Nor were the hidden motives of the policy obscure. The war recently ignited in Iran had caused oil shortages and sharp price spikes; midterm elections were at hand, where the votes of citizens wavered under the rising cost of daily grain. Two days earlier, the same ruler had decreed an easing of the trade in diesel fuel with Russia to suppress prices at home. This the allies openly resented; seven senators in Washington as well, four of them from his own faction, denounced the agreement as unlawful; Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada, warned plainly that this arrangement stood in direct opposition to peace in Europe. A cure for the uproar was therefore sought: to feign a truce, that commerce might be justified.

Yet while words flew through the air, iron sought the earth. Volodymyr Zelenskyy had scarcely ceased to marvel when power plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv collapsed under missile strikes. With the cities deprived of light and warmth, the president of Ukraine reported that the skies all day had been infested with the winged drones called 'shaheds', designed in Persia. The enemy, whom Trump boasted had agreed, answered with strikes rather than envoys. Weapons had not halted in any way; only the sound of a voice had changed.

To this was added an insult directed at allies. Asked about the criticism on the preceding day, Trump declared publicly that it was time for Ukraine to obtain a new president who would know how to settle the war. To him Zelenskyy replied through the media that it belonged not to an alien commander but to his own citizens to choose magistrates; let the enemy rather grant sixty days of total ceasefire, and they would hold elections forthwith. Thus arrogance was hurled back against contempt.

The European leaders, meanwhile, acted dubiously between fear and flattery. Ursula von der Leyen and Andy Burnham of Britain praised the name of peace, parading hope where nothing was certain; Emmanuel Macron, though he desired a true ceasefire, was forced to admit that Russia had intensified its strikes; German minister Johann Wadephul affirmed his fidelity to the alliance. A pitiable condition for envoys: they are compelled to pretend to believe what they do not see happening, lest they provoke the anger of the stronger man.

This was the state of affairs: the appearance of peace sold at home, the reality of war preserved on the frontier. What our ancestors knew, our age refuses to learn: that the sword is not checked by the edicts of magistrates, when the barbarian sees fear in the seller and profit in the deception.