Once a celebrated cause in the US media, the Ukraine War now feels like a sideshow. We tie up vital aid in deals over our domestic politics; our media has made Gaza their primary headline; and overall policy toward NATO shuffles into the Ukraine question, even as fighting continues.
If this war can go so quickly from Exhibit A to also-ran, from righteous cause to political football, what was so important in the first place, and where has that gone?
What, at bottom, is at stake for America in Ukraine? Do we really even know? Did we first support Ukraine out of what Mike Mazarr has called “taken-for-granted certainties” that give decisions “more of the character of a reflex than a choice”? What were those assumptions, and why are they now diminished?
This blog has advocated support for Ukraine, not for its still-incomplete democracy, not for the sake of supporting NATO per se, nor over vague expressions of our values. Putin’s full-scale invasion cannot be allowed to succeed because it breaks a primary norm of the modern world. Before World War One, one nation might invade another in naked pursuit of its interests. No justification was necessary and armed victory would legitimate the aggressors’ gains. Since 1945 every conflict, save one major exception, involves some claim of self-defense, border disagreements, cross-border population issues and/or ethnic abuses, or some other grievance plausibly amounting to injustice.
This explained our tepid reaction to Putin’s 2014 incursion into Ukraine –a number of eastern Ukrainians did seem to have allegiances to Russia, and the old cession of Crimea to Ukraine had an arbitrary feel. In 2022 even Putin cited no grievance, simply claiming that Ukraine belongs to Russia. To allow him to take it by force amounts to letting might make right. Principle loses its sway in the world. This obliterates the post-1945 norm, which has been agreed to by all major powers and largely observed. The exception was Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, for which he ultimately if belatedly paid.
To the extent America supported Ukraine for democracy where it is not complete, or for our values where they were not clear, we had left room for others to see values of convenience. If we now sour on supporting Ukraine, we cement the perception. Further, if we supported Ukraine to support our NATO allies, then vote for policies that dilute that support, if we invoked a “rules based order” then back away over unrelated domestic politics, we show that allies and rules only matter to us if it’s easy to back them.
Why should enforce a norm against unilateral use of force? This use of force is far away, and its perpetrator’s hostility to us may dissipate if we get out of his way. The history of Stain and Hitler suggests otherwise, but then again Putin, in today’s circumstances, might be different.
This post offers the following reflections:
First, a world where naked force again becomes legitimate will be an unstable world. Freedoms and rights do not hold in the state of nature, where life is poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Our opposition to Putin’s invasion would be necessary even if Russia were not a murderous dictatorship, whether or not we had NATO allies abutting Ukraine. Our rules-based world order is irrelevant – the current norm against naked aggression deserves our deep support whether or not there are world orders, ours or anyone else’s.
Second, principled governance against aggression is vital in itself. “Peace,” as tragic as any war is, is not our be-all and end-all. Fidelity to our creed is our purpose, and it requires us to do our best to enable rights to grow. Taiwan, for instance, lives in freedom, with elected government, rule of law, and a population free to live by their chose lights, as much as any in the world. We must not defer to the PRC claim that Taiwan’s independence is an internal affair – for the sake of that freedom. If we only show interest in containing China, in securing TSMC’s chip capacity – or in peace at the expense of Taiwan’s freedom – we compromise our own existential premise.
Third, if we betray the motives we cited when we first came to Ukraine’s support, we portray ourselves as selfish, lazy, self-indulgently impulsive, and above all unprincipled. It tells the bad guys they can outlast any opposition we initiate. (Our prevarications give Putin reason to believe he is getting there, including in this week’s victory at Avdiivka.) It tells future Ukraines not to depend on us. Worse, our irresolute conduct suggests that freedom itself is a sham, at best a chimera, as the authoritarians say. It negates the existential premise of a nation that conceived itself a People holding certain truths, of rights and that government exists to secure them, as our mark of identity.
And what about Gaza? “What about” shows the question as politicized rhetoric. The relevant point is that our own conduct must connect clearly to our deep, existential interest, to live in fidelity to our own creed. In fact we face real quandaries around Gaza. Our creed would suggest deep support for Israel’s free society, but also for norms of justice, which are threatened by Israeli policy in the West Bank and conduct of its war on Hamas. But however we grapple with the quandaries of Israel and Gaza, wavering in our support of Ukraine against Putin will undermine our fundamental sovereign interest.
Common Conviction 