Air raid sirens have been ringing out over the capital of Ukraine for the past week. Russian troops have laid siege to Kharkiv, the second biggest city in the country, and the city of Kherson in the south has already fallen. More than a half of a million Ukranians have fled their homes, with little more than a suitcase or two. Hundreds have been confirmed dead, and surely that number is just the beginning. Why did Putin invade Ukraine at this moment? What is his endgame—and what is the West’s? Does this war augur the beginning of a new era? Perhaps even a new Cold War? Today, Niall Ferguson, Walter Russell Mead and Francis Fukuyama discuss whether or not America is up to the task of truly, as Biden said at the State of the Union address, defending freedom from tyranny. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.