Prologue:
If you believe strongly in military intervention—against Russia, or anyone at all—I invite you to intervene. Put down your Starbucks, close your MacBook, step back from your standing-desk, leave your NYU/Yale/Swarthmore degree on the wall, and march down to the recruiting station. It’s on the other side of town, past the yoga studios and art museums, over the railroad tracks. It’s in the crumbling shopping plaza, tucked between a Ross Dress For Less and an Arby’s. The recruiter will sign you up on the spot. And then you can stand side by side with America’s working class to risk it all for the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The United States should not intervene in Ukraine.
Here’s why.
One: The US lacks a vital strategic interest in Ukraine.
Frankly, this is all you need to know. The US does not benefit from intervening in Ukraine. Not militarily, not diplomatically, not economically, not politically. It would not preserve or reshuffle the world order. Nothing is hanging in the balance aside from Ukrainian sovereignty. Said another way: if the US chooses not to intervene in Ukraine, the US loses nothing.
This is why attempts to justify a US intervention in the Ukraine typically lead to some sputtering nonsense about preserving democracy or reigning in Putin or something equally rich. Because the pundits can’t point to a tangible strategic interest. No one can say directly, with conviction, if we allow Russia to invade Ukraine, America will be less safe. Or, if we allow Russia to invade Ukraine it will damage the US economy. Because those things are not true.
Instead, we get Ben Rhodes (Rice, B.A.; NYU, M.F.A.) tweeting like this:
“We are potentially on the verge of a land war in Europe aimed at extinguishing democracy and sovereignty and the American right wing is on the side of ethno-nationalist authoritarianism. That’s where we’re at.”
There is a lot to dislike about Rhodes’ tweet. For Rhodes, the only reasonable position is stopping Russia to prevent them from “extinguishing democracy and sovereignty.” Curiously, Rhodes fails to factor that his Obama administration already corrupted Ukrainian democracy by thumbing the scale to oust President Viktor Yanukovych—the democratically elected leader of Ukraine—when Yanukovych began favoring Russia over the EU/NATO. Instead, Rhodes equates opposing intervention—an entirely reasonable position—with supporting ethno-nationalist authoritarianism.
Here’s Max Boot (Cal-Berkeley, B.A.; Yale, M.A.) with another flailing attempt to justify Ukrainian intervention.
“If we don’t ensure that Russia pays a high price for its aggression against Ukraine, that will send a message to China that it can attack Taiwan with impunity.”
First of all, no, Ukraine is not part of China’s Taiwan calculus. Just like Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal is not a part of China’s Taiwan calculus. Of course, US-Russia relations factor into Chinese strategy. But whether Russia expands their territory further into eastern Ukraine is unlikely to bear on China’s decision to invade the island nation of Taiwan. What’s more plausible is that US preoccupation and resource commitment in the Ukraine makes Chinese adventurism in the South China Sea more likely. And what seems certain, is that US intervention in the Ukraine pushes Russia and China closer together. The US should be working to split Russia and China apart.
Second of all, the US does not have a vital strategic interest in protecting Taiwan either. So, stepping into Ukraine, for the purpose of protecting Taiwan, is a baffling (yet mainstream) proposal.
Two: Russia has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal
The nice thing about intervening in North Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Kosovo, Panama, Grenada, Korea, Nazi Germany, etc. is that none of those states had the capacity to reach out and touch Americans in our homeland. Russia, however, very much has the capacity to reach out and touch Americans. The US spent forty years living in fear of Soviet nuclear weapons—but now, thirty years after the end of the Cold War, we act as if we’ve forgotten: Russia has 4,500 nukes. And given Russia’s disadvantage in conventional military strength relative to the US, maybe letting a nuke or two off the chain will make more sense for them than conventional conflict.
Epilogue:
The American Left seems to have abdicated its role as war-brake. Why is Tucker Carlson one of the only people making sense on Russia? When I grew up, my liberal parents were still pissed about Vietnam. When I was in high school (…and college…and graduate school), the Left was pissed about Iraq and Afghanistan. And rightly so. The citizenry of the Left (if not the elected officials) did their best to hold us back from the Martian pit. Now, as America autopilots toward conflict with Russia, the Left is blasé. They’re busy getting Minnie Mouse into a pantsuit, or scolding people on booster frequency. What happened to Hell No, We Won’t Go?
Maybe four years of maligning Trump as a Russian puppet made everyone super-sensitive about accommodating Russia. Or perhaps Lefties feel some sense of lingering guilt over Clinton’s NATO expansion, or Obama’s Ukraine meddling—which, naturally, antagonized Russia and led to the current predicament. I don’t know.
Regardless of the rationale, Standing Up To Putin has become something of a DNC virtue-signal—like wearing a mask in a park, driving a Prius, or carrying Amanda Gorman’s latest under your arm, label out. But a Prius, or The Hill We Climb, are geopolitically innocuous. Standing Up To Putin, however, is sick stuff: inviting brinkmanship for social approval.
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