President Biden and our European allies closed every off-ramp for Russia while misleading Ukraine into thinking we would defend it.

Not every war is unnecessary or avoidable, but history might well judge the Russo-Ukrainian war as both, not least because the United States and its European allies could have prevented it, but didn’t.

The decision to go to war was Russia’s, and Russia bears ultimate responsibility for what happens now. But that does not absolve the West of its strategic incompetence and complacency, and it does not mean the United States and its allies are guiltless in all of this............