When Lee surrendered to Grant, Lee came out with his small staff and prepared to ride away, dejected. Grant came out with his larger staff and had them remove their hats out of respect. When asked why he did this after a terribly bloody war, he replied: “I may befriend a man I’ve beaten, given time, but not a man I’ve humiliated.”

Give Putin a face-saving way out. Compulsively insisting on total victory risks nuclear war. Putin may not be well. Biden surely is not. The problem with skating on thin ice is that you never know how thin it is until it’s too late.