The people who quarterbacked the NATO side of the Ukraine war are so pleased with themselves, they can’t keep from boasting about things that will make the average American want to pitchfork the lot of them.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House nearly a month ago, the New York Times packed its pages with stories denouncing Donald Trump and J.D. Vance for abandoning Ukraine, and the impolitic “dressing down” of a friendly foreign leader. The Times like most Western news outlets for years suggested that anything short of a full-throated expression of support for war was a betrayal of the “democratic world order” that would lead to instant battlefield deaths.

Now that the war appears lost, and newspapers abroad (conspicuously, not here) are full of news about an apparent bombing of Vladimir Putin’s motorcade, and the future of NATO hangs by a thread, the Times has run a 13,000-word “Secret History” that shows the same U.S. officials who denounced Trump and American voters for saying it out loud long ago concluded that they, too, should probably “walk away.”

This is a must read. Buy a subscription if you must. There’s too much here to quote, but I’ll include this bit from nearer the end.

There are a hundred details in this “Secret History” that serve as stark warnings to anyone who thinks protection from Armageddon is secure in the hands of career military and intelligence officials. Not only did we allow ourselves to be “blackmailed” into escalating a conflict with a nuclear power, the management of the “partnership” broke down because of a Heathers-style spat between the key brass twits, Ukrainian general Valery Zaluhniy and Mark Milley.

When Milley second-guessed Zaluhniy, the latter would respond with teen-like silence, or by ghosting Milley’s next call. Underscoring: the country to which we were giving hundreds of billions in aid didn’t feel a need to pick up the phone.

I think this livestream is open audience.