War in Europe?
Russia has invaded Ukraine in an all-out assault. Now the question for the West is whether we will get drawn into this war. President Biden had moved 3,000 of the 90,000 troops in Europe to Poland and Romania, countries that border Ukraine, hoping they would be a deterrent to Russian President Putin’s territorial ambitions. That did not work. So now President Biden is moving American troops and aircraft into the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which border Russia and which, like Ukraine, also had been part of the Soviet Union that Putin would like to reassemble. Unlike Ukraine, though, they are members of NATO. Since all NATO members are obliged to come to the aid of any NATO member that is attacked, the Baltics and the American forces stationed there are a trip-wire for a war involving all of Europe and the United States. The NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg of Norway, is warning that there is a “real risk” of “full-on” war in Europe: “Ukraine is a hig