Our military leaders are constantly alerting us to the risks of war, provoking incredulity, outrage or indifference. Are Europeans wrong to be so complacent about the dangers that are looming over them?
Too accustomed to the comforts of peace and prosperity now being undermined by powerful predators, who are intent on reigning on the international stage, they fail to appreciate the scale of the challenges ahead.
Who could have foreseen that the world's leading military power would one day be in the hands of a dollar-hungry man who knows nothing of history or geography and who is prepared to do anything to enrich himself, including making a pact with the devil? Those who love America no longer recognise it and are saddened by this.
Trump's plan for Ukraine is nothing more than the vision of an increasingly distant and selfish ally that despises Europe, cares very little about reality and seeks, through fear and mafia-style procedures, to keep control of a world that is slipping from his grasp.
Europeans cannot accept this. They have all the means to exercise their autonomy, strengthened by their economic and cultural wealth, a unique asset in the brutal world that is questioning the universal values that are so essential to the survival of civilisation and world peace.
These words are no exaggeration! If conflict were to break out in the near future, the victims of such a conflagration would number in the hundreds of millions.
Faced with these challenges, our blindness would be suicidal and any weakness in the face of totalitarian states could only lead to the worst. Our history teaches us this.
Every day, Putin is already waging a cognitive, hybrid assault on Europe and its values. Lurking in the shadows, the cunning Chinese bides their time.
Europe can no longer content itself to remain on the defensive, erecting walls and barricades. It is on its own. Trump has abandoned it because he prefers tasteless showboating to fighting for values and human rights.
So, the best way to protect ourselves is to go on the offensive.
It is up to us to be ready for war so as not to be drawn into it and to avoid it.
It is up to us to promote more resolutely our democratic model of freedom and the rule of law by all political, cultural, digital and audiovisual means.
To do this, we need to be proud of what we are, determined to defend this and overcome our complacency.
