Vilnius, NATO & American Attitudes: A Take On The Bigger Picture

Editors’ Note: The Prickly Pear welcomes varying opinions and interpretations of issues both domestic and international. The following article by Marvin A. Treiger concerning the Ukraine Russian war accompanies Victor Davis Hanson’s article about the history of Russian war fighting and the implications for the current and future situation on the ground in Ukraine and Russia. Both articles are highly informative and give the readers of The Prickly Pear important perspectives on a critical foreign policy issue and threat for this and future administrations, especially as we enter the 2024 Presidential election cycle.

 

Face it. In your bones you want Ukraine to win.  Every decent American wants this outcome. It’s in our DNA and goes back to our Founding. It is natural for us to support plucky, freedom-fighting patriots against Empires led by Russian dictators like Putin.

NATO, led by the US under Biden and at a great cost, has given Ukrainians the military wherewithal to reduce the Russian invasion to a stalemate. Cracks in Putin’s rule, the weakness and ineptitude of his army, and his teetering international support (with Turkey supporting Swedish entry into NATO last week) have thrown Russia onto its back foot.

The future is unknown but one thing is clear. Russia has failed in its effort of the 2/24/22 invasion to conquer Ukraine. This is very good news for the future of Europe and for our emerging and ultimately greater conflict with China.

Sadly, as these momentous events are unfolding, we on the right have chosen a path of quasi-neo-isolationism characterized by disarray, misreadings of history, and non-Reaganesque squishiness.

Let us take the question of NATO. Too many Republicans have falsely argued that any expansion of NATO threatens war and even nuclear war because Russia sees NATO at its borders as an existential threat.

The reality is that NATO is, has been, and continues to be a defensive alliance with no mechanisms to conduct offensive operations and with even limited control of its members in support of defensive actions. This by no means indicates that NATO just sits pretty without throwing its weight around but Putin knows he won’t be invaded. He has other motives.

Membership in NATO eliminates the possibility of his gobbling up countries so he can restore his dream of some semblance of the old Russian or Soviet empires. Hence, he absorbed Georgia in early 2008 with Bush looking on, and Crimea in 2014 with Obama looking out the window. Add to that, his lo-level war in the Donbas, starting also in 2014, and none of which was part of NATO.

Putin has effectively eliminated the “buffer” state concept used effectively during the Cold War to contribute to avoiding war in Europe. Today, Putin does not see “buffer’ states but “plums” to be plucked. He has forced NATO’s hand.

This is why NATO membership was desperately sought by Finland and Sweden. Multiply that wish by a thousand and you get Zelensky and the Ukraine.

The Slavic and related peoples’ mindset has been as variable as their checkered, bloody, and despotic history. To some, Kyiv and Ukraine belong to Russia; to others, Russia and Moscow originate and belong to Kyiv and therefore Ukraine. Their histories contain a host of issues almost impossible to settle which remain eternally convenient for use as propaganda in the present by all sides.

Wisely, the Vilnius Conference, strongly supported by Germany and the US, rejected Zelesnky’s pleas to join NATO leaving a path to entry to an indeterminate future.

NATO’s Documents forbid membership entry while a nation applying is at war or with uncertain and challenged borders. Also, there are other conditions for membership such as the nature of civic institutions, etc., that must be resolved prior to admittance.

Ukraine is presently the second most corrupt nation in Europe with Russia (no surprise) taking top honors. Eventually, membership for Ukraine is a stated goal of NATO but anything more at this time –  such as a definite plan for membership – unnecessarily escalates the tensions with Moscow.

Membership in the EU has different standards and could work as a transition since achieving prosperity can assist reform. Ukraine would need years to rebuild as well. These are matters best settled on the ground for the present.

Gradualism regarding Ukrainian entry into the EU and NATO is a dramatic departure from the utopian essence that informed the neo-conservatism of the George Bush administration. We learned the hard way that a foreign, occupying nation cannot generate a modern democracy on unsuitable soil. Iraq and Afghanistan drove that lesson home.

That said, we don’t want to overcorrect and embrace some variant of neo-isolationism.  Libertarians call for cutting all ties with NATO which leaves us where exactly? Tucker Carlson has promoted pro-Russian bloggers like Andrew Tate. Pro-Putin propaganda needs to be seen for what it is.

What then should be our stance on Ukraine? Our candidates need to forthrightly declare that our goal is a viable, independent Ukraine with secure borders.They have not yet done so. What, for example, have Trump and DeSantis said about the war?

Trump says, if President, he would end the war in one day. Does he think Putin is Kim Jong-un and getting Kim to stop missile testing – as Trump did – is in any way comparable to halting this major European War? At best, this is meaningless bravado; at worst it is dangerous nonsense.

DeSantis has been, well, “squishy” is a good word, going from “territorial dispute” (an error he pulled back from) to a measured ambiguity.

Trump and DeSantis have both opposed the use of  “cluster bombs”, which while a worthy line to draw is small ball in the larger context of the war. In fact, does it not imply they would support other forms of military support? Why not say so? Why not say they support Ukraine and would be more successful and less error prone than Biden in doing so? I can’t help but wonder how Reagan would be speaking about all this.

Our bigger problem is, you guessed it, Biden. Our knee-jerk reaction to him distorts our objectivity. If Biden is for it, we must be against it. On the whole, this is a natural and appropriate reaction. After all, it’s hard to find here a single domestic policy that we can support. The same goes for most of his foreign policy. Not only that but even if that blind squirrel picks up an acorn now and then, he will, as even Obama said, “F—k it up!”

On Ukraine however, Biden deserves our support but with plenty of our criticism. Remember he began by offering Zelensky “a ride” out of the country. In other words, he was quite prepared to cede Ukraine to Russia. Then, when Zelensky’s resistance caught fire, Biden massively steps up military support, exceeding all other NATO countries combined seemingly abandoning our long-term goal initiated by Trump for Europe to pay its own way. Then he seems oblivious to the dangers of a wider nuclear war; then he is suspiciously implicated in blowing up the Nordic pipeline; then he depletes our ammo storage without replacements leading to offer, of all inhumane weapons, cluster bombs. 

Biden is senile, incompetent, and a puppet of Obama-related forces. He is wild hair and a loose cannon. We know his unsavory history of racism, groping, plagiarism, serial lying, unending errors in foreign affairs, and just plain smallness and vindictiveness as a person. Not to mention his leadership of a corrupt family crime syndicate unequaled in the American history of the Presidency. 

And yet, our most profound national interests coincide with the main thrust of support for a Ukraine victory that chastens the Russians.

Here is why I believe we must prevail in Ukraine. It has been rightly said that unified control of the Eurasian continent would likely come to dominate the world.

The China/Russia axis is potentially that power. Nixon/Kissinger brilliantly prevented this during the Cold War. We must see to it again in our generation. China and Russia have formally formed a so-called “unbreakable alliance”. A Russian victory in the war – which still could happen in a prolonged stalemate – would solidify that alliance. 

The Defeat of Russia in Ukraine pulls the rug out from under that eventuality. It also makes China less likely to try an invasion of Taiwan.

China, in any case, knows it is not yet ready to take on the US. Our current ammunition depletion and oil reserve drains and self-defeating feckless military leadership notwithstanding

Its stepped-up harassment of Taiwan militarily is a calculated strategy designed to weaken Taiwan internally and is succeeding to a degree. China is committed – wisely from their point of view – to a longer-range strategy.

Facing a weakened Russia, the Chinese are more likely to go after EurAsian raw materials than treat the Russkies as an “equal” partner. They have plenty of historical claims they can drudge up to that end. 

A weakened Russia pressed by an increasingly formidable China may even one day finally turn to its historic European links which should have been our more explicit goal at the end of the Cold War. Sadly, Yeltsin’s weakness as a leader stopped initial steps in that direction.

On the contrary, if Russia prevails, then our entire worldwide strategic position is weakened and Taiwan is surely next.

My point in advancing this bigger picture is not for the sake of speculation or prediction. And, of course, I realize, so much that is unpredictable will take place.

But, over time, fundamentals abide and we need to, like the Chinese seem to be doing, take the long view.

For now, Biden is leading Western support for Ukraine’s defensive war and deserves our support with massive criticism. That is a fact.

Let’s get rid of Biden or whatever radical Democrat they throw up in the next election and set the whole ship of state aright. If we succeed, we will have the best chance of forging, or beginning to forge, a new national unity.