Commentary In crucial times, we would be fortunate indeed if the leaders of the free world were as courageous, as principled, and as great communicators as Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher. But such leaders are, unfortunately, rare. Ordinary leaders have in the past resorted to appeasement, that is, being too ready to make significant and unnecessary concessions to the enemy. We are living in one of those times when a general war with powers hostile to our way of life seems to be looming but is of course not inevitable. That our potential enemies are coming together is a warning sign. Our predecessors had the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis, made worse by the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia with its cynical secret clauses dividing Eastern Europe between them. Today, we are witnessing a strengthening hostile alliance—the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran Axis. We are already seeing the appeasement of this …