For the past four months, people around the world have witnessed the macabre process of Russian forces making repeated assaults near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut for only the tiniest of gains. By some counts, Russia has lost about five of its soldiers for every Ukrainian soldier lost—to say nothing of massive equipment losses. Although in theory a country can win a war by using its military forces to make forward assaults against an enemy’s forces, that’s just not a smart way to fight. Military technology long ago evolved to arm both sides in conflicts with extremely lethal weaponry, and any army that tries to approach this machinery head-on is likely to suffer major, and in some cases horrific, losses.

Far more effective is to weaken your opponent’s forces before they get to the battlefield. You can limit what military infrastructure they’re able to build, make sure what they do build is substandard, hamper their ability to train troops to operate what they build, and hinder them from deploying their resources to the battlefield. These steps are doubly effective in that they save your own forces while degrading the other side’s. Over the past two centuries, the powers that have emerged triumphant have been the ones that not only fought the enemy on the battlefield but also targeted its production and deployment systems—as the Union did by controlling the waters around the Confederacy during the Civil War and as the United States and Britain did from the air against Nazi Germany.

[Eliot A. Cohen: The shortest path to peace]

In light of such dynamics, the manner in which the West is supporting Ukraine’s war effort is deeply frustrating. Though NATO countries have a variety of systems that can target Russian forces deep behind their lines, recent aid has been overwhelmingly geared toward preparing Ukraine to make direct assaults against the Russian army. The most widely discussed forms of equipment—such as Leopard 2 tanks, Bradley armored personnel carriers, and even Archer long-range artillery—are not the kinds of systems that can disrupt or degrade Russian forces far behind the front lines.

In short, Ukraine is being made to fight the war the hard way, not the smart way.  

Ukrainian forces have indeed been pushing back against Russia at the front. But when they have been able to create or obtain the right technology, they have also attacked Russian supply and troop-deployment chains. This approach to war was probably most evident last summer, when the Ukrainians, as soon as they gained access to HIMARS rocket launchers and other Western multiple-rocket-launcher systems, embarked on a highly effective campaign against Russian supply points from Kherson to the Donbas. They managed to wreck a logistics system that had been supplying the Russian armies with huge amounts of firepower daily.

Almost immediately the Russians had to move their large supply depots out of range of the Ukrainians’ new rocket launchers, keeping essential equipment much farther from the front. This has severely limited Russia’s operations. It can fire significantly fewer shells each day and apparently can concentrate fewer vehicles on the front. The area where the Russians can properly supply their forces for operations has shrunk.

This overall approach led the Ukrainians to one of their great successes last year: the liberation of the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson province. When faced with a large, relatively experienced Russian force around the city of Kherson, the Ukrainians tried two different tacks. One involved direct armed assaults against the Russian salient west of the river. These assaults achieved at best modest results. The Ukrainians were able at points to push the Russian front back a few miles, but they were never able to break the line for any major gain.

Yet, in the end, the Russian army withdrew from Kherson last fall. Why was that? Because the other tack had made its supply situation more and more tenuous: After a months-long Ukrainian campaign targeting Russian-held depots, bridges, and river crossings, Russian commanders decided that Kherson was not strategically valuable enough to be worth the effort to hold it. The attacks on Russian supplies and logistics, which sapped their ability to deploy and maintain forces, were what made the difference.

Eliot A. Cohen: Western aid to Ukraine is still not enough

The tanks and other assistance that Ukraine is currently receiving will help it attack the Russian army directly—which appears likely in the next few months. Ukrainian troops are training for such an operation in many partner countries and in Ukraine itself. They might well end up breaking the Russian line and advancing into the gap—the Ukrainian military has proved extremely resourceful and determined so far—but any success will likely be at significant cost to Ukraine’s own forces.

Their task would be easier if their allies had given them a stronger capacity to attack Russians from a greater distance. They clearly want to do it. One of the most extraordinary abilities the Ukrainians have shown is developing homegrown long-range systems, often incorporating drones, to attack Russian forces many miles from the front. Yet these homegrown systems are limited. NATO states could have given Ukraine longer-range equipment—including a missile system known as ATACMS and advanced fixed-wing aircraft—or made a massive effort to help the Ukrainians develop and improve their own ranged systems.

Unfortunately, NATO states, including the U.S., have been reluctant to provide the Ukrainians with missile systems with too long of a range, seemingly for fear of escalating tensions with Russia. Instead of allowing the Ukrainians to degrade Russian forces far from the front line, Ukraine is being prepared to attack that line. The Ukrainians’ fortitude and ingenuity up to this point suggest that they could indeed accomplish their task—but it’s been made much harder than it needs to be.

When the Washington State–based travel guide and TV host Rick Steves decided to return to Europe in early 2022, he wasn’t sure how many of his favorite local spots had survived two years of pandemic life. Steves, who has hosted Rick Steves’ Europe for the past two decades and operates tours aimed at introducing American travelers to the continent, was pleasantly surprised by what he found: Many of his beloved places—the kind of mom-and-pop places that have been owned by the same families for generations—had made it through, and the streets were alive anew. “They’re kissing cheeks with a vengeance in Paris right now,” he told me. “And I’m really thankful for that.”

Steves and I caught up to discuss the rebound in tourism and how travel has changed since the start of the pandemic. He also warned that this summer may be a particularly busy one—perhaps the continent’s busiest yet—and offered practical tips for traveling amid crowds. (Consider heading to less-popular destinations, and don’t bother checking a bag!)

Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Caroline Mimbs Nyce: Is COVID the biggest challenge that you’ve been thrown in your career?

Rick Steves: With every terrible event that stops travel for a little while, the demand does not dissipate; it just backs up. And then, when the coast is clear, all of those travel dreams are dusted off, and people turn them into reality.

In the course of my career, we’ve been through many tragic disruptions, but they didn’t really stop people from traveling. But for COVID, we were out of business. I had 100 people on my payroll and no revenue for two years. And that’s really tough to get through. Everybody in tourism is really thankful to get back at it. Guides are tearful on the bus after they’ve had a chance to give their historic walk to ancient Rome or through the back streets of Venice.

[Read: For one glorious summer, Americans will vacation like the French]

Nyce: There’s always the big, philosophical question of “Why do we travel?” Did the answer change for you during the pandemic?

Steves: If we travel, we are better connected with other nations, and the family of nations can work more constructively together. And to me, that means all of us are individual ambassadors—individual forces for peace. When we travel, we get to know each other better. We humanize people that we don’t otherwise understand.

Nyce: We most often associate travel with leisure, but you’re making a geopolitical case for it.

Steve: Well, if you want a rationale for why: I’m feeling very serious about climate change lately. When people travel, they contribute to climate change. A thoughtful traveler—an ethical traveler coming out of COVID—can reduce the toll of travel by paying for their carbon.

Nyce: Do you have any other tips for the ethical traveler of 2023?

Steves: Recognize that we have sort of a herd mentality when it comes to travel these days.

Nyce: The Instagram effect.

Steves: Exactly. It’s Instagram, crowdsourcing, and Tripadvisor. When I started my work, there was not enough information. Now there’s too much information. As consumers, we need to be smart and know where our information is coming from. Who’s writing this, what’s their experience, and on what basis do they say this is the best hot chocolate in Paris? People say, “Oh, this hot chocolate’s to die for.” It’s their first time in Paris, and they think they know where the best hot chocolate is.

Also, the crowds are going to be a huge problem. Just like in the United States, it’s hard for restaurants to staff the restaurants and for airlines to staff the planes. That means you need to double-confirm hours and admission. You need to anticipate chaos in the airports. Book yourself a little extra time between connections, and carry on your bag.

Another thing is that museums and popular cultural attractions learned the beauty of controlling crowds by requiring online booking. At a lot of sites, you can’t even buy a ticket at the door anymore.

Everybody goes to the same handful of sites. If you just go to those sites, you’re going to have a trip that is shaped by crowds. Or you can break free from that and realize that you can study the options and choose sites that are best for you. You can go to alternative places that have that edge and that joy and that creative kind of love of life. “Second cities,” I call them.

[Rick Steves: I’m traveling, even though I’m stuck at home]

Nyce: How much have you had to update your guidebooks since COVID? Are there favorite spots of yours that have closed because of the economic ramifications of lockdowns?  

Steves: In 2019, we were euphoric about how well our guidebooks were doing. Everything was up to date. And then, of course, COVID hit, and everything was mothballed for two years.

In early 2022, we decided to go back and research. The things that distinguish a Rick Steves guidebook are all of the little mom-and-pop places. And I was really, really scared that these were going to be the casualties of two years of no business.

The great news is, by and large, all those little mom-and-pops survived. There were very few closures. There were lots of changes with bigger companies and places that just focus on tourists. But our local favorites—the little bed-and-breakfasts and bistros—they survived. They’re mission-driven. They’ve been in the same family for generations. They just trimmed sales, hunkered down, and got through this. Last year, they were back in business, and this year, they expect to be making a profit again. We’ve cleaned out the places that did close.

Nyce: What have you noticed about the post-COVID tourism rebound?

Steves: First of all, we’re not done with COVID. We don’t know what curveballs COVID is going to throw at us in the coming year. Last year, we took 25,000 people to Europe on our Rick Steves bus tours, on 40 different itineraries all over Europe. Four percent of our travelers tested positive for COVID on the road. None of them, as far as I know, went to the hospital.

I can’t say what’s safe for you or some other traveler, but I can say that if you’re comfortable traveling around the United States, you should be comfortable doing the same thing in Europe or overseas. It’s a personal thing, how much risk vis-à-vis COVID you want to take. And it’s an ethical issue for travelers: If you’ve got COVID, do you isolate yourself, or do you put on a mask and keep on traveling? I think the ethical thing to do is not expose other people, hunker down, and self-isolate.

We’re meeting with our guides each month, and we’re making our protocols in an ever-changing COVID world for that coming month. It was workable last year, and I think it’s going to be better this year.

Nyce: You sound pretty optimistic about the recovery of the industry. I wasn’t sure from when I got on the phone with you if you were going to say, “It’s forever scarred. Europe is a different continent.”

Steves: Oh, no. I measure the health of Europe, from a travel point of view, by the energy in the streets. In Madrid, the paseo is still the paseo. You’ll still enjoy the tapas scene, going from bar to bar, eating ugly things on toothpicks, and washing it down with local wine with the local crowd. In Italy, it’s the passeggiata—everybody’s out strolling. People are going to be busy on the piazzas licking their gelato. In Munich, they’re sliding on the benches in the beer halls, and clinking their big glasses and singing, just like before.

People said, “No one is going to be kissing cheeks in Paris, because everybody’s going to be so worried about germs.” They’re kissing cheeks with a vengeance in Paris right now, because they have survived COVID. And I’m really thankful for that.

No former president of the United States has ever been indicted at either the federal or state level. That more-than-two-centuries-old record, if you want to call it that, looks like it could soon be broken—something that should have happened a long time ago.

A few American presidents have certainly behaved questionably enough to meet the standard of probable cause needed for an indictment. Given this, the fact that no former president has ever been prosecuted implies some kind of political tradition—one the Founders never intended to establish. They made clear in the Constitution—specifically in Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, which says an impeached president can be tried after he leaves office—that indictments of former presidents aren’t supposed to be taboo.

Yet our system of government has had a hard time mustering the will to prosecute disgraced presidents. The closest the country has ever come to such a moment, until now, was in January 2001, when Independent Prosecutor Robert Ray decided not to seek an indictment of former President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Ray had wanted to indict Clinton. Sources later told the legal scholar Ken Gormley that Ray was “ready to pull the trigger” once Clinton left office. Ultimately (reportedly after being persuaded by his deputy, Julie Thomas), Ray decided that if Clinton agreed to a deal that included publicly admitting to having been misleading and evasive under oath, the country would get closure after the long Whitewater investigation and didn’t need to see him indicted.

[David A. Graham: If they can come for Trump, they can come for everyone]

Twenty-five years earlier, Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski had been far less enthusiastic than Ray about prosecuting a different former president—Richard Nixon. Jaworski’s posture may seem surprising given the crimes not only that Nixon was accused of but for which there was direct evidence on tape—it certainly surprised me when, in the 2000s, I immersed myself in the history of Watergate as the founding director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. An overwhelming majority of Jaworski’s Watergate-trial team didn’t share his reluctance to indict Nixon. Jaworski’s deputy, Henry Ruth, described eloquently the weight of the decision Jaworski faced. Ruth wrote to the special prosecutor in the summer of 1974:

Indictment of an ex-President seems so easy to many of the commentators and politicians. But in a deep sense that involves tradition, travail and submerged disgust, somehow it seems that signing one’s name to the indictment of an ex-President is an act that one wishes devolved upon another but one’s self. This is true even where such an act, in institutional and justice terms, appears absolutely necessary.

“Yeah, well, I just don’t think it would be good for the country to have a former president dumped in the D.C. jail,” Nixon told the vice-presidential nominee Nelson Rockefeller in a telephone conversation on August 24, 1974. Nixon accepted that as a former president he could be indicted, but he had his lawyer argue against indictment on the basis that a fair trial would be impossible—effectively a violation of Nixon’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury—because of the highly publicized impeachment process. And Jaworski agreed. “I knew in my own mind that if an indictment were returned and the court asked me if I believed Nixon could receive a prompt, fair trial as guaranteed by the Constitution, I would have to answer … in the negative,” he wrote in his Watergate memoir, The Right and the Power.

Jaworski hoped Nixon’s successor, Gerald R. Ford, would take the decision out of his hands. After Ford revealed at his first press conference, on August 28, 1974, that he was considering pardoning Nixon, Jaworski told his top lieutenants, “I certainly would not ask the grand jury to indict Nixon if President Ford intended to pardon him.” Fortunately for Jaworski, Ford didn’t want to wait for an indictment. The day after his press conference, Ford instructed his closest advisers to review whether a president could pardon an individual before an indictment. When Jaworski met with Philip W. Buchen, Ford’s White House counsel, on September 4 to signal to the president that if he intended to pardon Nixon, it should be done before an indictment, Jaworski was pushing an already open door. Two days earlier, Ford’s team had told the president he didn’t have to wait for the special prosecutor to act.

A number of considerations compelled Ford to act quickly (Nixon’s poor health, concerns over the protection of Nixon’s tapes and papers, which in that era a former president had the right to destroy), but the anticipated costs to the presidency and the nation of a drawn-out prosecution—and the difficulty of a fair trial—figured prominently among them. At his meeting with Jaworski, Buchen asked Jaworski how long he thought it would take for the Watergate scandal to die down enough to make a fair trial possible for Nixon. Jaworski’s answer was discouraging.  “A delay, before selection of a jury is begun, of a period from nine months to a year, and perhaps even longer,” Jaworski wrote in his formal reply to Buchen after the meeting. As for jury selection itself, Jaworski wouldn’t even hazard a guess about how long that could take. America could have been well into its bicentennial year—and a presidential-election year—before Nixon stood trial. Four days later, Ford pardoned Nixon.

[Tim Naftali: The worst president in history]

In the cases of both Clinton and Nixon, the behavior at issue occurred during their time in office. Until Donald Trump, you have to go back to the late 19th century to find even the whiff of possibility that a former president would be indicted for something done before or after his presidency. Following the collapse of his Wall Street brokerage firm, Grant & Ward, in 1884, former President Ulysses S. Grant came under some suspicion when his partner, Ferdinand Ward, was arrested for fraud. But Grant, who was dying of throat cancer and would spend his last painful months writing his memoirs in order to leave an inheritance and enable his widow to pay back the family’s debts, turned out to be as much a victim of Ward’s lies as his investors were.

There will be a lot of discussion in the coming days about the political utility (for Trump) and political price (perhaps for his detractors) of Trump’s indictment for a felonious scheme in New York City, but taking the long view, it is about time our country set this precedent. Good government requires a little fear among the powerful, including presidents. Presidents especially need to know that if they engage in criminal acts, their power cannot protect them forever.

Should a group of New York grand jurors soon decide that the indictment of Trump is “absolutely necessary,” they will finally confirm, as the Founders expected, that ordinary citizens have the power to treat former commanders in chief like anyone else. And that’s something that should always have been an American tradition.

Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a show of support for China as a market and manufacturing base during a visit to Beijing Saturday, even as trade and tech sector tensions escalate between the United States and the world's second-largest economy.

The Justice Department announced charges Friday against a Russian national who allegedly entered the United States under a fake identity and gathered information from American citizens about the then-looming Russian invasion of Ukraine.