U.S. politics officially entered uncharted territory on Tuesday as former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of his alleged involvement in hush money payments to two women prior to the 2016 election.

Mr. Trump’s arraignment in a New York courtroom provided the first public glimpse of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case – the first-ever criminal charges filed against a former U.S. president. It also opened a potentially perilous period of legal vulnerability for a developer/reality star who rose, surprisingly, to heights of political power, lost his position, and is now trying to return to the White House with a third presidential campaign.

Besides the Manhattan charges, Mr. Trump is facing a possible indictment in Georgia on allegations of election interference, and is under investigation by federal special counsel Jack Smith for his alleged role in sparking the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as well as the possible illegal retention of classified documents and other presidential records following his 2020 loss.

“It’s both stark and challenging to think we’ve arrived at this point. Is it the downfall of our system that we had a president who engaged in such activity that as an ex-president he’s facing four possible indictments? Or is it a sign that our constitutional system is working?” says Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

Courtroom proceedings

Mr. Trump’s departure from his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to New York, and subsequent motorcade to Tuesday afternoon’s arrest and arraignment, was livestreamed on cable news networks and drew both anti- and pro-Trump protesters to the Manhattan Criminal Court building.

As opposed to this showlike atmosphere, the court proceeding itself was restrained and relatively brief. A somber Mr. Trump personally entered a not-guilty plea in front of acting State Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan.

Prosecutors raised concerns about the effect that the former president’s “threatening” rhetoric might have on potential jurors and witnesses. On his social media accounts Mr. Trump has warned of possible violence that could follow his arrest, and briefly posted a photo of himself holding a baseball bat next to a photo of Mr. Bragg.

Justice Merchan declined to impose a gag order on the case. But he warned all parties to show restraint in their language. He also told Mr. Trump that he could be removed if he became disruptive.

Mr. Trump sighed and said “I know,” according to reports from members of the media inside the courtroom.

Mary Altaffer/AP

Former President Donald Trump is escorted to a courtroom, April 4, 2023, in New York. His arraignment provided the first public glimpse of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s intended case.

Outlines of the case

The Statement of Facts in the case of the People of New York State against Donald J. Trump, unsealed and released to the public following Tuesday’s court proceedings, outlines what prosecutors allege was a “catch and kill scheme to suppress negative information” about Mr. Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign.

The “scheme” began in 2015, prosecutors allege, with a $30,000 payoff to a doorman who said he had information about a child allegedly fathered by Mr. Trump out of wedlock. Then there was a $150,000 payoff to “Woman 1,” who alleged she had an affair with Mr. Trump. (“Woman 1” has been widely reported in the media to be former Playboy model Karen McDougal.)

The last payoff was $130,000 to “Woman 2,” former porn actor Stormy Daniels, just prior to the November 2016 vote.

The beginning stages of this scheme were facilitated by the cooperation of the editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, according to prosecutors. The payment to Ms. Daniels was made by Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen was then reimbursed by checks from Trump sources, including some signed by Mr. Trump himself. The Trump Organization falsely recorded these reimbursements as “legal retainer” payments, according to the Statement of Facts.

The actual indictment of Mr. Trump produced by Mr. Bragg’s office is more bare-bones. It lists 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Each count deals with a specific check, ledger entry, or other business record dealing with the chain of invoices and receipts involved in the alleged scheme to suppress negative information.

Mr. Bragg, at a press conference following the arraignment, noted that it is a felony in New York to falsify business records with the intent to conceal another crime.

In this case “the scheme violated New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means,” said Mr. Bragg.

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The motorcade of former President Donald Trump departs Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on the day of his arraignment, April 4, 2023, in New York City.

Snap analysis of indictment

Why was each piece of paper or entry its own separate indictment count? Is that a way of increasing the count numbers and making the case seem more impressive than it is?

David Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown Law, explains that one question that comes up with falsification of records charges is whether they were inadvertent. With 34 false records, prosecutors may be planning to argue that the concealment was not a mistake – it was a pattern.

“If they can prove all of these facts, then each accusation will support each other accusation on the question of intent,” says Mr. Super.

The number of counts also stems from the fact that there were multiple transactions in the alleged scheme, and each transaction generated its own paper trail. Other than that, Mr. Super says the indictment looks about as he expected it would.

There are no counts that specifically charge an intent to promote a candidacy by illegal means, because prosecutors don’t need to prove the underlying crime that makes falsification of business records a felony, says the Georgetown professor.

In other words, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.

“New York is alleging here that business records in its jurisdiction were deliberately falsified, and that the act of doing that was for criminal purposes, which is all they need to allege,” he says.

What the Trump team says

In a news conference following the indictment, Mr. Trump’s lawyers denounced the indictment as a “political prosecution.”

“You don’t expect this to happen to somebody who was the president of the United States,” said Trump attorney Todd Blanche.

The Trump team said it had been prepared for what the indictment contained, and that it was nothing. Mr. Blanche described it as “boilerplate.”

“I was surprised there were no facts in there. Normally in an indictment you have alleged facts,” said Trump attorney Joe Tacopina.

Mr. Trump’s personal reaction was the same as anyone else’s would have been, according to his lawyers. He is frustrated and upset, they said.

“But I’ll tell you what: He’s motivated. And it’s not going to stop him and it’s not going to slow him down,” said Mr. Blanche.

Justice Merchan set the next hearing date for the case as Dec. 4. Mr. Trump’s lawyers are expected to file for a change of venue to Staten Island, arguing that Manhattan is too anti-Trump to impanel an impartial jury.

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Supporters of former President Donald Trump demonstrate outside the Criminal Courts Building on the day of Mr. Trump's court appearance after his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, in New York, April 4, 2023.

Hundreds of members of the news media are standing in front of Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building on Tuesday, cordoned off in gated pens, waiting for Donald Trump. 

Some have waited in a sidewalk queue since early afternoon on Monday, spending the night to get a spot inside to witness the former president’s day in court. After all, this is a historic moment, we say. No U.S. president has ever been formally charged with a criminal act, and we are here to witness and report this moment in history.

Nearly eight years ago, the real estate mogul from Queens upended American politics, as well as political journalism, when he announced his candidacy at his Trump Tower in Midtown in 2015. The moment featured what is now the most iconic trip down an escalator in American history. The news media has been enthralled with Mr. Trump’s norm-breaking charisma ever since.

Few journalists then believed that announcement, with references to Mexicans bringing crime, drugs, and rape into the country, would lead to his being sworn into office as the country’s 45th president. Today, that president was read his Miranda rights.

Tuesday brought other firsts: a former president arrested, fingerprinted, and pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts related to falsifying documents. Mr. Trump did not speak to reporters either on his way in or out of the courtroom on the 15th floor.

Across the street, at Collect Pond Park, hundreds of protesters and counterprotesters are holding signs, chanting sometimes vulgar slogans – and invariably being interviewed by a member of the news media, who nearly match their numbers.

“Instead of getting the real criminals off the street and using all the resources to indict real criminals, they’re going after a former president and a candidate for presidency,” says Dion Cini, a software designer from the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, who is waving a 20-foot-high “Trump or Death” flag in the middle of the park. “I’m a white, conservative, heterosexual, Christian male – and I live in New York, so you can’t fool me!”

One woman wearing a red MAGA hat was burning sage as a cleansing ritual, she said, to ward off “toxic journalists” asking questions. 

“I’m here for ‘we the people’,” says a woman who would only give her name as QT Pie. “I’m here for we, not me. Trump is not even the most important person anymore, because it’s a movement, you know what I’m saying?” she says poking a finger into the chest of the person asking her questions. “It’s a very organic situation. Yeah, it’s for people who want freedom, and who want sovereignty, and who are sick and tired of [expletive] overtaxing.”

Harry Bruinius/The Christian Science Monitor

Shu Ping Lu, a translator who lives in Manhattan’s East Village, believes the charges against Donald Trump are political persecution.

Few of his supporters talk about the circumstances of the charges against Mr. Trump, and it hardly feels like a political sex scandal, even though it includes an alleged encounter with a porn star named Stormy Daniels and $130,000 in hush money. The 34 fraud charges were elevated to felonies, because “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”

At a press conference after the arraignment, Mr. Bragg said that the Manhattan D.A.’s office handles white-collar crime all the time in the world’s financial capital. Tuesday’s events demonstrated, he said, that “no amount of money, no amount of power” could alter the enduring American principle that “everyone stands equal in front of the law.”

While it is the oldest democracy, America had never before indicted a former leader before Tuesday. The only previous president ever arrested was Ulysses Grant, reportedly for speeding his horse-drawn carriage down D.C.’s streets. (The arresting officer had previously let the Civil War hero off with a warning.) Richard Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment for Watergate, and his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him.

Before he ran for president with the Make America Great Again slogan, Mr. Trump presented himself as something of a wealthy paramour and part of New York’s night life. He talked about threesomes on the radio, milled about in dressing rooms during the Miss Universe pageant, which he owned, and even talked about how he would date his daughter, Ivanka. During his first campaign, an “Access Hollywood” tape recorded him bragging about grabbing women’s genitals without their consent. 

These were never very important details for Shu Ping Lu, a freelance translator who has lived in Manhattan’s East Village for 32 years. 

“I believe he is receiving political persecution, there is nothing real crime about this,” says Ms. Lu, an immigrant from China who began to support Mr. Trump after the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. “It’s just a big beginning of destruction of America.”

A few dozen Trump supporters are chanting slogans back and forth with a few dozen Trump opponents. Without the throngs of journalists, however, a protest like this is in many ways a common occurrence in places like Manhattan’s Union Square, where political opinions and causes often draw a crowd in the summer and fall. 

Around 11 a.m, there’s a commotion on the east side of the small park across from the courthouse. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican from Georgia, has arrived, and a of throng cameras and credentials press forward to get a glimpse.

Harry Bruinius/The Christian Science Monitor

Maurice Symonette (center), head of a group called Blacks for Trump and a radio host from Miami, flew to New York to support Donald Trump Tuesday.

Representative Greene uses a bullhorn to speak, but few can hear her above the din of whistles and cowbells. “They’re taking our legal code, twisting it, manipulating it, and perverting it into something it was never meant to be,” she shouted. “Donald J. Trump is innocent. This is election interference. D.A. Alvin Bragg is nothing but a George Soros-funded tool. He is a tool for the Democrats to try to hijack the 2024 presidential election. This is a travesty!”

The controversial congresswoman stayed about 10 minutes before leaving amid a circle of security as protesters on both sides shouted slogans and pressed forward to get a glimpse. 

Maurice Symonette, head of a group called Blacks for Trump, has a queue of reporters waiting to speak to him. A radio host from Miami, he flew in with about a dozen members to attend the protest, and they are wearing matching white T-shirts. 

“I think what [District Attorney] Alvin Bragg and [New York Attorney General] Letitia James are doing is about as wicked as it gets,” says Mr. Symonette, whose ties to a cult and the so-called Boss Mansion have been reported by the South Florida press. “I’m the founder of this group, and I started it to defend Trump from the lie that he’s a racist. We’re here to back him up and defend him and everything he’s doing.”

Taylor Luck

Jerusalem and Palestinian Christian scout troops as they march through the Holy City as part of Palm Sunday celebrations in Jerusalem, April 2, 2023. This month sees a coinciding of major holidays for the three Abrahamic faiths.

With Easter, Passover, and Ramadan coinciding this year, the region’s eyes are on Jerusalem, where the slightest provocation can spark deadly violence and a geopolitical uproar.

Which is why I crossed the Jordan River to report from and pray in what may be the most tense religious sites on Earth.

When I first arrived in Jerusalem on March 29 – one week into Ramadan, a week before Passover, and four days prior to Holy Week – followers of the three Abrahamic faiths were visibly wary. Why wouldn’t they be?

The last few months have seen far-right Israeli ministers use their government posts as bully pulpits, a rise in violence and revenge attacks killing Palestinians and Israelis, a wave of vandalism against Christian sites, and a struggle over Israel’s judiciary and democracy straining the Israeli state and society.

In anticipation of this spiritual season, representatives of the U.S., Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt met for multiple days to ensure that Christian, Muslim, and Jewish worshippers have safe and open access to celebrations in Jerusalem this month and to prevent any isolated incident from escalating.

Checkpoints

Yet even a privileged American visitor got a taste of the tensions.

The three-minute walk from my Old City hotel to Al Aqsa Mosque to pray ran through three checkpoints.

At two Israeli police checkpoints I had to produce my passport and an 11-year-old stamped paper from Jordan’s Islamic Court to explain to skeptical young Israeli police that yes, I am a Muslim, and no, I am neither a tourist nor an Israeli.

I had to repeat the procedures at the gate of Al Aqsa itself to the Jerusalem Waqf guards – some of whom I now know on a first-name basis – who initially suspected me of being a tourist or a settler trying to sneak in to light a match that could engulf Jerusalem and the wider area in sectarian flames. Everyone was on alert, with no room for mistakes.

Even inside Al Aqsa, fellow worshippers asked me: “What is your business here?” Leaving Al Aqsa, a group of yeshiva students spotted my Islamic prayer rug and hassled and heckled me all the way to the hotel.

Taylor Luck

Muslim prayer-goers take photos of the Dome of the Rock in between prayers at the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, April 3, 2023.

Yet as the days went on, tensions gave way to celebrations.

One outpouring of joy was Palm Sunday, when processions from Bethpage on the Mount of Olives down to the Church of Saint Anne united thousands waving palms and singing songs in a dozen different languages.

But what really caught my eye, and my ear, were the 10 Jerusalem and Palestinian Christian scout groups.

Chanting, and rocking

Decked out in uniforms, many, like George, were born in the West Bank after Israel’s construction of the separation wall and were visiting Jerusalem for the very first time.

After the St. Anne services, these scouts began their annual march around the Old City, filling the air with the sounds of snare drums, bass drums, and bagpipes. Before, the city was chanting hymns. Now, Jerusalem was rocking.

As the scouts marched past Damascus Gate, with sunset less than an hour away, hijab-covered women carrying bags of groceries suddenly forgot their family’s iftar break-fasting meal and stopped to take pictures and clap along.

Israeli Jews, some of whom had started with the procession from the Mt. of Olives hours earlier, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Palestinian Christians to cheer on the drum majors twirling and throwing their batons like acrobats. Even Israeli police took selfies.

At the end of the procession, as the Armenian scout troop marched from the New Gate into the Armenian Quarter, Orthodox Jews on their way to the Western Wall were swept up in the march, and smiled and bobbed their heads to the music.

After I waved to the last of the marchers filing into the Armenian Monastery, I reversed direction and joined hundreds of Muslim Jerusalemites heading to Al Aqsa, prayer-carpets slung over their shoulders, for tarawih night prayers, their own night of festivities just beginning.

After night prayers under the open sky, young Jerusalemites from the Old City came up and poured me coffee and handed me sweets, a welcome offering to visiting worshippers. 

Taylor Luck

Christian scout members sing as part of Palm Sunday celebrations at Bethpage, at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Sunday, April 2, 2023.

I then followed the thousands exiting Al Aqsa Mosque, up al-Wad Street to Damascus Gate, where food stands, lights, candy of all colors and shapes, music, clowns, and horse rides awaited families and night owls rejuvenated by their sunset meal. There I spotted Palestinian Christian families I recognized from Palm Sunday celebrations buying sweets, and George, still in his scout uniform, eating a pastry and looking wide-eyed at the Ramadan lights.

I smiled and asked him how he was enjoying the festive atmosphere. He grinned.

“This is Jerusalem,” he said.

No matter what happens in the days, weeks, and months ahead, this is what will stay with me. No statement or act – and the days did not pass without the city witnessing isolated, yet contained, violent confrontations, with one fatality – can erase the truth of those three words.

The harmony I witnessed did not feel like an exception to the rule, a rare unity among bickering faiths and denominations, but rather the defining character of Jerusalem, the Holy City’s natural state of grace. The city, much like the diverse religions that worship here, did not belong to extremists, no matter how loud, organized, violent, or well-funded.

This harmony may be short-lived. Before this month is over, an extremist may succeed in defiling a shrine or attacking worshippers, and incite the response they desire. An overreaction may lead to a police killing. In their pursuit of power, cynics and politicians will continue to try to hijack the divine.

But when given a brief respite from political divisions and security restrictions, Jerusalem’s inclusiveness doesn’t just shine – it sings.

On a misty winter morning in a central Indian forest, a soft caw-caw punctuates the silence. Dozens of grazing deer perk up their ears, then join in the staccato warning screeches of the langur monkeys and birds high up in the trees. As the chorus of animal alarms reach a crescendo, a frisson of excitement runs through the humans seated on the safari jeeps, bulky cameras and pricey binoculars at the ready. The urgency of these calls can only mean that a predator has been spotted. 

The tourists let out a collective gasp when the tiger finally emerges from the thickets, the orange and black fur gleaming in the muted morning sunlight. 

You don’t need to go on a wilderness expedition to spot India’s national animal. Several thousand miles away in Los Angeles, at the recent Academy Awards, RRR actor Junior NTR wore a gold tiger motif embroidered on the shoulder of his suit while representing India on the red carpet. And this weekend, the big cat will appear on a commemorative 50 rupee coin. 

Indeed, all eyes are on the king of Indian jungles as the country marks the 50th anniversary of Project Tiger, a program founded in April 1973 to save the species from extinction. Five decades later, India houses the world’s only stable and growing tiger population. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will announce the latest tiger census data at a special event on April 9, with numbers expected to pass 3,000. India also now boasts 53 tiger reserves across 18 states, encompassing about 2.4% of the country’s total land. It’s a success story marked by unwavering hope. 

Charukesi Ramadurai

Passengers ride through Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh, India, during an afternoon safari, hoping to spot a tiger. Chances of encountering the apex predator are better now than 15 years ago, when tiger numbers dipped to an all-time low of 1,411.

“Back when it started, nobody could have imagined that we would have more than 50 protected tiger reserves in this country,” says conservationist and wildlife tourism expert Amit Sankhala, who is also the grandson of Kailash Sankhala, the first director of Project Tiger. “These habitats exist just for the tiger to exist.”

He believes this is the beginning of a “golden era” for Project Tiger, with expansion of tiger-dedicated spaces, easier access to sustainable wildlife tourism, and increased tiger numbers.

An uphill battle

India’s tiger population dwindled from over 40,000 in the 1930s to a mere 1,827 by the end of the 1960s, due to organized hunting and habitat destruction. Spurred on by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Indian government announced the landmark Wildlife Protection Act in 1972, paving the way for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to launch Project Tiger the following year. Authorities established nine tiger reserves and implemented a blanket ban on hunting, and the tiger was declared India’s national animal.

Despite the program’s early success, progress has been inconsistent. In fact, tiger numbers dipped to an all-time low of 1,411 in 2008 because of continued habitat loss outside protected areas, as well as unchecked poaching, which wiped out tiger populations in major reserves such as Panna in the central state of Madhya Pradesh and Sariska in the west Indian state of Rajasthan.

That sparked an urgent push to increase public awareness through celebrity campaigns, and the conservation reins were handed over to a special task force known as the National Tiger Conservation Authority. With stricter wildlife policies and improved monitoring, numbers have been rising slowly but steadily since then. Every consecutive four-year census has shown an increase of a few hundred tigers; according to the 2018 census, India has a tiger count of 2,967, a figure which accounts for nearly 75% of all tigers in the wild.

Charukesi Ramadurai

Conservationists expect the latest tiger census, which will be announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a commemorative event on April 9, to surpass 3,000. As well as tiger numbers, they also point to several other measures of the program’s success, including citizen involvement and the number of tiger-dedicated reserves.

Reputed naturalist and wildlife guru Hashim Tyabji calls India’s success in preventing tigers’ extinction “a miracle in conservation.” The project, he says, is a testament to India’s expertise in capturing and relocating tigers from their home areas to forests where numbers are lower and more space is available for these solitary, territorial animals to roam freely, thus ending localized extinctions (as happened in Panna and Sariska). 

“We have started thinking about wilderness and conservation in very novel ways,” he says. “We have modern tools like camera traps to track tigers. And not to forget, there are many many people who are hugely committed to conservation, and practice responsible tourism.”

Indeed, tiger experts say the general population’s growing involvement with wildlife conservation has kept the momentum going. 

Hope for India’s wildlife 

The uptick in tiger populations is especially impressive considering India’s rapid rate of development, says Aly Rashid, director at Jehan Numa Wilderness, which operates sustainable wildlife lodges in Madhya Pradesh. 

“We have 1.4 billion people living here, and the [human] population has doubled since 1973. Given all this pressure on land and resources, I would say this is a huge achievement,” he explains.

Although the WWF reports that wild tiger populations are growing globally, the solitary predator isn’t out of the woods yet. It’s still classified as endangered, and in India, degradation of critical tiger corridors and human-tiger conflict pose serious challenges. But Mr. Rashid is hopeful that with community buy-in, India can overcome these challenges.

“Once people begin to see wildlife as an asset – whether in terms of tourism money or job opportunities for the local community – they will begin to care for it and protect it,” says Mr. Rashid. “And that is what has happened in India.”

That hope extends beyond tigers, which Mr. Sankhala, the conservationist, calls “poster boys for wildlife.” The apex predator has also helped draw attention to India’s other endangered species, he says, including red pandas and Asiatic lions. Recent amendments in the original 1972 wildlife act have made it possible to protect and nurture various animals, from the barasingha (swamp deer) and gaur (Indian bison) in the heart of the country, to the one-horned rhinoceros in the eastern reaches. Some conservation efforts – such as the 1992 Project Elephant and the 2021 Project Dolphin – are modeled directly after Project Tiger. 

“Once you save the tiger, you save everything around it,” Mr. Sankhala says. “Suddenly all of nature comes back to life.”

Reuters

Supporters of Jakov Milatović, a presidential candidate, celebrate in Podgorica, Montenegro, after he won the April 2 presidential election.

Long a cauldron of change for the world, Europe is at it again. Russia’s war in Ukraine has brought once-neutral Finland into NATO (with Sweden not far behind). It pushed a pacifist Germany into sending battle tanks into the war. It lit a fire under the European Union to help countries on its periphery. And it catapulted a former TV comic, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, into global hero status for democratic values and sovereign security.

“The Europe of the last three decades ended on February 24, 2022, with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” wrote American scholars Jeffrey Gedmin and William Kristol in American Purpose.

And those changes are only the biggest. Less noticed are shifts among voters in smaller countries to embrace European values, especially clean governance and rule of law. A January poll by Eurobarometer showed a high of 72% of citizens living in the EU said that their country’s membership in the bloc is beneficial. Within a week after Russia’s invasion, Ukraine applied for EU membership.

The latest example of these continental shifts comes from Montenegro, a small mountainous nation with tourist beaches on the Adriatic Sea that gained independence only 17 years ago from the remnants of the former Yugoslavia.

An election for president on April 2 saw voters boot out incumbent Milo Đukanović, a longtime politician who was overshadowed by allegations of widespread corruption. The winner by a large margin was an Oxford-educated economist, Jakov Milatović, a founder of a new movement, Europe Now. His top priorities are reconciliation among Montenegro’s main groups – Serbs, Bosniaks, and Muslims – and quick entry into the EU club. The country already gained NATO membership in 2017 – despite hardball meddling by Russia.

In a post-election interview with broadcaster RTCG, Mr. Milatović asked his political rivals to share a common goal: “that Montenegro be a reconciled country and that all citizens have the same chance of success in life, and that the only thing that matters for that is education, work and effort.”

Those sort of universal ideals, embedded in the EU, have helped much of Europe curb the worst of its ethnic nationalism. The original idea of the EU, writes Robert Kaplan in Foreign Policy, is “emphasizing the sanctity of the individual over that of the group and of legal states rather than of ethnic nations; in other words, the constitutional safeguarding of individual rights in a cosmopolitan universe.”

Russia’s war – the largest land war in Europe since 1945 – has challenged that progress. Yet now, in voting booths and in the battlefield trenches of the Ukrainian army, countries large and small are rallying anew to Europe’s values.