Posts published in “Russia’s War on Ukraine”

Humiliating, not appeasing, Putin is the only way to restore peace and stability in Europe.

One of the big lessons of World War II is that a policy of appeasement toward dictators hellbent on conquest and subjugation is morally repugnant and strategically wrong. Appeasement only wets a dictator’s appetite for domination. Dictators must be confronted and defeated, not appeased.

The French in the 1930s were big appeasers of Hitler’s Germany; and all of Europe, especially European Jews, paid a horrific price as a result.

Had Hitler been confronted and defeated before amassing a fearsome military and before he annexed the Sudetenland and invaded Poland, World War II would have been averted.

One would think the French had learned this history and internalized its lessons. France, after all, was occupied by Nazi Germany and liberated only by the force of American and British arms.

French Appeasement. Yet, fresh from his visit last week with President Biden in Washington, French President Emanuel Macron renewed his longstanding call for appeasing Putin and giving the Russian dictator “security guarantees.”

According to The Telegraph, “this means,” said Macron,

that one of the essential points we must address, as President Putin has always said, is the fear that Nato comes right up to its doors and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.

That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.

In July, Macron, likewise warned: “We must not humiliate Russia so that the day the fighting stops, we can build a way out through diplomatic channels.”

NATO Again. Excuse me, but this is dangerous and ill-informed nonsense. Macron has it exactly backwards. Russia, not the West, must provide “security guarantees”: to Ukraine and its East European neighbors. Russia is the clear and obvious aggressor. Russia, not Ukraine or NATO, started this war.

NATO never threatened Russia, and Putin knows it. The idea that NATO, or any one NATO country, has designs on Russian territory is ludicrous and laughable, and Putin knows that, too.

NATO is a defensive alliance designed to protect against longstanding Russian aggression and imperialism.

As former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has observed, Putin never raised a concern about NATO expansion with her or former President George W. Bush until very late in Bush’s second term. He belatedly raised the issue only as  convenient excuse or cover for his attempt to create by force a new Russian empire.

Humiliation, Not Appeasement. In truth, Russia must be humiliated. It must suffer a complete and devastating military defeat precisely to disabuse it of its historic and deep-seated imperialistic ambitions.

Otherwise, as with pre-World War II Germany, a barbaric and authoritarian Russia will regroup and rise again to threaten the peace and stability of Europe.

A defeated and chastened Russia, by contrast, creates the possibility of liberal change and reform. As Anne Applebaum explains:

The only solution that offers some hope of long-term stability in Europe is rapid defeat, or even, to borrow Macron’s phrase, humiliation.

In truth, the Russian president not only has to stop fighting the war; he has to conclude that the war was a terrible mistake, one that can never be repeated.

More to the point, the people around him—leaders of the army, the security services, the business community—have to conclude exactly the same thing. The Russian public must eventually come to agree too.

Win, Not Tie. Unfortunately, the Biden administration seems to be playing for a tie, not a Ukrainian win; and this is resulting in a long, drawn-out war, which allows appeasers like Macron to strut about the world stage foolishly warning against an “escalation” of the conflict.

Veteran foreign affairs analyst Robin Wright, for instance, urges the Biden administration to pressure Zelensky to negotiate with Putin. Otherwise, she warns, the war could reach “horrifying levels” and result in the utter destruction of Ukraine.

Wright is right to worry about a prolonged war, but wrong to push for appeasement.

Instead of playing for a tie, the Biden administration should be robustly arming Ukraine with America’s best weapons—drones, tanks, fighter aircraft, long-range artillery, air defenses, et al. precisely to bring this war to a swift and successful conclusion.

That’s the lesson of history; that’s the lesson of World War II; and that’s what French President Macron should be saying and acknowledging: NATO and America will ensure that Ukraine wins and Russia loses.

Feature photo credit: President Biden and French President Emanuel Macron yukking it up at the White House Dec 1, 2022, courtesy of USA Today.

The United States and NATO have the moral and military means to force Russia to stand down in the Black Sea. What they seem to lack is the will.

Russia’s threat to withdraw from its grain deal with Ukraine underscores Russian criminality and Western weakness. But the West is weak-willed; it is not militarily weak.

In fact, quite the opposite: the United States and NATO possess overwhelming military superiority and could quickly destroy the Russian military in Ukraine if they chose to do so.

Western Inaction. This is not to argue for a preemptive Western military strike on, say, Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet. Instead, it is to argue for a more forceful and assertive Western posture vis-à-vis Russia and the flow of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world.

The fact is: the West occupies the moral high ground. Russia’s threat to block Ukrainian grain exports serves no military purpose.

However, it does serve to jeopardize the survival and well-being of millions of people worldwide—especially the poor and impoverished in less developed nations that struggle to overcome poverty and malnutrition.

Russian War Crimes. This latest Russian threat, moreover, cannot be divorced from ongoing Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure and residential neighborhoods in Ukraine. These attacks are quite literally criminal. They, too, serve no military purpose. They are war crimes and crimes against humanity.

For this reason, the West ought to be far more insistent than it has been about safeguarding the right of Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa, and Yuzhny/Pivdennyi to the rest of the world.

This means not simply protesting against Russian threats, but declaring, unequivocally, that the United States and NATO will ensure that Ukrainian grain exports continue unmolested; and that any Russian ship that tries to stop or interfere with this crucial humanitarian mission will be destroyed.

As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board observes:

Denouncing Mr. Putin isn’t likely to change his mind about the grain initiative.

If he insists on a food blockade, the best response is for the U.S. to organize a coalition of the willing to escort grain shipments from Odessa and through the Black Sea.

It needn’t be a NATO operation, though the U.S. would have to lead it.

Wartime Ironies. One of the ironies of this war has been that Russia is economically and militarily weak, but brazen and aggressive. The West, by contrast, is economically and militarily strong, but timid and tentative. Consequently, the West too often has yielded the initiative to Russia.

This has been a big mistake. It is long past time for the United States and NATO to recognize that they have the whip hand, both morally and militarily, vis-à-vis Russia and to act accordingly.

A good place to start would be in the Black Sea: by ensuring that Ukrainian grain shipments to the rest of the world continue unabated without Russian interference.

Feature photo credit: TheWorldofMaps.com.

They don’t understand the crucial nexus between Ukraine, Russia, and American national security.

Most Americans support Ukraine, and most Congressional Republicans support Ukraine. Yet a small but vocal contingent of so-called America First conservatives opposes U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Like former President Trump, these so-called conservatives call for a negotiated solution to the conflict now before, they say, it “escalates” out of control and leads to “nuclear war.”

These so-called conservatives are grievously and historically wrong. Here we expose and debunk their arguments for abandoning Ukraine and appeasing Putin’s Russia.

Right-Wing Lie #1: Ukraine is corrupt and illiberal and thus undeserving of American support.

Yes, there is corruption in Ukraine, but so what? Corruption exists in many countries, including the United States. But this is very different from saying a country is defined by its corruption.

In truth, Ukraine is a relatively new and fledgling democracy. Like many new and fledgling democracies, it has problems—including corruption—that it is working to overcome. For this reason it deserves our support.

If we held every country in the world to an impossible standard of utopian perfection, then we would have no foreign policy or engagement with other countries, since they all would fall short.

As for being illiberal, this is nonsense. Ukraine is fighting to be part of Europe, part of the West, which is defined by its commitment to (classically) liberal principles of personal autonomy, personal responsibility, and democratic self-rule.

Do Europe, America, and the West deviate from these principles in ways that are sometimes alarming and disconcerting? Does Ukraine?

Of course they do—we all do—but again: so what? If an impossible standard of utopian perfection is what must guide U.S. foreign policy, then we have effectively jettisoned the idea of a foreign policy.

Right-wing critics who complain about alleged Ukrainian corruption and illiberalism also miss the crucial clarifying context, which is Russia.

Indeed, the alternative to Ukrainian self-rule is not American-style democracy; it is Russian imperialism, which is orders of magnitude more illiberal and authoritarian than anything proffered by the Ukrainians.

Oscar Wilde famously said, “You can judge a man by his enemies.” So, too, with a country. Ukraine’s enemy is Russia, and that tells us a lot about what Ukraine is fighting for and against.

Ukraine is fighting against a truly corrupt and illiberal authoritarian dictatorship (Russia), and it aspires to be a liberal democracy that is an integral part of Europe and the West. Enough said.

Right-Wing Lie #2: Ukraine and Russia are enmeshed in a heated “border dispute” that does not implicate American national security

Calling Russia’s war on Ukraine a “border dispute” is like saying the American Civil War was about “regional differences.” Both assertions are literally true, but they obscure far more than they reveal.

In truth, Ukraine is fighting for its nationhood and its very existence as a free and sovereign country. The so-called border dispute exists only because Russia seeks to erase from the map any and all Ukrainian borders.

This is a dramatic moral difference that talk of a “border dispute” hides or conceals. In the same way, talk of “regional differences” obscures the larger-scale moral truth that the American Civil War was about slavery first and foremost.

As for the American national security interest in Ukraine, it is real and significant.

The truth is: America is an international commercial power, with a clear and demonstrable stake in the international order. To allow Russia to subsume Ukraine would be to invite America’s enemies to do the same (illegally seize sovereign territory)  in other parts of the world.

Think China vis-à-vis Taiwan, for instance.

Moreover, U.S. foreign trade with Europe dwarfs our trade with any other region and is a driver of American prosperity. The idea that the United States can be indifferent to the fate of Europe in the 21st Century ignores the economic facts of life, the military facts of life, and the importance of alliances to keeping Americans safe and secure.

Right-Wing Lie #3: Ukraine is not America’s concern, it is Europe’s problem; and it is a diversion from our real 21st Century strategic challenge, which is the rise of China.

Again, in a world where millions of Americans travel and do business internationally, the idea that we can indifferent to the fate of Europe simply is not credible. And the idea that the Chinese will not draw lessons and inspiration from any Western appeasement of Putin in Ukraine is delusional.

In truth, Russia and China are aligned, formally and on paper. So by ensuring Russia loses in Ukraine, we weaken the Sino-Russian alliance and send a powerful signal to Beijing about Western resolve in the face of aggression.

Right-Wing Lie #4: Putin’s Russia is not an enemy of the United States; it is a potential ally whom we foolishly risk losing because of our misplaced concern for Ukraine.

This is unadulterated nonsense. In fact, well before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Putin had demonstrated, by his words and his actions, that he viewed the United States as an enemy.

For this reason, Russia has worked assiduously and unceasingly to undermine American national security interests—in Syria, Iran, and the Middle East; within Europe and NATO, Taiwan and the South China Sea; in the United Nations and other international bodies; and on social media (Twitter and Facebook).

A few throwaway lines about cancel culture, woke ideology, and LGBT designed for gullible American and European conservatives does not make Putin’s Russia a potential U.S. ally.

In truth Putin’s Russia is  clear and demonstrable enemy of the United States. Thus inflicting a catastrophic defeat on Russia in Ukraine will help to weaken one of our nation’s most significant and implacable adversaries.

Right-Wing Lie #5: Whatever the merits of aiding Ukraine, the United States cannot afford to spend tens of billions of dollars more on another “endless war.” We already are $30 trillion in debt. On this path lies financial ruin, which will truly devastate American national security.

True, the national debt is a very serious problem that must be addressed. But the idea that it is caused by excessive military spending, let alone excessive aid to Ukraine, is simply untrue.

The United States spends less on a defense as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product than it did during the Cold War. Meanwhile, entitlements—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—have been skyrocketing and consuming an ever-increasing share of the federal budget.

Entitlement spending, not military spending—and certainly, not aid to Ukraine—is what is driving America’s growing debt crisis.

For greater context, aid to Ukraine amounts to tens of billions of dollars in a federal budget that is trillions of dollars. And it is money well spent to safeguard the rules-based international order that drives American prosperity.

Ukraine, moreover, is not asking for Americans to fight and die on its behalf. Instead, Ukraine is asking for armaments and battlefield intelligence.

We aid Ukraine now to forestall and prevent a worse crisis later, which will cost us much more, potentially, in dollars and lives lost should Russia win and Ukraine lose.

Right-Wing Lie #6: The war in Ukraine is another “endless war” that we should exit before it needlessly saps our blood and treasure.

Projecting the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan onto Ukraine is a big mistake. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine is a European country with a relatively advanced and capable military that has no need for American combat troops to fight on its behalf.

In fact, recent Ukrainian battlefield successes demonstrate that the country’s military can and will inflict a catastrophic defeat on Putin’s Russia—provided the West maintains its support and assistance.

And so, we can see a clear end to the war, a time when (within the next 9-18 months, most likely) all Russian troops are expelled from all of Ukraine, including Crimea.

Right-Wing Lie #7: The biggest danger right now is that America “escalates” the conflict in Ukraine, thereby risking a “nuclear war” with Russia. This is madness! We must step back from the brink and find ways to “deescalate” the conflict.

This is an emotional appeal that defies reason. Escalation sounds bad, but what it actually means is accelerating our shipment of arms and munitions to Ukraine, so that the Ukrainians can successfully drive the Russian invaders out of their country.

This is a good and necessary thing, not a bad and dangerous thing.

As for the risk of “nuclear war,” this is another emotional appeal that defies reason. Any time you are confronting a nuclear-armed state (which Russia is) there obviously is a risk of nuclear war. But that risk is negligible if the United States and NATO have a real and credible deterrent, which they do.

Moreover, the real risk is not a strategic nuclear war, which would threaten cities in Russia and the United States, but rather a regional nuclear war in Ukraine involving tactical or battlefield nukes.

A regional nuclear war in Ukraine would be bad, obviously; but it is not nearly as bad or as dangerous as a full-fledged strategic nuclear war that could endanger Washington, D.C. and Moscow.

Finally, Russia derives no military advantage from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. And any Russian nuclear strike would require the connivance of hundreds of individuals in the Russian military and civilian chains of command. Such connivance is unlikely to say the least.

So the idea that Putin could launch a nuke in a fit of pique or because his “back is against the wall” is silly. As Timothy Snyder points out:

States with nuclear weapons have been fighting and losing wars since 1945, without using them.  Nuclear powers lose humiliating wars in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan and do not use nuclear weapons.

Putin’s Russia today will be no different.

Or, if it is different, it will be so in a small and militarily insignificant way. Putin will detonate one or more tactical nukes to try and scare the world and intimidate the West into backing down. Sorry, but that won’t work—nor should it.

Right-Wing Lie #8: America should force Ukraine and Russia to negotiate now and reach a compromise solution that will end the war.

This sounds good. Who, after all, doesn’t want to end this horrendous war, which has wrought so much death and destruction on Ukraine? But what, exactly, is there to negotiate? And, at this point, what could a “compromise solution” possibly mean?

Russia wants to conquer and subsume Ukraine. Ukraine wants to be free and independent of Russia. This an irreconcilable difference that cannot be negotiated or compromised away.

Russia either will take Ukrainian territory or it will be driven from Ukrainian territory. The only thing Ukraine can compromise on, after all, is its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Thus the problem with forcing Ukraine to negotiate now is that it means Russia wins and Ukraine loses.

That is and ought to be a nonstarter.

The bottom line: authentic American conservatives support Ukraine. They recognize that critical America national security interests are at stake, with ramifications that extend far beyond Ukraine. Failure, they realize, is not an option.

Right-wing populist imposters, by contrast, are stooges for Putin. They don’t understand the crucial nexus between Ukraine, Russia, and American national security.

Consequently, their criticism of American foreign policy a vis-à-vis Ukraine is grievously and historically wrong. Their objections to Ukraine and to American support for Ukraine cannot withstand critical scrutiny.

In truth, America First necessarily means Ukraine wins and Russia loses.

Feature photo credit: So-called America First conservatives (L-R): Ned Ryun, Laura Ingraham, and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis (Ret.) via a Fox News screenshot.