As the preeminent and predominant leader in the world, Ukraine is in essence, the test of our times. Do we aspire to continue our leadership in the world or do we surrender our global leadership, our lifestyle and our values to the likes of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Ali Khamenei?

Vladimir Putin is optimistic that he is about to receive one of the greatest Christmas gifts of his lifetime, the United States losing its resolve to defend its ally in Europe against Russia’s brutal authoritarian aggression on a sovereign nation.

Putin gave a four-hour “press conference” this past week in which he said emphatically that he believed Russia could achieve all its objectives in the war with Ukraine including eradicating Ukraine of Nazis and its Jewish President Zelensky, because a weakened West had lost its resolve. Really?

Once done with Ukraine, many global leaders believe that Poland will likely be next, or the small Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Sounds eerily like Hitler’s sweep into Poland while western leaders in that time period, particularly in the U.S., believed Poland was a one-and-done deal for Adolf Hitler, that as the dictator proclaimed, it was a one-time, solitary political-military event. (Sounds like Putin’s “special military operation” to me.) Not standing our ground then and there subsequently cost America well over a million soldiers, killed or wounded between Sept. 1, 1939 and May 8, 1945.

Don’t believe for a minute that Xi Jinping isn’t monitoring these events closely as his vision of manifest destiny includes not just Hong Kong but Taiwan and maybe eventually Vietnam. More American blood and treasure?

Don’t believe for a minute that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei isn’t monitoring these events closely with his own geo-political and territorial ambitions like Azerbaijan, which was once a part of the Persian Empire, to say nothing of further unleashing its terrorist attacks on places like Israel, and shipping in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

Need I even mention Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who at the moment of critical global instability wouldn’t hesitate to do his own “special military operation” in South Korea?

Backing out of Ukraine emboldens Putin, Xi Jinping, Khamenei and Kin Jung Un to make territorial and political advances, just like Hitler’s unhampered pass unto Poland emboldened Japan’s Hirohito, Italy’s Mussolini and eventually Joseph Stalin.

I understand that politics is at work here. We have serious issues at the southern border. Both parties, behind closed doors, agree on this. But this extraordinary nation with a tremendous history of overcoming obstacles, can undoubtedly make constructive policies and chew gum at the same time.

Make no mistake, the dam that keeps this tsunami of evil global forces from destroying the world as we know it is the United States and its allies. Since the end of World War II, it’s been our nation’s destiny to be the nation among nations that, with our power and influence, ensure global stability.

Yes, it costs money to maintain leadership, ask any corporate CEO and board of directors. It’s hard to be the international champion of democracy and free enterprise, but as soon as indifference sets in, the fall from power and leadership is quick to spiral to terminal velocity.

Yet it’s more than a potential fall from global leadership that is at stake. Given our collective NATO pledge (Article 5), that if an attack on any one is an attack on all, then if Putin’s manifest destiny is to expand into Europe, all parts that he thinks should be a part of greater Russia, means for the US, not only multiples more of American treasure but boots on the ground, U.S. soldiers, blood and treasure. The only time that Article 5 has ever been invoked in NATO history was when the World Trade Center was attacked in New York City on Sept. 1, 2011.

Arguably, President Ronald Reagan’s greatest achievement was his stand against what was then the USSR. He referred to the Soviet Union as the “focus of evil in the modern world.” Make no mistake that Vladimir Putin is the Joseph Stalin of our times. Reagan wasn’t afraid to draw the line. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Reagan went on to say, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.” How I wish we had his geo-political foreign policy wisdom today.

Relative to this we have a schoolyard Congress unwilling to stand up because they’d rather have food fights over political ideologies.

When Hamlet spoke his anguished but famous line, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” he was trying to decide whether it would be nobler in the mind and in his life, to live or die, give up or face the hardships. Hamlet dies tragically in the end. As a nation, will we?

Bill Sims is a Hillsboro resident, retired president of the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, an author and runs a small farm in Berrysville with his wife. He is a former educator, executive and foundation president.