Czech Republic

“Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred!” is how Václav Havel ended his speech to a crowd of freedom-longing people gathered in Prague on December 10, 1989. This statement was one of the slogans of the Velvet Revolution and embodied the overall spirit of this unparalleled historical event.

As Vladimir Putin continues his war of war crimes against Ukraine, there are arguments swirling around—some more serious than others—that this war is, somehow, NATO’s fault. That’s certainly what Putin believes, but the blame-NATO crowd is wrong.

The courage of Václav Havel was grounded in a sense of responsibility for promoting ideals and values that transcend material goods, confront human decadence, and endure beyond our earthly existence.

Living in truth was Václav Havel’s basic answer to the problem of falsehood, one of the defining characteristics of the ideology and regime that ruled Czechoslovakia until 1989.

The choice between attending or abstaining from September’s Durban IV conference in New York City—the twentieth anniversary of the anti-racism conference that quickly became a confluence of antisemitism—is the newest episode in Europe’s increasingly divided policy toward the Jewish state and combatting antisemitism.

What does NATO need to do going forward? The short answer: more and less.

Slovak and Czech politicians tell us that the mutual relationship has never been better, and there is no incongruity between their words and public opinion. This is part of the irony of Czechoslovakia’s history.

As the number of missile-wielding states grows and as the nuclear club expands, the likelihood of a missile being unleashed against the American people or their allies—whether by mistake, miscalculation, or a madman—also grows. Missile defense doesn’t eliminate the danger, but it does give us a fighting chance to confront it.