Why Ukraine Cannot Afford To Be Defeated
Ukraine is at war for the nation’s very survival. It is a place that most Americans didn’t know existed a few years ago. Even today, how many of us could locate the country on a map?
None of that really matters because Ukraine’s struggle represents a very real, as well as an existential, threat to the United States, Europe, and even Asia. No country should have their territory invaded by another. Ukraine has internationally recognized borders and the world community should do everything possible to be sure that Russia fails.
Russia has not only proven itself to be an aggressor toward their neighbor, but it has also committed war crimes in an illegal pursuit of territorial expansion. We have seen this behavior numerous times in history. The last time this was seen in Europe was by Hitler and his Third Reich.
We thought we could stay out of that war too. When territorial imperialism occurs, it never stops. Putin’s Russia has invaded before and seized bits of territories in republics of the old Soviet Union. Hitler said he was saving the German minority in regions like the Sudetenland from persecution. Putin has taken the page from that playbook and has used it in Ukraine as well as other places like Moldova.
In this case, we and our allies do have a chance not to spill our blood on foreign fields. If Hitler had been checked, perhaps the resulting World War II carnage would have never happened. The U.S. and NATO must give Ukraine all the weapons needed to prevent Russia from succeeding.
There are bad actors even now watching everything we do and calculating whether they too should invade other countries. China has decided that their economy can take a back seat to territorial aggression. It has picked off Hong Kong and ignored its treaty with the U.K.
If we are weak and abandon our obligations to Ukraine under the 1994 Budapest Agreement, both China and North Korea would become emboldened. The agreement stated the U.S., Russia, and U.K. would guarantee Ukraine’s security for giving up their nuclear weapons. At the time, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world due to the Soviet Union’s collapse.
North Korea is already a pariah nation. It has amassed nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them which is a threat to all of Asia…especially Japan and South Korea. While not ignoring North Korea’s becoming a nuclear power, successive American administrations had very limited options to prevent it except by war.
The tendency of the U.S. to think it can stay in its shell away from a dangerous world is a myth that we have paid for over and over again in the last century. The Republicans have had an isolationist wing for more than a century. Democrats are not immune to the same tendencies. Most of both Wilson’s and FDR’s international maneuverings were the result of making Americans aware of the dangers of Hitler and his allies and, to a lesser extent, Germany and the other Central Powers against France and U.K. in World War I.
In this case with Ukraine, it appears we have a nation and people willing to shed their blood against aggression. They are not asking for our men and women to fight for them. They just need the weapons necessary to defeat Putin and his dictatorial state. By us giving them weapons, we may prevent American blood being spilled once again on foreign shores.
Remember, we are not only speaking about Europe. An invasion of Taiwan by China could result in our defending that nation even though there is no mutual defense treaty. There certainly are treaties with both South Korea and Japan which would obligate us to do so.
Bullies are never satisfied when they see they can get away with their actions. Russia has been doing so more and more under Putin. We need the world to know that America and our allies will not allow it to continue. If he gets away with it in Ukraine, we will at some point be fighting when he invades the Baltics or some other NATO member.
