Despite the grim news from Ukraine, there was an almost-celebratory tone among many of the Western leaders gathered. Many speakers boasted that the NATO alliance was back, after a soggy period described here just two years ago as “Westlessness.” European allies have joined the United States in pledging sanctions against Putin described as “heavy,” “massive” and “swift and severe” — but which Zelensky decried as too late to prevent the carnage that has already begun in his country.

NATO’s unity is indeed an achievement. But war is always a failure. This one has been building, in stages, for years. Putin all but announced his intentions. The forums and proposals that might have prevented conflict were clear. Still, Russian tanks rolled toward what might be the bloodiest and most one-sided assault in modern European history.

Zelensky, a feisty, erratic man who often seems more suited to his former role as a television comedian than a Churchillian war leader, asked a question that should haunt the Munich delegates: “How did we get to this point in the 21st century where war is being waged and people are dying in Europe? … To me, this answer is obvious: The security architecture of our world is brittle, it is obsolete. The rules that have been agreed upon by the world dozens of years ago are no longer working.”