Opinion
By Patrick Buchanan
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests … becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”
So Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis volunteered in response to a questionnaire that Fox News reporters posed to declared and potential Republican presidential candidates.
DeSantis defined what he saw as a truly imperiled U.S. “vital interest.”
“We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland, especially as tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year from narcotics smuggled across our open border and our weapons arsenals critical for our own security are rapidly being depleted.”
Republican colleagues and potential rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination came down on DeSantis with both feet, with Sen. Lindsey Graham reintroducing the “domino theory” of Vietnam days:
Vladimir Putin is “not going to stop. He’ll go to Moldova, into the country of Georgia, and he’s looking at the Baltic States or NATO. So the likelihood of a big war between America and Russia comes from letting him get away with destroying the Ukraine, because he’ll keep going.”
But, on reflection, is not DeSantis right?
Russia and Ukraine have each lost more than 100,000 dead and wounded in this war. Whatever its strategic objective in starting the war, Russia is now battling to hold onto territorial gains in Crimea, the Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, about a fifth of all Ukrainian national territory prior to 2014.
Both nations have testified, by the magnitude of their sacrifices, to their belief that what is at stake in the war is vital to them.
But what have we Americans sacrificed?
We have sent billions of dollars but squabbled over whether to send advanced artillery pieces, Abrams tanks and F-16s to the Ukrainians.
This hesitancy testifies to our true “vital interest” in this war. It is to stay out, and avoid being sucked in, as we have in previous wars, lest we get into a clash with Russia that could become World War III or a nuclear war.
By what we have done in Ukraine, and what we have refused to do, the U.S. and NATO testify to the stakes they truly see involved. And those interests are transparently not vital to the United States. How could they be?
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt first extended formal recognition to the USSR as Stalin was carrying out the genocidal Holodomor in which millions of Ukrainians perished from forced starvation.
If a genocide of the Ukrainian people did not constitute a U.S. vital interest then, when did whose flag, Russian or Ukrainian, flies over the Donbas or Crimea become a vital interest? It never was so considered during a 40-year Cold War.
What are we to make of Graham’s contention that Ukraine is the first bite of the apple for Putin, that Moldova, Georgia and the Baltic republics, all three of which — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have NATO war guarantees, are next on Putin’s menu?
But Putin has already invaded and defeated Georgia in the war over South Ossetia in 2008 — and then withdrew. As for the Baltic republics, a Russian attack on any of them would risk retaliation and war with NATO.
Why should we think that Putin’s Russia, horribly bloodied in Ukraine, would be looking for a clash with a 30-nation NATO alliance led by the United States so Moscow could occupy an Estonia of 1 million people that Russia willingly gave up over three decades ago?
But Graham’s scenario of a Moscow on the march after a victory in southeastern Ukraine does raise questions about whether our present foreign policy, including NATO war guarantees, are truly protecting U.S. vital interests.
As stated, the transparent U.S. vital interest in the Ukraine war is to stay out of it and avoid the risk of a military clash with Russia that could lead to a wider war, a world war and a nuclear war.
The bottom line for both the USSR and U.S. in the Cold War was to avoid a hot war. And, for over four decades, Deo gratias, we succeeded.
Yet, since that Cold War ended, the U.S. has made NATO allies out of six Warsaw Pact nations and three Baltic nations that are former republics of the USSR. And Graham is talking about the U.S. confronting Moscow on behalf of three more — Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.
Why?
When did these ex-Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics become nation-states whose independence and defense are U.S. “vital interests” worth guaranteeing at the risk of war with a nation with 6,000 nuclear weapons?
Recently, Turkey and Hungary gave their blessing to the admission of Finland to NATO. Finnish membership would obligate the U.S. to treat as an attack upon our own country, a Russian incursion into Finland, which shares an 830-mile border with Russia.
Why should a Russian-Finnish border war, which has occurred before in history, automatically become a casus belli for the United States, 5,000 miles away?
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
Patrick J. Buchanan
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
another transfer of treasure to people that should not get anything from their decisions we need to do what athens did and throw out all the pampas politicians
Interesting article calling out the corrupt Biden admin for their unhappy and dangerous proxy war in Ukraine. Not to mention, frightfully expensive. Ukraine is none of NATO nor USA business- we promised not to extend NATO’s borders to the east, remember? Ukraine, the “most corrupt country in Europa” is a Russian issue, not an American issue. As Lloyd Austin said, our purpose there is to bleed Russia white. In fact it is America that is being bled white. Our Euro “partners” need to step up to the plate and take over- WE have other fish to fry in East Asia… Read more »
you forgot to include the corrupt McConnell syndicate.
Not my circus, not my monkeys!
DeSantis is right on a number of issues. The DNC has more to fear from DeSantis than from Trump, and fought hard to keep Trump in the presidential race because DeSantis would have won by a landslide.
“When did these ex-Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics become nation-states whose independence and defense are U.S. “vital interests” worth guaranteeing at the risk of war with a nation with 6,000 nuclear weapons?“
Probably when the former Soviet republic’s leader made it known to a certain POTUS and his cohorts that said leader has preserved incriminating physical evidence of prior bribery and threats against said former Soviet republic, made by a certain then VPOTUS, regarding a certain son of said VPOTUS.
HERE! HERE! … but this is in THEIR PERSONAL vital interest, not of our national interest.
First, this is a problem for the EU if they sincerely fear a reconstructed red army. Their turf, their fight. The bottom line for neocons and neoliberals in the US is literally the bottom line: profit margins for defense contractors. Our only national interest in re the former Soviet Union is to keep its nuclear forces in checkmate. Their navy is a rusting hulk. Their army is a jobs program for youth. The performance of the Russian army in Ukraine is dismal. But, there is a model to follow as far as American involvement is concerned: the Iran/Iraq War of… Read more »
Buchanan, you are welcome to join with the other acolytes of Neville Chamberlain but I’ll stick with the likes of Churchill.
The article failed to mention that Ukraine has huge deposits of oil and minerals. IMOA, it’s probably the number one reason we’re helping them fight Putin.
It is simply AWESOME to see a new article posted by PJB. Favourite author, incredibly knowledgeable about world affairs & one of the best advisers to Presidents.
Of course he’s correct on UKR, Biden* sending all those US tax dollars to UKR is simply taxation without representation……we fought a revolutionary war for the same reasons.
Defund Ukraine: send in the Peace negotiators, not tax dollars.
Yeah, our politicians made their mealy mouthed security promises to get Ukraine to give their nukes to Russia and now they aren’t our problem. I bet you never wonder why we aren’t trusted and so many people actually DO hate us even though they would rather live here.
Russia were quite content to ignore the Ukraine until OUR OWN government (I mean YOU, Victoria Nuland) fomented a coup that removed the duly and lawfully and popularly elected President of that nation in 2014. Once that coup had been effected, other “factors” in the Ukraine began to fester. After that coup d’etat was effected, twolarge provinces of that nation held free and fair elections and voted to SECEDE from the rest of the Ukraine, one to remain independent, the other to rejoin Russia. Both regions had, for centuries, been a part of pre-czaarist Russia and preferred to return to… Read more »
I’d give Ukraine anything they need/want !!! We have a bunch of the idled and closed US factories. Let’s set up assembly lines and put people to work producing ammo and arms to resupply our needs and help supply our allies. We need to rapidly expand land, sea, and air drones, improve the technology, and get our people perfected in their applications! We can’t wait. We also need to take all the politicians who are doing all they can to disarm our citizens and take away more of their rights, and have them all charged with sedition, treason, etc, and… Read more »
Ukraine corruption is a given; however, during the Clinton administration, the US agreed to defend Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons. Much, if not all, of the special nuclear material was brought to Oak Ridge, TN.