What Trump is saying is that the future of the liberal democratic West depends on the non-liberal-democratic institutions from which we derive our values: family and faith. “We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive.” Nor will we survive if we neglect the non-liberal-democratic institutions that enforce liberal-democratic values: the military and police.

Trump doesn’t just want victory over ISIS. What he is calling for is nothing less than a reinvigoration of national spirit, of confidence, of pride in America and her allies. “Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield—it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls.”

These are more than remarks to the Poles. They describe a world of sovereign nation-states, governed by peoples proud of their histories and confident in their futures, united in common cause against the enemies of civilization, of freedom and human dignity. And Trump presents a challenge in the form of a question: Are we still made of that stuff that populated a continent, became an industrial powerhouse, went to the moon, and defeated the Kaiser and the Führer and the Emperor and the Politburo? I hope the answer is yes.