In late May, Trump administration officials at the highest level, frustrated by what they regard as Vladimir Putin’s incomprehensible obstreperousness over his war on Ukraine, suggested that their patience was running out, after which the United States — which has not approved further military supplies for Ukraine in months — would leave the combatants to their own devices. “It’s not our war,” was the mantra of the day.
May I please dissent?
Of course, it’s not “our” war in the sense that it’s Ukraine’s war. Still, it cannot be said often enough — because it has never been grasped by those for whom everything in life is transactional — that this is an existential conflict for Ukraine: a war for survival. It is not a war over swaths of territory, the language rights of Russian-speakers in Ukraine, or rare-earth minerals. It is a war for Ukraine, period, full stop.
Putin has made clear from the outset that he intends to destroy what he regards as a bogus nation harboring a non-state run by “Nazis,” and to incorporate into the “Russian world” whatever’s left when his marauders get through. Putin is a liar, a thief, and a murderer, but he has been quite transparent about this. To vary Cato the Elder and his anti-Carthaginian antiphon, Carthago delenda est, Putin is obsessed with the idea of Ukraina delenda est — “Ukraine must be destroyed.”
That lethal obsession is, however, where we come in.
Contrary to Putin’s warped reading of history, the Soviet Union was not the “Russian world” writ large. The USSR was an artificial construct, a “union” of nations masquerading as “republics,” bound together by a terror machine of unprecedented cruelty. The dissolution of the Soviet Union thus liberated historic nations with distinctive cultures to seek their future as independent states. Their liberation, and the demise of the Soviet Union, was the result of Western steadfastness during the Cold War. The political and military expression of that resolve was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the undisputed leader of NATO was the United States, which invested lives and treasure in protecting free Europe: because it was the right thing to do, and because it served the American national interest.
Putin’s war on Ukraine is a war to reverse the American and Western victory in the resolution of the Cold War. Should Putin succeed in Ukraine, he will not stop there. The Baltic states know that. Poland knows that. Sweden and Finland know it, which is why they joined NATO. Certain administration officials, including those at the highest levels, may believe that this is No Big Deal: that a world divvied up into spheres of interest among three great powers — Russia, China, and the United States — would be just fine for America, which will be left alone to pursue wealth.
Fat chance.
Nothing in the history of political modernity suggests that great powers with hegemonic ambitions and governed by totalitarian or authoritarian leaders stop without being stopped. Napoleonic France didn’t. Wilhelmine Germany didn’t. The Third Reich didn’t, and neither did Imperial Japan. The USSR didn’t. Communist-led China took a breather during the Deng Xiaoping era to build an economic powerhouse; it is now using that wealth to ramp up its military and reverse its “century of humiliation” by projecting power throughout the world. A triadic world in which Europe is in thrall to Russia, and Asia and Africa are in thrall to China, is not going to be good for the United States, economically or any other way.
There are also clear moral issues here. There can be no peace without justice, as Pope Leo XIV — a good Augustinian in this respect — made clear in some of his first statements. If Putin’s brutality is rewarded in any way, the already fragile moral ecosystem of world politics will be gravely damaged. If other aggressors learn that hundreds of drone and missile strikes can be launched on civilian targets with impunity, they will act accordingly in the future. And more innocents will be the victims.
Ukraine’s war is our war in another sense. If Putin wins, some of the most mendacious voices in the American information space — Mr. Tucker Carlson comes immediately to mind — will think themselves vindicated, and their vast campaign of disinformation will have further eroded the rational deliberation that is democracy’s lifeblood.
Ukraine is not asking us to defend its people or fight its war for it. It is asking for the tools to do so. Providing those tools is the right thing to do, morally and strategically, because it helps win the war for the future in which we are engaged, like it or not.
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