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.
