It is easy to become somewhat despondent with the apparent condition of the West and of the world generally, but that conclusion is deceptive and unjustified. The war in Ukraine remains a largely unsuccessful act of naked aggression by Russia that has exposed the military of that country as inept and inefficient. Russia has a legitimate historic interest in Ukraine, but as almost the whole world recognized, it had no right to try to subjugate that country, especially having, along with the United States and the United Kingdom, guaranteed the frontiers of Ukraine when it gave up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the USSR. What is needed now is someone of the stature and competence representing an adequately influential jurisdiction, to bring the war to an end on the basis of giving a little to the Russians and securing absolute and ironclad guarantees from Russia and NATO of the revised borders of a sovereign Ukraine.