Anne Applebaum

And you have no exit.

There's no, losing is your death and the disappearance of your regime and everything that you think you've built.

If you're Ukrainian, then you're fighting for your existence, for your country, for the ability to speak your language.

for the ability to raise your children the way you want.

You're fighting actually for your existence as a nation, and you're fighting against a country that wants to eliminate you as a nation.

If you're America in Iran, why exactly are you fighting?

You're fighting because Trump was angry that he didn't get rid of all the nuclear facilities and the bombing strike last year, I guess.

You know, or you're fighting for, you know...

Trump's need to make friends with Netanyahu or to show that he's on their side.

I mean, who knows?

Trump has never made it really clear why he's fighting or why America's fighting there.

So, obviously, you're not going to get either Americans willing to make huge sacrifices or Trump himself wanting to make huge sacrifices and wanting to, you know, make loose...

lose political points or lose people or lose aircraft or lose weapons because that's the, you know, he's not fighting for something that's that existential.

And you could say this, the story of Russia is a little bit different, but one of the reasons why in these asymmetric wars, when you have one big power fighting a small one, why they often come out differently from what you expect.

Look at Vietnam, look at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Look at the U.S.

in Afghanistan as well.

One of the reasons why they come out differently from what you would think if you just looked at which country is larger, which is smaller, which has more military ability and which has less, is that the reasons why they're fighting are so opposite.

I mean, I think if the United States...

really was, if there was an existential war that... If Canada invaded us?