Russia’s unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation, in Europe no less, has put matters back in their proper framing. The question of whether the United States is a uniquely malevolent force in global politics has been resolved. In the span of a few days, skeptics of American power have gotten a taste of what a world where America grows weak and Russia grows strong looks like. Of course, there are still holdouts who insist on seeing the United States as the provocateur. In its only public statement on Ukraine, the Democratic Socialists of America condemned Russia’s invasion but also called for “the U.S. to withdraw from NATO and to end the imperialist expansionism that set the stage for this conflict.” This is an odd statement considering that Russia, rather than the United States, has been the world’s most unabashedly imperialist force for the past three decades. But many on the anti-imperialist left aren’t really anti-imperialist; they just have an instinctive aversion to American power.

America’s low opinion of its own capacity for good—and the resulting desire to retreat or disengage—hasn’t just been a preoccupation of the far left. The crisis of confidence has been pervasive, spreading to the halls of power and even President Barack Obama, whose memorable mantra was “Don’t do stupid shit.” Instead of thinking about what we could do, or what we could do better, Obama was more interested in a self-limiting principle. For their part, European powers—content to bask under their U.S. security umbrella—could afford to believe in fantasies of perpetual peace. Europe’s gentleness and lethargy—coaxing Germany to commit even 2 percent of its GDP to defense seemed impossible—became something of a joke. One popular Twitter account, @ISEUConcerned, devoted itself to mocking the European Union’s propensity to express “concern,” but do little else, whenever something bad happened.