There are, broadly speaking, two ways of approaching political problems. One is embodied by the activists who chain themselves to bulldozers. They can afford to issue unlimited demands, insist on absolute purity of principle, and reject any compromise. They can do so partly because they know full well that none of their demands will ever be implemented. Even the young woman chained to the excavator, calling for an immediate end to coal mining, assumes she will soon return to her parents’ cozy apartment—heated by that same coal—and soak in a hot bath.
The other perspective belongs to those who actually hold power and are responsible for real outcomes. They must weigh competing interests, consider unintended consequences, compare the costs, and ultimately choose the option that is merely the least bad.
The tragedy of today’s West is that these two mindsets have begun to blur. Personal responsibility has been replaced by collective psychosis. Public mood is whipped up by activists whom politicians and corporate leaders fear—whom they even fund, despite having no idea how to control them.
This dynamic is now fully on display in discussions about ending the war in Ukraine. The Trump administration is attempting to understand the interests of all players, sort through the possible outcomes, consider long-term effects, and arrive at a settlement. Of course the result will satisfy no one perfectly. Of course the side that currently holds the advantage on the battlefield will walk away with more than the side that is losing. Of course everyone will walk away somewhat dissatisfied. That is how real negotiations work.
And then there is the European political class—including the president of the Czech Republic—behaving like activists chained to the machinery of their own rhetoric. A flood of emotion, paired with an absolutist demand for the total destruction of Russia, war reparations, control of its resources, the imposition of an occupation regime, and so on. No other peace is acceptable. Fine—so they have a position. And then what? Do they have an army capable of enforcing it? A defense industry capable of sustaining it? Are they prepared to slap crushing economic sanctions on Trump’s America and bring it to its knees? What matters is that they have an opinion—just like the girls with handmade signs chained to the excavator.
The only actor still holding any real leverage is Ukraine’s own strongman, Volodymyr Zelensky. He possesses one bargaining chip he can use against Trump: his own soldiers as hostages. It is not that the American president is unusually sentimental, but it is easy to imagine he does not want his peace plan overshadowed by images of Ukrainian troops being massacred onscreen. And Zelensky has shown, time and again, that he is fully prepared to sacrifice them without hesitation and without remorse. These human hostages are the very last asset the advocates of endless war still possess.