We do not need to restore the West. We need to defend it... We do not need to restore the West. Our society has not collapsed. We are stronger than ever, and it is that strength that allows us to endure adversity and continue to prosper. There are two invasions. The first comes with tanks, aircraft and drones advancing from the east, held back by Ukraine. A nation that has survived against all odds and continues to resist an adversary many times its size. But Ukraine cannot hold forever, nor should it be expected to. We must do everything within our power to assist and reinforce its defence with resources, personnel, equipment and arms. We owe Ukraine a debt that cannot be measured in money or weapons alone. Its people have fought a war they did not ask for, defending not only their own sovereignty but the security of Europe and global democracy. They should never have been left to bear so much of that burden alone. For that, we all owe them an apology. The second invasion is not at our borders. It is not being carried out by immigrants or foreigners whose cultures, religions or traditions differ from our own. It is at our fingertips. It comes through the devices we carry every day, through digital platforms weaponized by oligarchs and hostile states seeking to weaken, divide and ultimately subjugate our societies and make fools of our men and slaves of our women and children. Through fear, these actors manipulate the masses, particularly our youth and our men. Through fabricated images, videos and narratives, they exploit the psychologically vulnerable, the socially isolated and those who struggle to distinguish truth from deception. They convince people to fear their neighbours, hate and have contempt towards women, distrust their governments and turn against their own communities. It creates traitors out of patriots, and sinners out of the righteous. They transform ordinary citizens into unwitting instruments of information warfare, spreading the disease of disinformation to everyone around them, often without realizing that they have become part of the machinery being used against their own society, to attack their own nation. The objective is not simply to make people believe lies. It is to destroy their ability to trust one another, distinguish fact from fiction and recognise the institutions and communities that hold their societies together. It allows them to commit arson, rape, theft and mass murder without remorse, convinced that their actions are justified, their victims are enemies and their crimes are acts of righteousness. A population consumed by fear and suspicion becomes easier to divide, manipulate and control. A society that can no longer agree on what is real becomes increasingly incapable of recognising the threats against it, let alone defending itself. Its enemies no longer need to cross its borders when they can turn its own citizens against one another. We do not have the answer to how we bring back those who have been lost to this manipulation, yet. I do not know how we reach people who have become so consumed by fabricated realities that they can no longer recognise the humanity of their own neighbours. I refuse to believe they are beyond our reach, but until we understand how to reach them, we must also recognise the danger they can pose to others and take the necessary steps to protect ourselves, our communities and our institutions. For those who remain, who refuse to surrender their judgment to fear, who continue to recognise the humanity in their neighbours and the strength of their communities, we must endure. We must not allow fear to dictate our actions. We must not permit those who seek to divide us to determine our future. And we must never mistake the deliberate manufacture of social disorder for evidence that our civilization has failed. Our societies are not perfect, and our institutions must be subject to scrutiny, accountability and reform. But their failures do not erase what generations before us have built, defended and sacrificed for. Nor do they justify surrendering the rights, freedoms and institutions they fought to establish to oligarchs and hostile powers seeking to dismantle them. We do not need to restore a civilization that has not fallen. We need to recognise the value of what we already have, understand the forces seeking to undermine it and stand together to defend what generations before us fought to build. We are not a collapsing civilization waiting to be saved. We are a society worth defending. Stay calm. Stay smart. Stay strong.