The Greatest Generation defeated fascism. After Japan launched its surprise attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war, swearing, “We will gain the inevitable triumph.” Sixteen million young men mobilized to win that victory. When Japan surrendered, President Harry S. Truman promised, “We shall not forget Pearl Harbor. The Japanese militarists will not forget the USS Missouri,” here they signed the unconditional surrender. He added, “This victory shall be a monument worthy of the dead who died to win it.” Few Americans during World War II doubted the righteousness of the cause nor the need to win an outright victory rather than settle for some amorphous diplomatic compromise.

The fruits of victory were short-lived. The Soviet Union sought to impose its totalitarian vision upon the world order. The Chinese Communist Party was not far behind. During the Cold War era, Jimmy Carter’s administration represented the defeatist nadir. While Carter and many of his predecessors were master tree counters, Ronald Reagan never lost sight of the forest. Alas, the same could not be said for George H.W. Bush. As the Soviet Union crumbled, rather than confirm the evil empire’s defeat, Bush sought to throw it a life preserver, infamously urging Ukrainians to extend their subjugation in his “Chicken Kiev” speech.