In effect, Zelensky asked the assembled dignitaries a simple question: What is the point of a European security architecture that doesn’t seem willing or able to do the one thing it for which it was constructed — namely, to prevent war?

“The architecture of world security is fragile and needs to be updated,” he said. “The rules that the world agreed on decades ago no longer work. They do not keep up with new threats.”…

Zelensky laid out a long list of things the West should do to increase its support for Ukraine before, not after, a potential attack. They included imposing some sanctions on Russia, delivering more weapons (including more sophisticated ones), providing Ukraine with more economic and financial support as its economy suffers, and making affirmative statements about Ukraine’s progress toward joining NATO and the E.U. He accused the West of abandoning the security guarantees it made to Ukraine in 1994 in exchange for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons…

Of course, nobody knows what Western unity will look like after the bombs start to fall. Will Germany really cancel the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the middle of an energy crisis? Will Europe really go along with cutting off Russian banks? Will Russian aggressions short of a full invasion, such as Putin’s recognition Monday of two Ukrainian provinces as independent, be met with a unified response? And what will be the effect on Western unity of millions of Ukrainian refugees flowing into Europe?