So, I’ve been meaning to write about the Ukraine/Russia situation for some time. Now, though, I’m feeling particularly motivated given all that’s happened within the past 48 hours. To make a long story short, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been preparing to invade Ukraine, including amassing Russian troops at Ukraine’s borders and, more recently, recognizing the independence of a pair of separatist-controlled regions within Ukraine. As is the norm by now, there’s been a mix of responses here at home; some (who I’ll call “interventionists”) wish for the US to take an active role in supporting Ukraine, while others (“non-interventionists”) are wary of the US getting itself involved in foreign affairs once again, especially after its very public failures in the Middle East.
I can’t help but think that you can’t compare those two scenarios, though. While the Middle East is more of a quagmire of conflict between a multitude of competing interests, both governmental and otherwise, the Ukraine/Russia conflict is just that—a conflict between two sides, one of which seems intent on annexing the other. (I say “sides” rather than “states” because of the support that will likely be thrown to Ukraine by many of the Western countries; it won’t exclusively be a two-state situation once the international community gets involved.) Given all of that, what is the best thing for the US—and the international community overall—to do here?
I’m happy to call myself a non-interventionist idealistically. It seems like common sense to me—no nation should exert its power and influence onto another nation. Live and let live. That’s where I think the US went wrong in the Middle East. Imagine trying to force-feed vegetables to your child. You know vegetables are good for them, so what’s the problem? The problem is getting the child to accept vegetables as part of their diet. Force-feeding them vegetables against their will isn’t going to help with that; if anything, it will make them like vegetables even less than they did before. Better to put cheese sauce on the vegetables to make them more palatable, right? The same logic, I think, applies with how the US handled Middle Eastern affairs. We tried to force-feed liberal democracy to that region, but because we tried the force-feeding method, a lot of the interest groups there now reject it outright, preferring whichever flavor of theocracy they happen to enjoy the most.
I mention all of this because when a lot of non-interventionists say they don’t want the US getting involved in the Ukraine/Russia situation, it seems like the Middle East is what they’re thinking of, including the WMD shenanigans that led to the Iraq War. But the Ukraine/Russia situation is a lot different than the Middle East situation. As I said before, it’s basically one country trying to annex another country against the latter’s will. This isn’t a nanny trying to force-feed vegetables to a child they were entrusted with—this is a parent straight-up abusing their child because they dare to be independent and different than how the parent wants them to be. In that kind of situation, it would make more sense for a sympathetic third party to get involved in stopping the parent and saving the child.
The US, I think, needs to be given the chance to do that with Russia and Ukraine—and by extension, given the chance to prove that it can handle foreign affairs without dropping the ball. This is where I think non-interventionists are wrong, and I’m especially calling out the ones that pride themselves on being “anti-imperialists”—how do you justify allowing Russia to commit a blatant act of imperialism?
You might say that the US—or NATO, or the UN, or whatever—is just going to be the abusive custodian that comes after the child gets pulled from the abusive parent’s home. Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe the US will use an intervention in Ukraine to try and remake Ukraine in its own image. If that happens, it’ll be just as wrong as when Russia was trying to do it.
But that’s a bridge yet to be crossed, and regardless of what happens, it doesn’t justify leaving Ukraine to its fate and allowing Russia to have its way. Live and let live, yes—but if you see someone doing the opposite of that, and you use the mantra as an excuse not to intervene, are you truly principled in your “live-and-let-live-ism”? I doubt it.