This article originally appeared in the National Post.
By Joe Varner, October 1, 2025
If Ukraine falls, Israel buckles, and Taiwan breaks, the world we know ends.
In 2025, Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan are not just fighting their own battles — they are holding the line for a world order that has kept great-power war at bay for nearly eighty years. Each faces a different adversary, a different theatre, and a different kind of war, but the stakes are the same: if they lose, the democratic world loses with them.
After more than three years of war, Ukraine’s fight against Russia has become a brutal war of attrition. Moscow’s objectives have never changed — subjugate Kyiv, fracture NATO, and re-establish a Russian sphere of influence over Eastern Europe. Russian offensives in Donbas, missile and drone strikes and incursions in NATO countries, and troop buildups along Finland’s frontier reveal Putin’s long game. His hybrid campaign blends conventional offensives with energy coercion, disinformation, and nuclear threats from Belarus and Kaliningrad.
Kyiv’s war aim is straightforward: the restoration of sovereignty over its internationally recognized territory. That goal is achievable only if Western support — military, economic, and political — remains steady despite political fatigue in Washington and European capitals. This is not charity. It is a strategic investment in Europe’s stability. A Russian victory would redraw borders by force, embolden authoritarian revisionists elsewhere, and shatter NATO’s credibility.
In the Middle East, Israel is no longer fighting a war confined to Gaza — it is facing a coordinated regional siege. The recent 12-Day War with Iran showcased the Israel Defense Forces’ ability to repel a massive missile and drone barrage, degrade Iran’s strike capacity, and — with U.S. support — cripple key nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. Yet this was a tactical win, not the end of the war.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad still operate from Gaza and hold Israelis hostage. The Hezbollah threat remains in Lebanon. Iranian proxies have the potential to harass from Syria and Iraq. The Houthis continue attacks from Yemen. The danger now is diplomatic: the recognition of a Palestinian state without ironclad security arrangements risks creating an Iranian forward operating base within artillery range of Tel Aviv. That would not bring peace; it would hard-wire instability into the region and reward Tehran’s proxy warfare and the forces of terror.
In the Indo-Pacific, Taiwan faces a constant campaign of military harassment by China — naval encirclement drills, daily incursions into its air defence identification zone, and escalating cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. Beijing’s goal is to normalize coercion, sap Taiwan’s defences, and undermine its will to resist without resorting to an all-out assault.
But the military balance is shifting quickly. China’s shipyards are turning out warships at a pace the West cannot match. Its missile arsenal grows in range and precision. The new Type 075 amphibious assault ships add significant Cross-Strait landing capability. Each passing year without a firm, visible U.S.-led deterrent posture invites greater risk that Beijing will calculate it can move before America, and its allies are ready.
These are not disconnected crises. Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing are watching one another’s wars, drawing lessons, and in some cases collaborating. Iranian drones are launched from Russia to skies over Ukraine. China and Russia are deepening their strategic partnership from the Arctic to the South China Sea. A faltering Western response in one theatre will echo in the others.
The lesson is clear: deterrence is not an act; it is a sustained habit. That habit demands three measures: supply, sustain, and signal. Supply the weapons, intelligence, and economic aid needed to win. Sustain that support over the long term, despite political headwinds. Signal with absolute clarity that aggression will be met with costs far outweighing any gains.
Half-measures, delayed deliveries, and conditional commitments are as dangerous as the adversaries themselves. In each case, the aggressor believes time is on their side. The West’s job is to prove them wrong — decisively and repeatedly.
If Ukraine holds, it forces Moscow to recalibrate. If Israel breaks the siege, it deters Tehran’s next escalation and further terror. If Taiwan remains secure, it warns Beijing that the price of invasion will always be too high. But if any one of them falls, the message to the rest of the authoritarian world will be unmistakable: the West blinks, the West buckles, and the West can be beaten.
The fate of Kyiv, Jerusalem, and Taipei is not just their fight — it is the front line of a global contest over whether force of arms or the liberal democratic world order and the rule of law will decide the future.
If we fail on these front lines, the world we inherit will be poorer, meaner, and far more dangerous than the one we are struggling to defend today. We will wake up in a world remade by our enemies — and history will record that we handed it to them without a fight.
Joe Varner is deputy director of the Conference of Defence Associations and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
