VictorDavis HansonJanuary 27, 2022 10:27 AM ET
Vladimir Smirnov/Pool/AFP/Getty Images/TNS
Americans want an autonomous Ukraine to survive. They hopethe West can stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strangulation of bothUkraine and NATO.
Yet Americans do not want their troops to venture acrossthe world to Europe’s backyard to fight nuclear Russia to ensure that Ukrainestays independent.
Most Americans oppose the notion that Russia can simplydictate the future of Ukraine.
Yet Americans also grudgingly accept that Ukraine was oftenhistorically part of Russia. During World War II, it was the bloody scene ofjoint Russian-Ukrainian sacrifices – over 5 million killed – to defeat the NaziGerman invasion.
Americans publicly support NATO.
Yet most Americas privately worry that NATO has becomediplomatically impotent and a military mirage – a modern League of Nations.
NATO members have a collective GDP seven times larger thanRussia’s. Their aggregate population is 1 billion. Yet the majority will notspend enough on defense to deter their weaker enemies.
The second-largest NATO member, Turkey, is closer to Russiathan to the United States. Its people poll anti-American.
Germany is NATO’s richest European member and the powerbehind the European Union. Yet Germany will soon be dependent on importedRussian natural gas for much of its energy needs.
In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 70% of Germans voiceda desire for more cooperation with Russia. Most Americans poll the exactopposite.
Worse, 60% of Germans oppose going to the aid of any NATOcountry in time of war. Over 70% of Germans term their relationship with theUnited States as “bad.”
We can translate all these disturbing results in the followingmanner: The German and Turkish people like or trust Russia more than they dotheir own NATO patron, America.
They would not support participating in any NATO jointmilitary effort against even an invading Russia – even, or especially, ifspearheaded by an unpopular United States.
So, assume that NATO’s key two members are eitherindifferent to the fate of nearby Ukraine or sympathetic to Russia’s professedgrievances – or both.
Indeed, most Americans fear that if Ukraine ever became aNATO member, Putin might be even more eager to test its sovereignty.
Putin assumes that not all NATO members would intervene tohelp an attacked Ukraine, as required by their mutual defense obligations underArticle 5.
If they did not, Putin could then both absorb Ukraine andunravel the NATO alliance all at once.
There are more complications in the Ukrainian mess.
President Joe Biden, in wacky statements, has confirmedPutin’s bet that the United States is currently divided, confused, weakened andpoorly led.
Putin knows that the secretary of defense and chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs of Staff appear more worried about “white privilege” andclimate change than enhancing military readiness to deter enemies such ashimself.
Putin sees polls that only 45% of Americans have confidencein their new politicized military.
The flight from Afghanistan, Putin further conjectures, hasmade the United States both less feared by enemies and less trusted by allies.
The prior failed American policy of Russian “reset,” theappeasement of Putin’s aggressions during the Obama years, together with theconcocted hoax of “Russian collusion,” have all variously emboldened – andangered – Putin.
He knows a twice-impeached Donald Trump left office unpopular.So, he assumes with Trump gone, American deterrence against Russia alsovanished.
Trump’s now rejected agenda was to increase American andNATO defenses, and pump oil and gas to crash the global price of Russia’s chiefsource of foreign exchange.
Putin was once furious that Trump unilaterally left anasymmetrical U.S.-Russia missile accord. Trump ordered lethal force to be usedagainst large numbers of Russian mercenaries who attacked a U.S. installationin Syria. He sold offensive weapons to Ukraine. He acted forcibly in taking outterrorist enemies such as Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani, the Islamicist Abual-Baghdadi and ISIS itself.
With Putin’s nemesis, Trump, gone, Russia assumes theappeasement years of the Obama-Biden administration are back again. As in 2014,once more Putin is moving against his neighbors.
Finally, there is the unfortunate role of recent Ukrainiangovernment officials. Some were deeply involved in greenlighting the Bidenfamily grifting and profiteering to ensure massive American foreign aid.
Some Ukrainian expatriates and current government membersworked with the American Left to ensure the first impeachment of Trump.
Now Ukrainians are exasperated that their prior intrusionsinto domestic American politics have backfired with the disastrous Bidenpresidency – and his apparent de facto acceptance of an inevitable Russianannexation.
Where does this entire mess leave America?
In trouble.
Putin is undermining a sovereign nation, fissuring NATOand, if successful, might continue the Ukraine slow squeeze model in the Balticstates and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, China smiles, hoping the Ukraine blueprint canbe used against Taiwan.
Exasperated Americans fear that Putin will be deterredneither by sanctions nor by arms sales but follows only his own sense ofcost-to-benefit self-interest.
Victor DavisHanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, StanfordUniversity, and the author of “The Second World Wars: How the First GlobalConflict Was Fought and Won,” from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing [email protected].
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