New Delhi, March 3 -- Bluntly speaking, power is defined as the ability to bend others to one's will. The limits of America's are being tested, as evident in Friday's showdown at the White House between Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump (along with Vice-President J.D. Vance).

It was a global spectacle.

The war-ravaged country's leader sought a US security backstop to fend off a future Russian invasion, in lieu of a mineral-sharing deal with its most powerful backer, but got a testy earful on his having "no cards" to play and risking World War III in his effort to secure durable peace.

The irony of their fractious exchange of words was Trump's reason for why Russia would keep its end of a bargain: in effect, bec...