Thread by @Malinowski

I'm just returning from the Munich Security Conference, where national security leaders from the US & Europe gathered to confront the Ukraine crisis. Some good news: I've honestly never seen more unity among our allies, or our two parties in Congress, on any global issue. 1/

The war Putin is threatening would be a totally unprovoked attack by a dictatorship on a democracy -- a decision by one man to kill thousands of people and to seize the territory of a sovereign country because it won't bend to his will. 2/

Putin appeasers and apologists say we could avoid a war by giving in to his demand that Ukraine never join NATO. They forget Ukraine made that promise in 2010, and Russia still invaded it four years later. brookings.edu/opinions/ukrai… 3/

What threatens Putin is not NATO, but Ukraine's existence as an independent democracy, and the example it sets for his people. What he truly wants is something we cannot give - a world where powerful countries and rulers can do what they please to those with less power. 4/

I wish we'd done more sooner to send home Russia's kleptocrats & their dirty money and to counter its energy blackmail. In Munich, Ukrainian President Zelensky urged us to do more now. Such steps could have weakened Putin. But I'm not sure if anything could have changed him. 5/

But if he does launch an invasion, this will not be over (just as nothing was "over" when Russia took Afghanistan in 1979). Ukrainians will fight. Kiev's mayor, a brave man (and former boxing champ), told us every gun store in the country is sold out. We will help them, too. 6/

I still hope we can prevent such a horrible conflict, but if it comes, we will work to ensure that Putin's regime emerges weaker, and that America and our allies come out stronger and more unified. We can absolutely achieve that goal if we remain committed to it. 6/

BTW, I've been making this trip to Munich since John McCain first invited me a decade ago. It's now ably led by Senators Lindsay Graham & Sheldon Whitehouse, but still called "CODEL McCain." I often think of what he said when he last traveled with us. 7/ americanrhetoric.com/speeches/johnm…

McCain said that Americans should learn from our mistakes, but not be paralyzed by fear, that we must have the confidence to "take our own side" in the fight for "truth against falsehood, freedom against tyranny, right against injustice, hope against despair." Yes we should. 8/