded total moral purity on the part of the United States, thus opposing any action in the real world to resist Soviet expansionism. If the Democrats were, as he advocates, to return to the Trumanesque anti-totalitarian liberalism that held sway in the party from roughly 1947 to 1972, the party and the country would be better off.
There is no appeasing Putin. Frankly, there is no directly stopping him, either. It is only possible to raise the costs to him of his war, including the military costs. If we won't provide military materiel to Ukraine now, we deserve the contempt with which Putin regards us.
There is simply no substitute for forceful American leadership. Sometimes the best way to get allies is to be willing to forge ahead alone.
