Picking the Wrong Side

 

 Kids my age who started grade school in the mid-1950s had ideas about World War II. Most of our fathers had served in it, and all of our parents had lived through it. At varying levels of knowledge we understood that it had been a war of good against bad, and that we were the good guys and the Germans and Japanese were the bad guys. And of course we were right. Maturity, increased knowledge, and appreciation of the complexity, nuances, and ambiguity of geopolitics did nothing to challenge the accuracy of that kid’s judgment.

Not all wars are like that. Sometimes it is the Hapsburgs and Bourbons fighting over not principles but only who gets what power where. Sometimes there is an ethical distinction, but only between very bad and worse. But sometimes wars are a conflict between a right side and a wrong one, and in those cases people need to see it and take the side of those in the right.

A few decades ago it mainly was the Democrats in this country who had difficulty doing that. Many of them failed to see Soviet communism for what it was and the Cold War for what it was – fundamentally a conflict between freedom and tyranny, right and wrong. Too many of them preached a false notion of a moral equivalence between the sides, and some, such as Edward Kennedy, at least intermittently sided with the Russians. These days it mainly is Republicans who have that difficulty, and by coincidence with regard to a conflict involving Russia.

Under Vladimir Putin Russia became more authoritarian toward its own people and more aggressive toward other nations. Putin made it fairly clear that he would like to regain many or all of the lost territories of the old Soviet empire. His agents and police murdered his political opponents both in Russia and other countries and ran a low level cyber war against the United States and some of its allies. Then, earlier this year, his armed forces attacked Ukraine with a goal of overthrowing its government and seizing its territory – failing in their objectives while committing atrocities, massacres, and war crimes. The Ukrainians defended themselves strongly and effectively, and at present are winning or at least in stalemates on the ground. The Ukrainians had threatened no one and invaded no one. Ukraine’s independence was guaranteed by an international agreement signed by governments including Russia’s. In internal politics and foreign policy Ukrainians had been moving or trying to move toward the more liberal practices of countries to their west. One does not have to romanticize Ukraine as exemplar of liberalism and democracy to see who is right and who is wrong in this war.

Yet many Republicans and their supporters in the conservative media fail to see it, or worse are picking the wrong side. Some such as Tucker Carlson have sided with the Russians explicitly. Others have done so by implication. They are actively hostile to the Ukrainians and have little or nothing bad to say about Putin and the Russians. (Cathy Young has written a good article at The Bulwark covering some of the stupid, petty, and vulgar reactions to Zelensky’s visit to the United States and his speech at the Capitol.)

One should wonder why they do it. A simple answer would be that they like Putin and what they think he stands for. Trumpists, Catholic integralists, and national conservatives may see the supposed tough, traditional, Christian, nationalistic state Putin advertises as better than what they consider to be the weak, decadent, godless, liberal globalism of this country and most of Europe. Whatever the reason, it is a change for Republicans. The party of Eisenhower, Goldwater, Reagan, the Bushes, Dole, Romney, and McCain would not have been a comfortable place for people supporting anti-American dictators against those trying to resist them. I wish it were not one now, but it surely seems to be.

Still most Republicans do favor the Ukrainians in the war, but many of them question the amount, usefulness, and strategic benefit of the aid sent to Ukraine. That is normal and easily understandable political behavior, especially after the government’s fiasco in Afghanistan. However I think that, with some perhaps important but strategically irrelevant exceptions, they are wrong. I think our country is getting a bargain in Ukraine. America and its allies are going to have plenty to keep them busy for years with China. They do not need to have to deal with a rebuilt version of the Soviet empire threatening Europe at the same time. The Ukrainians have been brave and effective in the war. If with our aid they can stop this anschluss of Putin’s, it could save us from needing to return to Europe in much greater strength and perhaps having to stop his next one directly with our own forces in a NATO country. That would be expensive.