Deserting the walls of world freedom
Lawmakers who would cut and run on Ukraine are unworthy of office.
Robert Zubrin
We in this country, in this generation, are—by destiny rather than choice—the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: “except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” —John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963
“We in this country ... are … the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.” So President John F. Kennedy would have said at the Dallas Trade Mart on November 22, 1963, had he not been shot down earlier that day by Lee Harvey Oswald, an ex-Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union.
Kennedy was not alone in his view that the free world should be defended. He represented a united American leadership carrying on a tradition established by President Franklin Roosevelt, who in the dark days of 1940 had declared that rather than deserting the brave Britons then defending freedom’s walls for us, the US should become “the arsenal of democracy.”
So, despite Kennedy’s assassination and all the partisan chaos endemic to democracy, America persisted in holding the line.
This commitment was non-negotiable. We knew there was no peace to be found through desertion. As Ronald Reagan told the Republican National Convention in July 1980: “We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted.”
As a result of this sustained resolve, not only were the democracies of Western Europe protected from communist domination, but the captive nations of Eastern Europe were freed, and are now vibrant members of the free world alliance.
But now, apparently, those days are over. Notwithstanding the assassination of his uncle and his father by men with enemy ties (Moscow, Castro, the PLO), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would withdraw all US forces from their posts around the globe. This kookiness is nearly matched by that offered by putative Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (Vivek would only abandon the defense of the Eastern Hemisphere) and rivaled by actual candidates Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
Most importantly, in votes this weekend, the House Republican Caucus made it clear that their number one priority in budget negotiations was to cut off aid to Ukraine. That is, rather than accept a deal negotiated by (then) Speaker Kevin McCarthy that would have imposed substantial fiscal restraint on the federal government—including 30 percent cuts to numerous liberal hobby-horse programs—but preserved military aid to Ukraine, the Republicans accepted an agreement that did the exact opposite.
Republicans have expressed outrage with Democrats who claimed that Donald Trump was colluding with the Kremlin. Indeed, so long as such charges were based on little more than questionable, partisan dossiers, there were reasonable grounds to cry foul. But what can one say when the controlling faction of House Republicans makes assuring Russian victory their top priority?
Let us be clear: Cutting off aid to Ukraine is collusion with Russia.
Furthermore, it is collusion with Beijing. Russia and China are allies. If Russia conquers Ukraine, it will greatly enhance its material and technological power, delete Ukraine’s million-man army from the West’s order of battle, advance its forces to the borders of NATO members Poland and Romania, and eliminate the strategic weakness along its southwest border that constrains its ability to attack elsewhere.
Under these circumstances, the US would be faced with a choice. Either we would send half a million troops and matching airpower to defend Europe, or we would not. If we do, we will divert the forces and funds needed to contain China in Asia. If we don’t—as is more likely, given the wall deserters’ clear preference for global retreat—the idea of American protection will be discredited, and countries everywhere will move to cut their deals with the world’s new masters.
This catastrophe must be prevented. In this hour, the US needs Reagan Republicans, not Putin Republicans. President Biden has been weak and indecisive in his support of Ukraine. The alternative offered by the Republican Party should be leadership that offers victory, not accelerated defeat followed by global rout.
By destiny, rather than choice, we are the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We need to live up to that role.
Robert Zubrin is an American aerospace engineer. His newest book, The Case for Nukes: How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future, was recently published by Polaris Books. A version of this essay was published in the Kyiv Post.
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Leighton Woodhouse has a far more sophisticated understanding of the origins of the Ukraine War than Dr. Zubrin does. He says,
“The debate over Ukraine is divided, broadly speaking, into two narratives. The first, mainstream story is that Russia is an imperialist nation that invaded Ukraine for no better reasons than greed for territory, lust for geopolitical power, and hunger for the restoration of the Russian Empire and the personal glory of Vladimir Putin. In this analysis, the West played no role in provoking Russian aggression — or if it did, Russia’s invasion of the country demonstrates that those provocations were entirely justified.
The second, dissenting narrative is that the United States and the West goaded Putin into war by gratuitously expanding NATO eastward and by stoking political unrest in Putin’s “near abroad” in pursuit of a regime change agenda in Moscow. In this view, the Euromaidan revolution, and the Orange Revolution before that, were at least in part fomented by the United States and its European allies to deny Russia its buffer zone in Ukraine and to instigate pro-western protests inside Russia’s borders, on the model of the Arab Spring.
Elements of both are true. But neither paints a complete picture of the causes of the war.
Russia is alone in its culpability for starting the conflict. But, as the dissenting narrative contends, the United States shares responsibility for creating the conditions that made the invasion not just possible, but probable. With a full understanding of what it was doing, the US took every opportunity to raise Putin’s hackles by pushing Ukraine toward the West, actively encouraging pro-western protest movements in Ukraine, and paving the way for Ukrainian admission into NATO.
Then, up to the eleventh hour, the United States and the West rejected every opportunity to push for peace. In 2021, just two months before launching his full-scale invasion, Putin proposed terms to NATO to resolve the imminent conflict, Aaron Maté reported. They included pulling back the alliance’s military presence in Russia’s neighboring states and ensuring Ukrainian neutrality. NATO rejected it, so, according to NATO’s top civilian official, Putin went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”
The reality is that Putin and Biden are co-conspirators in presenting the world with the most dangerous conflict of the 21st century. That Putin is more complicit than Biden does nothing to absolve Biden of responsibility for this mess.
Of course, Biden is not alone in inspiring the calamity that has befallen the world. He’s merely an avatar for an angry, befuddled and intellectually bankrupt globalist world view that believes that collective action and warmongering make the planet a more peaceful and prosperous place. That the globalists are wrong about this is self-evident. After all, look at the state of Ukraine, the United States, Europe and Russia. It’s a mess as far as the eye can see.
To make matters worse, it looks like Ukraine might be defeated. We’re less than two years into the conflagration and maybe Ukraine can still pull a rabbit out of a hat, but as of this moment, it’s not looking good. The U.S. Congress might still provide additional aid to Ukraine but whether it will is still very much in doubt. Even if it does, as Americans turn against assistance to Ukraine the days of unlimited support are clearly coming to an end. Slovakia has joined Hungary as a NATO country opposed to the American position and Zelensky has managed to infuriate Poland, the nation that has done so much for his war effort.
While majorities in most NATO nations still support assistance to Ukraine, the vitality of those majorities seems to be ebbing. Worst of all, Ukraine is clearly having serious difficulty in recruiting the soldiers that it needs to prosecute the war and, of course, it’s offensive is mostly a costly failure. If it is already not too late for Ukraine, time is running out.
If Ukraine wins it will largely be a Pyrrhic victory for a nation that lies in ruins. If Ukraine loses, it will be a disaster not only for Ukraine but also for the United States and its NATO partners (I use the term “partners” loosely; many of those partners are little more than hangers-on or worse). After the calamities in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Russian defeat of Ukraine might just finish off the power of the western alliance for good.
If that sad spectacle comes to pass, it’s obvious what Dr. Zubrin and his fellow globalists will do; they will blame everyone but themselves. They will claim that NATO didn’t send the right weapons and that the weapons that were sent didn’t arrive fast enough. They will claim that the war-fighting strategies recommended to the Ukrainians weren’t appropriate or that the West was too parsimonious in the assistance it did provide. In short, Dr. Zubrin and his globalist friends will flail around seeking scapegoats instead of doing what they should be doing; looking into a mirror.
The real blame for a Ukrainian defeat will lay in the laps of the globalist cadre who suffer from the anti-Midas touch. Everything they touch turns into you know what.
You can count me in as someone who believes that we need to support Ukraine up to and including boots on the ground, if it came to that, though hopefully it doesn't.
However, this article doesn't convince me of it. It'd be better for Mr. Zubrin to directly address the arguments of those who are opposed to aiding Ukraine rather than calling them deserters and colluders.
But such is the world of political discourse these days: "You are wrong, not because you are wrong, but because you bad and stupid."