Two Jews address an economic forum” sounds like a set-up in search of a punchline, or possibly an online conspiracy theory. Henry Kissinger, 98, and George Soros, 91, are two of the three most opinionated Jewish nonagenarians in the world; the third is the sex therapist Dr. Ruth, 93. We have yet to hear her thoughts on the appropriate posture for the Ukraine war, but Kissinger and Soros addressed the World Economic Forum at Davos last week.

Kissinger is a hate figure for the left, Soros a hate figure for the right, but both stated the obvious that no one seems willing to hear.

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Henry Kissinger (Credit: Getty Images)

Kissinger warned that the Ukraine war is reaching a “turning point”. If the US doesn’t start looking soon for a negotiated exit, compromises and all, he said, then America and its allies are heading towards a conflict between NATO and Russia.

Soros cheerily opined that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “may have been the beginning of the Third World War” and called for greater coordination between Western-style “open societies”.

In the absence of Dr. Ruth’s advice, we should consider what they say.

There has been little public debate in the US about America’s goals and strategy in Ukraine. The Tucker Carlson wing of the nationalist right backed Putin at the start. Foreign policy realists and anyone concerned to avoid a nuclear exchange went quiet, to avoid the fallout of being associated with the isolationists and Great Replacement cranks.

Otherwise, the media went all-in behind an administration that is desperate for a win. And Americans snapped to attention.

It is a historical truth that the citizens of republics are more militaristic than the subjects of monarchies. Men and women in uniform are everywhere in America. We let them on the plane first and say, “thank you for your service.” In Britain, meanwhile, soldiers on leave usually travel in civvies.

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George Soros

Biden’s team has jumped into the Ukraine fight with all the enthusiasm of an administration with the worst approval figures since polling began. A powerful and unthinking patriotic reflex has kicked in. Politically, it is easier for Congress to send billions to Ukraine than to fund the kind of security measures that might keep active shooters out of America’s schools. The US military is just about the last element of the system that still works, and it looks good in action.

There is a new Top Gun movie out. The Republicans need no encouragement to wrap themselves in the flag. The Democrats and much of the media were already primed for conflict with Russia by the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump stole the 2016 elections with Vladimir Putin’s support.

Last week, it emerged that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was the source of a key part of the “Russiagate” hype, and that Clinton herself approved of its dissemination. Most of the media barely mentioned it: Russia has always been our enemy.

In our impeccably liberal and affluent neighborhood, some of the older cars still have “Bush lied, people died” stickers. No one hung red, white and blue bunting out for Memorial Day, which fell on Monday, because that is what Republicans do and, anyway, no one in this neighborhood has served in the military since Vietnam, if not Korea.

Yet there are Ukrainian flags hanging from trees. Children have drawn blue and yellow messages of support in chalk on the sidewalk among the usual domestic iconography of cats and dogs, houses and stick figures.

I doubt any of the adults could have found Ukraine on a map in January.

I am not an American and I find this belligerence and overnight conformity somewhat sinister. Soros identified “the rapid development of digital technology” as the destabilising force that has turned the tide of freedom against the open societies that looked like the future in the Nineties. He had a point: most of the news in America is a form of party propaganda, and more and more Americans seem unable to distinguish between reality and computer game.

But it goes deeper: Americans have always loved righteous violence, and many of them still believe in its healing properties.

It is hard not to see a connection between the unthinking speed with which they mobilise for war abroad and their tolerance, unique in liberal democracies, for military-grade violence at home.