While Europe slept

On Winston Churchill, the Munich Security Conference, and why we ought to hope that people are listening to Emmanuel Macron

Winston Churchill famously published a collection of speeches from the period immediately before the UK was drawn into World War II which became known by the title “While England Slept”. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Churchill was vocal and forthright about the growing existential threat his country faced in the 1930s.

■ Sensible people should ask themselves whether Emmanuel Macron of France is in Churchill’s shoes today. At the Munich Security Conference, Macron has correctly identified that “If we reach a settlement on Ukraine, we will still have to contend with an aggressive Russia”, and that “Europe has to learn to become a geopolitical power” so that if Russia’s war on Ukraine can be ended, it will have the wherewithal to “define rules of coexistence that limit the risk of escalation”.

■ Churchill would have put it better, but he was unique in his ability, as Edward R. Murrow put it, to mobilize the language and send it into battle. Macron may be the best the world can get for now.

■ At least he is saying it, though. Europe took the post-Cold-War peace dividend and splurged on the faulty assumption that peace would reign forever. Far from it: It seems self-evident now that if the Kremlin had adequately feared or even respected a decisive European defensive mobilization, it wouldn’t have attacked Ukraine like it did. It’s too late to put that fear into them now, at least preemptively, but that’s no excuse to wait any longer to establish credible deterrence to any further invasions.