Thinking Ukraine Through: Part 4
President Biden has not led; he has instead allowed the original vast support for Ukraine to erode in the public and in Congress by not speaking clearly to the people on this matter. As Geraghty also said, “It is spectacularly bizarre to hear Republican grassroots complaints that President Biden is sending way too much military equipment to Ukraine too quickly, when there is so much evidence that the opposite is the case.”
There are certain facts that must be emphasized again and again if we are to maintain support for an engaged nationalism in America. For example, we are not at war with Russia, and our goal should be simply to allow Ukraine to regain its territory, deter future aggression, and restore a sovereign nation-state recognized by Russia itself. It must also be understood that the West should send no ground troops, just logistical, economic, and military equipment in support of a limited and defined objective. This point must be emphasized constantly.
Moreover, it is also necessary that Europe, especially Germany, help the United States to defend the free world by increasing defense spending to Cold War-era levels and free up resources for the United States to use against Communist China. Nonetheless, as has been reported,
[N]umbers reveal that when you add up all the military, humanitarian, and financial aid sent to Ukraine, Europe collectively is sending $2.22 for every dollar the United States has sent — dispelling the myth that America is getting stuck with the check for helping Ukraine. The estimated value of U.S. military aid remains significantly larger than that of European military aid, but European allies have compensated with more humanitarian and financial aid[.]
The blank check argument, among others, is a fallacy and should be retired from public discourse. Another fact is that the war cannot continue forever. Current levels of arms exports are draining American preparedness. So if the United States does not have the capacity or strategy to help Ukraine win quick victory, something must be done to end the war with honor while safeguarding America’s standing and preventing future Russian aggression. That is very different from unilateral abandonment. We must not forget that Ukraine is a pro-American ally, and we do not abandon friends.
Remembering that the United States’ invasion of Iraq is not morally equivalent not morally equivalent to Putin’s war is also necessary. Why? It should be remembered that Ukraine is a democracy, and Ukraine has not threatened its neighbors or behaved aggressively on the world stage as Saddam Hussein did. These arguments to destroy America’s moral credibility are only non-sequiturs. There are problems in Ukraine, corruption, ethnic tensions, and extremist battalions, for example. But there is no moral equivalence between Putin’s regime and Volodymyr Zelensky. It is the stuff of cowards and amoralism, something to be loathed, to pretend otherwise.
The United States should seek to support Ukraine to achieve some form of battlefield victory as quickly as possible so that Russia loses the capacity to threaten Ukraine at least for the immediate future. Once that is done, and Ukraine can negotiate from a position of strength, negotiations should be sought with provisions that allow unresolved matters to be resolved peacefully. At the same time, Ukraine will require firm security guarantees, whether that be admission to NATO or not. It must be firmly anchored in an alliance with mutual defense guarantees that will close off forever the possibility of renewed Russian aggression. That should be the conditions and goals of our support. To paraphrase British statesman Benjamin Disraeli, we should seek a lasting peace with honor. Unilateral disengagement, as proposed by so many, would amount simply to surrender, resulting in more tragedy.
To restate, the prevention of Russian aggression is in line with traditional American foreign policy aims and interests. The United States must seek to preserve the balance of power in both Europe and Asia while at the same time seeking increased support from other members of the Alliance so that it can focus against Communist China. This means it is in America’s interest to support Ukraine’s defeat of Russia as quickly as possible for political and strategic reasons. American goals in Ukraine are also in line with traditional American foreign policy doctrines such as the Truman, Nixon, and Reagan doctrines, which sought to support allies and free peoples in their wars against aggression. These policies led to American victory and security in a previous era of Great Power competition. We should seek to apply them to our times instead of jettisoning them, which, in part, means greater defense spending to deter other great powers.
The Republican Party should return to its traditional foreign policy views of peace through strength. The real critique should be of the Biden administration’s strategy for not supporting Ukraine to achieve a quick and overwhelming victory by supplying the necessary resources last year for Ukraine’s spring offensive. Republican and conservative criticism should not be that the Biden administration has not done enough to abandon Ukraine. America deserves a party that believes in her capacity to lead and that, as Victor Davis Hanson put it, we are “better than the alternative.” America should and must lead the free world, for freedom is worth defending, and it’s a false choice, the one that some populists are presenting to voters. In short, Slava Ukraini and President Ronald Reagan said, “We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted.” Let us hope we have not forgotten. If not, this might all just be part of a new gathering storm.