… Wouldn’t it be cheaper for the West to let Ukraine fail and be annexed by Vladimir Putin?

Mick Ryan, the former Australian general and close Ukraine observer, alluded to the answer in a podcast Tuesday. Russia doesn’t have a military strategy to overwhelm Kyiv. Instead, it has a messaging strategy, he says: “Europe, America, there is no point supporting Ukraine because they’re going to lose. So why throw good money after bad?”

If so, Mr. Putin miscalculates. The mood has shifted decisively in NATO to seeing Ukraine as the cheapest, most advantageous front on which to ensure Europe’s long-term security against an unstable and problematic Russia. The new consensus is the biggest change in the last year.

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It remains hilarious to see some of Mr. Trump’s critics ignoring his many conflicting gestures and imposing a nonexistent consistency on his motives to make their three-year-old tweets look good. Long term isn’t his métier. Mr. Trump’s idea of impulse control is to express as many impulses as possible in a 24-hour period.

Fortunately, other players are insurance against his readiness to enter into deals bad for the U.S. in the long run because they look good in the short run. His emissaries to Kyiv this week? A trio of U.S. Army brass. The U.S. Army is the branch most sensitive to the advantages of a strong Ukraine to help contain Russia in the coming decade.

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The war will continue, it’s painful to repeat, because Mr. Trump isn’t doing enough to make its continuation unsupportable for Mr. Putin. One more thing: Because they haven’t lived through it, many might be surprised how close to the surface are contingencies that would totally commandeer the U.S. economy and politics for the next few years. A chaotic outcome in Ukraine is one.

Slava Ukraine!