In the wake of this war in Ukraine, we often evoke the preludes of the Second World War, with the invasion of Austria and then of Czechoslovakia by Adolf Hitler. When the Führer’s greed then turned to Poland, only France and Great Britain reacted weakly.
But we can also think of a more recent event, which the oldest can remember, the missile crisis in Cuba (in November 1962). With the blessing of Fidel Castro, the Soviet Russians then wanted to plant missiles in Cuba, directly threatening the United States 100 kilometers from Florida. Then-President John F. Kennedy decided that they had crossed the red line: he announced that Soviet ships going to Cuba would be boarded and searched by the US Navy. In international law, it is a casus belli. World tension was then at its height, and as a young teenager I remembered the American B-29 superbombers, based in Plattsburgh, which circled 24 hours a day crossing the skies of Saint John. They were waiting to head north to drop their atomic charges on Russia. Then the Russians, seeing the American determination, retreated.
So there was then a head of state who drew a red line, with determination and courage to push back the aggressors. These kinds of aggressors only back down from strength and determination, not from good souls and the faint-hearted. The more we go back, the more they advance.
What we need most right now is courage.
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