Ukraine’s D-Day: How will our decisions be viewed 80 years from now?

Eighty years ago today, our nation faced an inflection point on the beaches of Normandy. Could we fight and win Europe’s future, or would Nazi Germany prevail?

On D-Day, 133,000 men from the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and France bravely answered that question, and key battle sites at Pointe du Hoc, Sainte Mère Eglise and Pegasus Bridge soon became seared into our countries’ memory, along with the beaches of Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword.

Ten thousand allied soldiers were killed or wounded in the landings. By the time they broke out from the beachheads, there were nearly 227,000 casualties, including 73,000 killed in action.

If you have ever stood at the base of Pointe du Hoc, then you know just how daunting the task was for the Army Rangers assigned to capture it. To put it in perspective, it was akin to ascending a 10-story office building. Scaling it was challenging enough. Doing so while under direct fire must have seemed impossible. And yet they climbed, breaching Fortress Europe.

President Ronald Reagan captured their bravery for history during the 40th anniversary of D-Day. Standing before 62 surviving U.S. Army Rangers who ascended the cliff, he honored their valor and sacrifice. “These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc,” he said. “These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the heroes.”

At the Normandy American Cemetery, 9,387 of America’s finest who fell on and around D-Day forever remain in Normandy.  Their valor and sacrifice are testament enough of why they were the very best of America’s “Greatest Generation.”

Yet perhaps it was the fictional character Captain Miller, portrayed by Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg’s 1998 film “Saving Private Ryan,” who best gave voice to that generation — and what they in turn keep asking of us in return.

“Earn this.”

It has never been an easy ask, in 1944 or today. Americans are at their collective best when they meet and exceed standards. And what has rightly been described as America’s Greatest Generation set that gold standard during the Second World War.

Fighting and winning two world wars was exceedingly hard, but we did it. Putting a man on the moon was hard, but we did it.

Now, history has found us once again. We are facing a similar inflection point in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Middle East, Indo Pacific and in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is our turn to maintain and secure for future generations that which was secured for us on the beaches of Normandy 80 years ago. It is time to pay it forward.

If we are to achieve this, then we will need to collectively understand what was bought and paid for on D-Day and by countless other bloody battles in Guadalcanal, Wake Island, Bastogne and elsewhere during World War II.

Those soldiers, at the cost of their lives and limbs, began building the foundation of Western liberty as we have known it since April 1945. They, in effect, laid the cornerstones of the freedoms we and Europe enjoy today. They are the standard-bearers by which today’s men and women in uniform are measured.

In earning what they bestowed on us, it is our duty as Americans in turn to help Ukraine lay the same kind of cornerstones that will preserve Western liberty not only in their own country but across Eastern Europe as well.

It is frequently said by detractors of our involvement in Ukraine that this is not our war. Nothing could be further from the truth. The war Ukraine is fighting is the same war in defense of liberty that the men of D-Day fought on behalf of us all and future generations to come.

Russian aggression against Ukraine cannot stand. It is not just Ukrainian civilians that Russian President Vladimir Putin is intentionally attacking and killing. He is determined to destroy Western liberty — or the very essence of American liberty that our best and finest have fought to preserve since our founding as a country on July 4, 1776.

So this is indeed our war and the fight of our times. We are all, allegorically speaking, standing at the base of Pointe du Hoc, and it is decision time. Do we shy away from the task at hand? Do we give lip service to defending democracy but abandon the fight? Or do we set conditions and enable Ukraine to win this war against Russia?

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared, “the fight is here, I need ammunition.” The time to answer this call is now. Otherwise, the fight will be at our doorstep. Ukraine is facing its own moment of truth in and around Kharkiv City and is in dire need of Western resolve.

Reacting is no way to fight a war. Ceding the initiative to Russia is a losing strategy.

We have reached a critical point in this war where Kyiv needs some game-changers. President Biden’s belated greenlighting of using some American-made weapons against military targets inside Russia and near Kharkiv is a start. But the continued restrictions Washington has placed upon Ukraine will soon reverse recent Ukrainian gains on the battlefield, as the Kremlin reacts and adjusts to take advantage of the White House’s considerable and often inexcusable prohibitions — for example, against the use of ATACMS inside Russia altogether.

Unlike the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine is willing to fight this fight on our behalf. All Kyiv is asking is that we provide the weapons and ammunition, stop micromanaging the war from Washington, and take off the handcuffs. Let Ukraine fight this war using the same doctrine as the Pentagon would, without all of the White House’s crazy restrictions.

Eighty years from now, future generations of Europeans will gather in Kyiv, Bakhmut and Kharkiv. Will we have earned their respect? Or will they gather as a repressed people around statues of “Putin the Liberator?”

If we as a country truly respect what the men of D-Day bequeathed to us, then it is time we as Americans get on with “earning this” and ensuring that Ukraine wins its war against Putin.

Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.