Unlike the British Army in the Crimean War, theirs is indeed to reason why.
It’s not simply enough to assert that Ukraine and NATO allies in Europe deserve support against escalating Russian threats. We must be willing to debate why those things matter. I note this in light of the controversy over recent comments by two commentators.
HBO’s Bill Maher and Fox News’s Tucker Carlson have both questioned whether the United States and NATO are to blame for the current crisis over Ukraine. They note Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lament at the expansion of NATO’s membership following the end of the Cold War. Carlson adds that Ukraine is “corrupt” and “strategically irrelevant” to U.S. interests.
I disagree with these arguments. Still, I suspect that many share some sympathy for them. They are legitimate arguments deserving of debate, not casual scorn.
So let’s start with NATO’s membership expansion. This matters because Putin has demanded that NATO suspend activity in states that joined the alliance after 1997. (These being: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia).
Those nations now have a standing expectation that American sons and daughters will fight to the death to defend them. Americans thus have a legitimate right to ask why that is the case — to ask whether it is worth it. That question takes on added importance in the context of the pathetic support that some European NATO powers such as Germany offer the alliance’s eastern flank. Why shouldn’t Americans ask why the Europeans don’t do more to defend their own backyard? It’s also true that Vladimir Putin views NATO’s expansion not simply as a threat but as an ideological affront to Russia’s very identity. Putin’s perspective is especially strongly held in relation to the Baltic member states.
Again, these are legitimate considerations for debate. Yet there are good arguments in rejoinder.
First, NATO’s expansion was approved by all of the alliance’s members and in the aftermath of specific events. Second, the 2004 accession of the Baltic member states occurred after their consolidation of the democratic rule of law. Third, these nations — most notably, Estonia — had proven their willingness to share burdens by deploying troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fourth, since the 1990s, the Baltic states had also suffered consistent Russian threats stemming from Moscow’s greatly exaggerated suggestion that they mistreate their ethnic Russian populations. These nations sensed and feared that Russia would one day do what Putin is now doing: invent excuses to conquer them and reestablish a Russian empire. Most importantly, NATO is a defensive alliance that serves rather than subordinates positive nationalism. These nations sought NATO’s defensive support for their own democratic sovereignty. America and NATO rightly believed them deserving of an alliance.
The plight of these allies should matter to America.
The post-WWII, U.S.-led democratic international order is not built on good luck. It is built on the principle of democratic sovereignty. That is to say, the defended right of peoples to choose their own governments and live in freedom. Why should this matter to people in New Hampshire, Kansas, and California?
Because expanded human freedom is the key to the vast increases in the wealth, peace, and happiness of nations including the U.S. This is not a reality to be taken for granted. Nations such as China and Russia seek a different world order, one in which corruption, coercion, and brutality displace rules of law, trade, and respect. A world in which nations do what is demanded or freeze in winter. A world in which we are bribed to subjugate our culture and simultaneously accept the theft of our prized innovations. A world in which different religious beliefs or political disagreement result not in Twitter spats but disappearance, death, or the gulag. A world in which “Christian farm boy” values are sacrificed at the altar of autocratic greed.
But there’s an even more exigent concern at stake here. Namely, that freedom is morally pure by its own basic essence. America’s 20th-century struggles underline this principle: Absent America, genocidal Nazis or Soviet tyrants would be the masters of humanity’s common destiny. Put simply, freedom should matter to us here, there, and everywhere.
Critically, however, this doesn’t mean that the U.S. must always and everywhere be willing to go to war in the service of freedom.
The sacrifices Americans have made in Iraq and Afghanistan, the unwillingness of some allies to share burdens (hello, Western Europe), and the need to prioritize resources against the greatest threat facing the U.S. and the international order, China, must be foremost on our minds. As an extension, Ukraine is a partner but not a U.S. treaty ally. It would be a mistake to deploy U.S. military forces in its defense. But nor should the U.S. accept that Russia gets to dominate democracies just because Putin so chooses. Unlike Germany, the Baltic member states spend 2% of GDP on defense and have proven themselves brothers in peace and war. They deserve our commitment.
Ultimately, then, Tucker Carlson and Bill Maher are right to ask the question “why.” But the reason why Ukraine and NATO matter isn’t that America has a responsibility to be nice to democracies far away, but rather that it is in our moral, economic, political, and historic interest to support them.
