There was a time when the West was bold, principled, and assertive in the face of injustice and evil. It was never perfect — politics never are — yet among Western leaders there was an ostensible sense of virtue, of chutzpah, and of leadership.

The hope is that the West today is still similarly capable. Yet as Russia threatens to invade Ukraine and to upend Europe’s security order, optimism is quickly waning. America and Europe are weak, divided, and on the defensive.

And ostensibly impervious to the significance of the moment. Unless it reverses course, the West could soon become an unfortunate bystander to history — a prospect painfully apparent in President Biden’s press conference Wednesday.

The ostensible leader of the Free World suggested that a Russian invasion of Ukraine might be imminent. “My guess is he will move in. He has to do something,” Mr. Biden said of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Has to do something? Mr. Putin certainly does not.

Mr. Biden also seems to have forgotten that Moscow already “moved in” when it invaded Crimea in 2014. Mr. Biden proceeded to suggest that a “minor incursion” by Russia might not elicit a Western response.

“It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having to fight about what to do and not do,“ Mr. Biden mumbled. The White House later clarified that Mr. Biden was distinguishing between military and hybrid strategies.

That the American president publicly utters such statements is as embarrassing as it is dangerous. When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, it did so through a combination of hybrid tactics and for months denied it had troops in the region. If that has now become cost-free, it is likely Mr. Putin might at minimum repeat the same scenario.

The Biden administration is threatening “massive consequences” if Moscow invades again. Yet there is little of substance to support this threat. The administration has ruled out the direct military defense of Ukraine. The military aid that it is providing — an additional $200 million of which was announced yesterday — is defensive.

Mr. Biden also seemed to downplay the possibility of sanctions on the Kremlin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, against which his administration has been lobbying the Senate.

“Everybody talks about how Russia has control over the energy supply that Europe absorbs … I don’t see that as a one-way street,” is how Mr. Biden mixed his metaphors.

Compounding this already disheartening reality is Europe, which seems unable to decide whether it even does geopolitics. In Germany, the coalition government led by the Social Democratic Party has from the outset been lenient with Moscow, with Chancellor Scholz pontificating about, as the Sun reported, a “new Ostpolitik.”

Leading members of Mr. Scholz’s party continue to defend Nord Stream 2 despite Russian aggression. Mr. Scholz has tepidly allowed that “everything will be up for discussion” if Russia again invades Ukraine, yet it is unclear if that would indeed be the case.

In the meantime, German’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, issued strong words in her meeting with her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, earlier this week. It tells you something when the hawk is the minister from the Green Party. In any event, in this case words are just words.

Germany also refuses to provide Ukraine with military assistance, citing historical reasons — a reference to its invasion of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Yet Berlin seems to have conveniently forgotten its history with Ukraine during the same time. Perhaps “Reichskommissariat Ukraine” rings a bell?

The history of Europe is such that any country can appeal to its past for why it either should do something or cannot do something. The German decision is then likely based in other considerations. Last year German global arms exports amounted to nearly 10 billion euros.

Not wanting to be left out is France. In a grotesque display of narcissism, President Macron on Wednesday used his speech to the European Parliament to call on the European Union to “conduct their own dialogue” with Russia rather than engage with diplomatic efforts being led by America and NATO.

Yet de Gaulle he’s not. Mr. Macron’s statements have drawn condemnation from European leaders who appear not to have been informed of Mr. Macron’s proposal. To drive such a wedge in a Western alliance that is already hanging by a thread is a classic case of French petulance.

European infighting does confirm Mr. Biden’s remarks on NATO disunity. “There are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do depending on what happens,” Mr. Biden said. Though ostensibly true, now is not the time for such public displays of haplessness. The Kremlin is watching.

In what might be one of the last efforts to deter a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Secretary of State Blinken was at Geneva today, meeting with Sergey Lavrov. The hope is that Mr. Blinken succeeds, yet Western floundering has likely made his task more difficult.

If Russia invades Ukraine it will, of course, be of Mr. Putin’s doing. It will, though, also be the failure of a West that was too historically deluded to lead, too self-absorbed to unite, and too feeble to act. The tragedy is that much more could have been done.

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Ms. Gadzala-Tirziu is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.