Two years ago, on February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The costs of this war have been unbelievably high. Half a million Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have been either killed or wounded. In terms of cost, the U.S. alone has spent $113 billion on the war. And an aid package that includes another $60 billion for Ukraine is stuck in Congress.
Americans’ changing sentiment about the war has certainly contributed to that package being in limbo. Two years ago, there was broad support for the war: 66 percent of Americans thought we needed to help Ukraine. But that view is no longer the consensus. Several polls have indicated that the majority of Americans oppose additional funding to support Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka fell to Russian forces last weekend. The Biden administration says it’s a direct consequence of congressional inaction.
Today on Honestly, a debate: Where is all of America’s aid to Ukraine going? Is Ukraine really such a clear-cut cause? Even if you believe that it is, what has all of this sacrifice gotten Ukraine—and the U.S.? Can Ukraine even win this war? What’s the endgame? And is victory in Ukraine really as important to America as many politicians claim that it is?
Bret Stephens is a Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion columnist for The New York Times. His book, America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder, foresaw much of today’s world. Bret worries that the world is on the precipice of World War III. Isolationism, he argues, only contributes to global instability.
Elbridge Colby is co-founder of The Marathon Initiative think tank. He served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development under President Trump, and he is the author of The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict. Colby believes the United States must make difficult defense choices in an era of great power competition. Ukraine, he argues, is not the top priority.
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I found it strange that both sides focused on the monetary aspect of the conflict. They both seemed to agree that if Ukraine falls, China may go after Taiwan and Putin could be encouraged to go after a NATO country. Either scenario means we put boots on the ground or break our alliances and commitment. We can spend money now to convince the world we are not weak or we can pay in American blood down the road.
This is a great debate and it has given me a better appreciation of what various sides are saying in it. However, both of the debaters are basically united in their outlook of "unipolarity": the idea that there must be a global hegemon to police the world order, and if it's not the US then someone else will play the role. Ergo, for the US and the "free world" to be safe, we must engage in a never-ending crusade to stop the "bad people" all over the world.
Who you really need to have on the next debate of this topic, or to write an article on the subject, is someone who supports genuine realism in foreign policy; that is, who accepts that the brief "unipolar, moment" of the US post-Cold War is over and we need to relearn how to deal with a highly multi-polar world that has been the norm throughout human history.
In lieu of an article on FP, I recommend this one from Compact: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-false-religion-of-unipolarity/. This article describes exactly the ideas conveyed by both debaters. One debater is only slightly more realistic than the other, but both make out China to be someone we need to be preparing for war with. Why? Have we been so stupid in the past as to make this unavoidable? US foreign policy has been absolutely stupid for sure, but I hold out hope that an older tradition of thought might be revived in time to avoid what might still be avoided.
It would take real humility, however, to admit (1) that we've brought a lot of grief on ourselves and the world through bad foreign policy (i.e. who made China who it is today?); and (2) that we are no longer the hegemon and we need to learn how to work with others again. I'll just point out that the United Nations had been conspicuously absent in everything that's been happening in the last 5-10 years.