Why America Needs Ukraine
For other DS articles on these topics see:
- Democracy’s Cold War
- The Lessons of the Second World War for the Second Cold War
- Is This the End of Trumpism?
- The Devolution of the Republican Party into Populism
The Alphaville 1984 Cold War ballad “Forever Young” complains of the irony of “Praising our leaders” and “getting in tune” when the music is played by a “mad man.” These days one might say the same of the Republican Party and ask how much longer the party’s base will reward its leaders for getting in tune with the insanities of Donald Trump. Much has already been made of Ron DeSantis’ comments about how Ukraine’s “territorial dispute” with Russia is not a US priority. It is a truly reprehensible stance from a man I once hoped might return a semblance of sanity to the Republican Party.
DeSantis is clearly parroting the far-right wing of his party that has decided that Ukraine is unworthy of American aid and that Putin is deserving of sympathy as the victim of NATO aggression. The self-defeating nature of these positions is obvious, they are rooting for American interests to be harmed and for historical American values to fail. The most notorious champion of this position is Trump, who has praised Putin’s “genius” decision to launch the invasion and criticized NATO and American support for Ukraine. As always, Trump has endeavored to cast this as the US being suckered into doing what is best for another country instead of what is best for itself. Several astute observers have already pointed out that this position emboldens Putin even as he is fighting a losing war but now knows if he can just hold on through 2024, a Republican might win the presidency and lay waste to Ukraine’s capacity to fight.
But an even bigger picture here explains why the United States would be ill-advised to distance itself from Ukraine as both the far-right and far-left suggest. The biggest beneficiary of US and NATO aid to Ukraine is the United States. Here at Democracy’s Sisyphus (DS) we frequently deal with the geopolitical competition we call the Second Cold War between China and the United States. Using this perspective, we can see that the United States is benefitting enormously from events in Ukraine and to abandon the Eastern European nation now would be an absurd act of self-harm.
In his now infamous comments, DeSantis explained that while he thinks helping Ukraine is unimportant, a top priority for him is “checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party.” If Governor DeSantis does not understand the connection between China’s global power and the events in Ukraine he is woefully unprepared to serve as president, if he is pretending not to understand it to win votes then he is recklessly irresponsible.
Since Ukraine first shocked the world by defeating the original Russian advance, it has become clear that China is looking at events in Ukraine with an eye toward Taiwan. China has taken an increasingly aggressive stance towards the island and publicly declared its intentions to bring about reunification one way or another. The more Russia struggles with Ukraine the larger of a disincentive the conflict becomes for China to attack Taiwan. China and Russia are extremely close allies, and easily the two most powerful countries of the Authoritarian Bloc that opposes the US and the liberal world order. A failure for one is a failure for both. Abandoning Ukraine would embolden China. Right now, no American forces are fighting and the US spends just 5.6% of its defense budget on aid to Ukraine. A small price to pay for dealing such a serious blow to one of your fiercest enemies without any direct action on America’s part. To reframe DeSantis’ line of thinking, he prefers to walk away from a conflict the US and its allies are winning without fighting and dramatically increase the chances of starting a war over Taiwan in which many Americans will surely die, and success will be far from guaranteed. The US would be cutting off its nose to spite its face.
Another common refrain of the anti-Ukraine crowd is that Ukraine does not constitute a legitimate democracy or is too corrupt to warrant American aid. Again, this line of thinking misses the mark. First, as anyone who has studied democracy will tell you, the search for a “perfect” democracy will lead any sane individual to conclude that no real democracy exists on Earth or ever will. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s government undoubtedly has its problems, corruption chief among them, but again the US is not in the conflict primarily for Ukraine’s benefit but its own. Returning to the original DS article on the Second Cold War, liberal democracy is the dividing line of this conflict. While every country might not fit nicely onto either side of that line in practice it is important to keep the big picture in mind. Ukraine is the victim of unprovoked aggression by an authoritarian power acting in defiance of the US led world order and its rules. A victory for Ukraine is a victory for the Democracy Bloc regardless of Ukraine’s democratic bona fides.
With his comments, DeSantis has laid bare the flaws in the logic of those members of the far-right and far-left who oppose US intervention in Ukraine and blame NATO for Putin’s warmongering. Many will say that DeSantis and Trump are not representative of all Republicans. This is true, many Republicans went on record to contradict DeSantis including current candidate for the presidential nomination Nikki Haley and likely candidate Mike Pence. But neither of these individuals, at the moment, has a realistic shot at capturing the nomination. The Republican base seems adamant about following a so-called America First foreign policy that has no connection to reality and is woefully unaware of just how much the United States benefits from the international status quo. While the party remains under the sway of such an ideology and as long as the next generation of party leaders, like DeSantis, continue to buy into it, the United States remains an unreliable and irresponsible world leader and its own worst enemy.
Find our full publication here!
