In Louisa Lim’s book, The People’s Republic of Amnesia, she wrote about how the authorities in China have managed to erase a highly consequential national event, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, from the collective memory of Chinese society. The title of Lim’s book comes to mind quite frequently as I observe American attitudes toward the war in Ukraine.

Over the past couple of years, I have read too many online comments here in America arguing that the war in Ukraine is none of our business and should be left to the Europeans to worry about. My sense is that most of those observations are made out of ignorance. After all, the Budapest Memorandum is not something that most ordinary Americans, especially young people, know much about. Under that 1994 agreement, the U.S. pressured Ukraine to give up its vast nuclear arsenal in exchange for “security assurances,” which were supposed to oblige the U.S. to come to Ukraine’s defense if it were ever attacked by Russia or some other aggressor.

Unlike ordinary Americans, our elected leaders who characterize defense of Ukraine as something that is not in alignment with our national security interests cannot be forgiven so easily. They cannot claim to be unaware of the Budapest agreement. The fact is, they just don’t see the need to honor the promise this country made to Ukraine. That lax attitude is driven by the knowledge that Russia will not dare attack America.

Europe, for a multitude of reasons, doesn’t have that luxury. It is not blessed with the fear factor that America possesses. The entire continent is now in the direct line of Russia’s fire. And given the bellicose language that Vladimir Putin has been using lately, one would expect the Europeans to show a greater sense of urgency in fortifying their positions. Surprisingly, the pace of their actions has been awfully slow.

European leaders have said repeatedly that the absolute best way to deter future Russian aggression is to ensure that Russia does not subjugate Ukraine. Unfortunately, Europe hasn’t sufficiently put its money where its mouth is. Fiscal constraints are a major limiting factor. But Europe has a potent weapon lying in plain sight that, for some reason, it is afraid to use.

Soon after Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, about $300 billion of Russia’s central bank assets held by the EU and other Western countries were frozen. Ukraine urgently needs funding now to make sure its military and economy don’t collapse in the face of the relentless Russian onslaught. For many months, European leaders have discussed leveraging those assets to provide loans to Ukraine. At their meeting last week, they proposed lending around $244 billion of the frozen assets that are held at the Belgium-based financial firm Euroclear. Belgium rejected the proposal, leaving the entire plan in limbo.

According to the New York Times, the Belgian objection was due to its worry that “if Russia saw the plan as confiscation of its money and sued, Belgium might be on the hook.” That is unbelievably shocking. Is there a jurisdiction on this planet today that will entertain such a lawsuit from a country that launched an unprovoked brutal war against its neighbor, killing so many and causing so much destruction? Why is Belgium thinking and talking about international law when the EU, which is headquartered in Brussels, of all places, is dealing with a Russia that respects no rules? The West, in general, needs to stop treating Russia (under its current leadership) like a normal country.

Europe has itself to blame for its predicament. It is unfathomable that the EU allows too many of its important decisions, including the Ukraine loan plan, to be vetoed by Hungary, which is one of the bloc’s welfare recipients. European leaders and their top bureaucrats in Brussels need to stiffen their spines and play the kind of hardball that this moment requires. You don’t play nice when someone is seriously menacing you with dangerous weapons.