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Ukraine aid deadlock could threaten peace in Europe. Does Congress care?

These are desperate, potentially decisive, days in Ukraine鈥檚 battle against Vladimir Putin鈥檚 invasion forces.

Decisive days on Capitol Hill, too, where House Speaker Mike Johnson this week has been deciding how 鈥� and whether 鈥� to finesse opposition from hard-line Republican colleagues and enable a floor vote to unblock $60 billion in U.S. military aid for Kyiv.

Urgent though the aid package is 鈥� a top U.S. general told Congress Wednesday that Russian forces now had nearly 10 times as many artillery shells as the Ukrainians 鈥� Ukraine鈥檚 fate will ultimately rest on more than the House vote.

Kyiv must win a more fundamental argument: that Ukraine鈥檚 fate matters, that allowing Mr. Putin to subjugate the neighboring state he attacked 26 months ago would entail even graver implications; that it would threaten security across Europe, and America鈥檚 interests as well.

This is a message being delivered with increasing urgency by Ukraine鈥檚 European allies, most recently during a U.S. visit this week by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.

Their main audience is not President Joe Biden. He shares their conviction that allowing Mr. Putin to prevail would embolden him to threaten other European states, and risk Washington鈥檚 credibility with both allies and rivals, including China.

Their hope is to sway Representative Johnson, prominent House acolytes of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and Mr. Trump himself.

They are striving to decouple the issue of Ukraine aid from America鈥檚 bitter election-year political battles.

And their core message is the need to learn from Europe鈥檚 own recent history: above all, from the two world wars that engulfed the Continent in the last century.

European leaders see unsettling historical parallels with the Ukraine war.

With Russian forces reinforced and rearmed, Ukraine鈥檚 are now locked into a punishing, World War I-style standoff, as opposing armies engage in trench warfare聽鈥� the front lines barely moving聽鈥� and suffer attritional carnage.

While Ukraine rebuffed Mr. Putin鈥檚 initial attack in February 2022, and made major advances a few months later, a counteroffensive last year failed to make major gains.

With U.S. aid stalled in Congress, Kyiv鈥檚 troops are increasingly outnumbered, and outgunned. As General Christopher Cavoli told the House Armed Services Committee, 鈥渢he side that can鈥檛 shoot back, loses.鈥�

Still, the most haunting historical echo, for the Europeans, is the Second World War, and the consequences of not acting against a dictator鈥檚 military threat before it proved too late.

That is a message conveyed with particular passion in recent weeks by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. It was Germany鈥檚 1939 invasion of Poland that began the Second World War.

A year earlier, Adolf Hitler had threatened to invade Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia with a large ethnic German population 鈥� making an argument much like the one Mr. Putin has advanced for occupying largely Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine.

Britain and France chose to give Hitler a diplomatic green light, hoping that he would sate his territorial ambitions in Czechoslovakia and that a wider war could be avoided.

Visiting Washington last month, Mr. Tusk said he hoped House Speaker Johnson would understand the wider implications of abandoning Ukraine. That issue, he said, was more than just 鈥渟ome political skirmish that matters on the American political scene.鈥�

On returning home, he made a similar historical argument to European reporters. 鈥淚f we cannot support Ukraine with enough equipment and ammunition, if Ukraine loses, no one in Europe will be able to feel safe,鈥� he warned.

Britain鈥檚 Mr. Cameron reinforced that message bluntly in Washington this week. 鈥淔uture generations,鈥� he predicted 鈥渕ay look back at us and say, 鈥楧id we do enough when this country was invaded by a dictator trying to redraw boundaries by force? Did we learn the lessons from history?鈥欌��

And before his talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he traveled to Florida to meet Mr. Trump and make the argument for a sustained Western commitment to Ukraine.

There is little sign, so far, that his or other European politicians鈥� efforts have yielded results.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump ally leading the opposition to Ukraine funding, responded to a similar Cameron warning a few weeks ago with an invective-filled social media post and a vow not to be 鈥渂ullied鈥� into supporting Kyiv.

And the British foreign secretary was unsuccessful in efforts to arrange a meeting with Mr. Johnson during this week鈥檚 visit.

The Europeans鈥� immediate hope is that he will unblock the current funding package.

Still, they know that Ukraine is going to need longer-term support to hold off Russian forces.

And Mr. Cameron may be especially haunted by another World War II parallel 鈥� between the arguments advanced today by Trump allies such as Representative Greene, and the policy of appeasement that Britain followed until war broke out.

Days before the then-British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, met Hitler and acquiesced to his territorial claims in Sudetenland, he went on national radio to calm growing concerns of a war that might draw in Britain.

He dismissed Hitler鈥檚 invasion of Sudetenland as 鈥渁 quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.鈥�

It soon became very much more than that.