Should we support Ukraine?
On February 24, 2022 Russia – geographically the largest country on Earth, with the second largest military on Earth, with the largest nuclear arsenal on Earth – began an all out military assault on Ukraine in an attempt to take complete control, committing systemic murder, torture, and rape of civilians, and razing large cities to the ground.
For ten months now (at the time of this writing) almost every major city in Ukraine is under air raid alerts multiple times per day as Russian long range cruise missiles and Iranian-made kamikaze drones target them. Many there now live without power (and HEAT, and sometimes WATER) more than half the time in the bitter Ukrainian winter as a result of Russia openly targeting their civilian infrastructure.
All this was done with absolutely no provocation other than that Ukraine wanted to remain its own separate country.
It was expected, by Russia, by Ukraine, and by almost everyone in the world, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would be over in three days, but against all odds Ukraine’s military is WINNING the ground war defending itself against its criminal invaders.
And the general civilian public matches this resolve. They go about as normal a life as is available to them with electricity only half the time, figuring out how to make do in this circumstance, and learning how to sleep through explosions knowing they may not wake up.
Many Ukrainians who sought refuge in neighboring countries shortly after the war started returned to Ukraine after only a few months because they preferred to risk DEATH in their home country than live safely as refugees elsewhere.
Then there is President Zelensky, the name on the top of Russia’s well-known assassination list of Ukrainian leaders, yet he remains in Ukraine, making frequent public appearances everywhere, even on the front lines within earshot of artillery (while Vladimir Putin remains secure in his bunker, having meetings across a 50 foot long table to avoid catching Covid).
When the U.S. offered Zelensky safe passage out of Ukraine to lead his country safely from abroad, he declined saying, “I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition.”
He has said in a recent interview when asked about his typical day, “Well, when I wake up it is already a good day because I woke up” (!!!).
Everything I’ve said so far is pretty much indisputable, with little or no opinion or slant whatsoever.
And it basically means that the heroism and valor of Ukraine, its military, its people, and its president rivals the greatest stories in human history.
Ukraine is a modern day David vs. Goliath, The Alamo, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 all rolled into one.
History books in the future will speak of Zelensky as it does of Churchill, and of Ukrainians now as it does of those soldiers who took the beach at Normandy on D-Day.
But Ukraine is a small, financially poor country without sufficient weapons and ammunition to succeed in it’s defense without outside assistance.
Some on the political Right oppose providing this assistance. They say we shouldn’t support Ukraine because Ukraine is corrupt, Ukraine is a dictatorship where the President bans media, political parties, and churches who don’t agree with him, and that Russia sort of has a point anyway, and so on. And they say we need to spend our money defending our own southern border instead of Ukraine’s. And they ridicule Zelensky for not wearing a suit at important public meetings.
I could quite easily address every point one by one, but I won’t. I know these are just shallow excuses for not supporting Ukraine. Even if I conclusively addressed every one of them, none of these people (Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, et. al.) would change their mind, so I’ll spare myself the effort. Below I’ll include links to articles going into greater detail refuting these red herrings if you care to hear another side.
But these people mocking Zelensky for not wearing a suit and making baseless criticisms of Ukraine are exhibiting an incomprehensible degree of petty smallness of mind and a complete blindness to the lessons of history. They are the modern day equivalent of those in the late 1930s who didn’t want to take sides by helping Britain defend itself against Hitler.
In a word, they’re pathetic, petty, cowards who could not walk in Zelensky’s shoes for one minute.
There are several reasons we should provide Ukraine with as much military support as they need to end this war.
And let’s be clear: We’re talking about sending Ukraine aid amounting to around 1% of our national budget, yet it means life or death to Ukraine, and it’s a hell of a lot less than we spent on Afghanistan and Iraq.
And many believe it’s an extremely cost-effective investment, that by spending this now, we greatly reduce the risk of a much more costly and much more deadly war later. See It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia for a more detailed discussion.
But even if you disagree with this assessment, it’s still only ONE PERCENT.
But the far greater reason to support Ukraine is MORAL: It’s unmistakably the right thing to do. This seems so obvious as to not require a defense.
I wonder if any of these conservatives criticizing Ukraine and Zelensky remember a guy named RONALD REAGAN.
Not so long ago Reagan was the undisputed gold standard of conservatism. The force of Reagan’s leadership was arguably the single greatest factor contributing to the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the communist Soviet Union.
What would Reagan think of the current situation in Ukraine? We don’t have to guess too hard as he was quite clear.
First let’s consider the speech that launched Reagan into the national political limelight, the 1964 “A Time for Choosing” speech at a Barry Goldwater rally where he said:
“[Goldwater] is not a man who could carelessly send other people’s sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I’ve discussed academic, we must realize we’re in a war that must be won… We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb, by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, ‘Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters.’…”
Reagan calls abandoning “those now enslaved behind the iron curtain” a great IMMORALITY, and says that saving our own skins (let alone 1% of our national budget) wasn’t sufficient justification for committing such an immorality.
It is important to also note that this was at the very end of his speech. Everything he said prior to this dealt with timeless conservative issues like government inefficiency, corruption, spending, waste, taxes, and over regulation. And he said all that was “academic” compared to this final subject (defeating Russia/USSR).
And his speech at Normandy commemorating the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion is even more directly relatable to the current situation in Ukraine. There he said,
“We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that ISOLATIONISM NEVER WAS AND NEVER WILL BE AN ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE TO TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENTS WITH EXPANSIONIST INTENT.”
If you’re not totally clear on exactly what lessons WWII taught us, I’ll nutshell it for you. Before the U.S. was attacked in 1941 we steadfastly refused to get involved in WWII, even as Hitler marauded across Europe, sacking one country after another.
When Britain was staring down the imminent Nazi invasion, Churchill plead with U.S. President Roosevelt to send some old military ships, or even to send the planes that Britain had paid for, but Roosevelt declined because the “Neutrality Act” prohibited providing such weapons, much as these conservatives would want now.
Consequently, by the time we showed up in Europe for WWII, the cost was infinitely higher – both in terms of money and human life. Had we sent Churchill weapons, or taken the building threat seriously much sooner it probably wouldn’t have come to that.
And note my bold/italics/underline of the word “freedom” in my quotes of Reagan.
On March 7, 2022 the The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute awarded Zelensky the RONALD REAGAN FREEDOM AWARD.
So it is quite clear: If Reagan were alive today, he would be 100% behind arming Ukraine to the teeth for both practical and moral reasons.
And that’s even more sure with one additional data point: Ukraine’s present vulnerability is OUR FAULT. Ukraine trusted an agreement made by the U.S. The Budapest Memorandum was the deal where Ukraine agreed to give up it’s nuclear arsenal – the third largest in the world at the time – in exchange for our guarantee of protection in the event that their borders were ever violated.
If they had that nuclear arsenal in 2014, Russia would not have seized Crimea or Donbass, in 2022 they certainly would not have begun a full scale invasion, and Ukraine would not need our assistance now.
With this additional context I have no doubt what Reagan would think about the Ukraine question today.
I am a conservative myself, and am ashamed that some people I previously admired are so ridiculously simple-minded and upside-down on Ukraine. History will be no kinder to them than it has been to Neville Chamberlain or the “neutral” U.S. during the build up to WWII.
Supporting Ukraine to the maximum amount possible is the only right, moral, and logical move.
Full disclosure: I’m biased. I lived in Ukraine for five years, leaving only after the bombing started. You can read my story at American in Ukraine: From Corporate Cubicle to a Life Changing Adventure!
For more detailed discussions of some of the elements I discuss here, see:
Russian atrocities:
Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian Genocide: Nobody can claim they did not know
Argument for supporting Ukraine:
The West must urgently overcome its fear of provoking Putin
Pro-Russian Conservatives:
Top US conservatives pushing Russia’s spin on Ukraine war, experts say
NATO expansion excuse:
Memo to Macron: Russia doesn’t need security guarantees but Ukraine does
Cost or Investment:
It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia
Gen. Jack Keane: US ‘investment’ in Ukraine denied Putin his ambitions, kept America’s future secure