President Trump’s great Warsaw speech was chiefly important for his saying this:

“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.”

He said rightly that our Western civilization is the greatest ever achieved, and warned that if it is lost it will never come again.

And he declared his determination that it will survive.

But that wasn’t all he said that was important.

It is possible, even probable, that with that one splendid speech he has put an end to Vladimir Putin’s plan to realize his imperialist ambition, to reconstitute the Russian empire as it was in the time of the Soviet Union.

How might he have done that?

Larry Kudlow explains how at Townhall:

With energy prices falling, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has essentially been in a recession over the past four years. With oil at $50 a barrel or less, Russian budgets plunge deeper into debt. It’s even doubtful the Russians have enough money to upgrade their military-energy industrial complex.

Through crafty media relations and his own bravado, a deluded Putin struggles to maintain the illusion that Russia is a strong economic power. But it ain’t so. Not even close.

Now, Russia still has a lot of oil and gas reserves. And it uses this to bully Eastern and Western Europe. It threatens to cut off these resources if Europe dares to complain about Putin power grabs in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, the Baltics, and elsewhere.

But enter President Donald Trump. In his brilliant speech in Warsaw, Poland, earlier this week, he called Putin’s energy bluff. …

In an absolutely key part of the speech, he took direct aim at Vladimir Putin’s energy bullying.

Trump said, “We are committed to securing your access to alternative sources of energy, so Poland and its neighbors are never again held hostage to a single supplier of energy.” 

President Donald Trump has quickly made it clear that Barack Obama’s war on business is over. He’s also made it clear, through regulatory rollbacks of breathtaking scope, that the Obama war on fossil fuels is over. Trump wants America to achieve energy dominance. He withdrew from the costly Paris climate accord, which would have severely damaged the American economy. He directed the EPA to rescind the Obama Clean Power Plan, which would have led to skyrocketing electricity rates. He fast-tracked the Keystone XL pipeline. He reopened the door for a modernized American coal industry. He’s overturning all the Obama obstacles to hydraulic fracturing, which his presidential opponent Hillary Clinton would have dramatically increased. And he has opened the floodgates wide to energy exports.

Right now, U.S. oil reserves are almost in parity with those of Saudi Arabia. We have the second-most coal reserves in the world. There are enough U.S. gas reserves to last us a century. We have already passed Russia as the world’s top natural-gas producer. We are the world’s top producer of oil and petroleum hydrocarbons. And exports of liquified national gas are surging, with the Energy Department rapidly approving new LNG projects and other export terminals.

All these America-first energy policies are huge economic-growth and high-wage-job producers at home. But in the Warsaw speech, Trump made it clear that America’s energy dominance will be used to help our friends across Europe. No longer will our allies have to rely on Russian Gazprom supplies with inflated, prosperity-killing prices.

In short, with the free-market policies he’s putting in place in America’s energy sector and throughout the U.S. economy, the business-man president fully intends to destroy Russia’s energy-market share. And as that takes hold, Russia’s gas-station economy will sink further.

And as that takes hold, Bully-boy Putin will have to think twice about Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltics. He’ll have to think twice about his anti-American policies in the Middle East and North Korea. And he’ll have to think twice about his increasingly precarious position as the modern-day Russian tsar.

And the world may yet become a safer place.

Trump has Putin over a barrel.

President Trump delivered a great speech to Congress on the last day of February, 2017.

We quote an article by Larry Kudlow at Townhall:

The mark of great presidents is optimism – visionary optimism and transformational optimism. During Tuesday night’s remarkable speech before Congress, Donald Trump was brimming with optimism, from start to end. My guess is that his marvelous speech will imbue and inspire new optimism and confidence throughout the entire country.

Stock markets surged over 300 points the day after the speech, and I’ll bet the president’s approval ratings jump over 20 points. …

He was incredibly effective. In fact, he was riveting. You couldn’t take your eyes off him. … You didn’t want to miss a word.

President’s Trump’s speech was infused with civility, which is something we all hoped for as an alternative to the coarseness of American politics (and the rest of the culture, for that matter).

He made fact-based arguments on the economy, health care, education, immigration, national security, and public safety. And he did so respectfully. He attempted to persuade, and it was wonderful to watch. …

This was a unity speech, not a partisan one. The president asked for common ground and common good. …

All the Trump campaign themes were there. He intends to keep his promises. I thought he was especially convincing on merit-based immigration. And he set out the principles of health-care reform, education choice, and law and order everywhere – especially in the big inner cities where poverty has ruled alongside violence in a downward spiral that seems impossible to fix.

In recent days, the president has spoken to various business groups about 3 percent-plus growth, which would generate far more revenues and far fewer deficits than conventional, pessimistic economists argue. During the speech before Congress, the president stuck to his guns on both economic growth and tax reform.

On foreign affairs, he pledged to stay with NATO, but he reminded everyone that his job is to protect the interests of the United States first and foremost.

Kudlow is not in entire agreement with everything the president said.

On trade, his message was more ambiguous. Outright protectionism was muted, but the threat hangs in the air. The divisive border-adjustment tax looks to be part of a White House-GOP congressional deal, which is unfortunate. But let’s wait on that to see the full story.

There’s also the threat of a new GOP entitlement in the form of refundable tax credits. But let’s wait on that as well, until the budget details are released. …

The president concluded. “We want peace, wherever peace can be found,” he said. “The 250th year for America will see a world that is more peaceful, more just, and more free.” …

That is soaring rhetoric. It is vision. It is optimism. It is inspiring. It sounds thrilling. “That is leadership. And that is greatness,” Larry Kudlow writes. “Speeches like this can change history. Do not underestimate this president. Like tens of millions, I’m sure – I’m proud of him.”

We are glad the president said it.

But we doubt it is true.

President Trump can make America great again. Can, and – we think and hope – will.

He can inspire the peoples of Europe to throw off the yoke of the European Union – the Fourth Reich, we now call it – and rebel against the Islamization of their countries.

He can put an end to the long war in Afghanistan.

He might destroy ISIS.

He might cause Russia and China to think many times before making any more expansionist moves.

But the world?

More peaceful with the jihad still raging throughout the West?

More just while sharia law continues to spread?

More free while ever more women put on the veil and submit to the status of slaves?

We like to be optimistic, and we are – for America. We are delighted that the bleak Obama years are over and we feel it is morning in America.

But can even the great President Trump stop the incoming tide of war, injustice, and subjugation in the wider world?

Well, let’s wait to see.