Only Well-Armed Ukrainian Resistance against Russia Will Achieve Peace in Ukraine

A ccording to conventional wisdom, America’s modern history regarding foreign policy and national security has gone through periods of significant upheaval. We have been a nation that desired retreat from the world stage in the wake of Vietnam, that engaged the power of market forces to try to reform Communist China in the post–Cold War era, and was bent on wars with utopian visions of re-creating the Middle East in our democratic image after 9/11. But from another, more rational perspective, America’s foreign policy has been through all this time remarkably consistent: a Jacksonian bent toward our security interests, with the will and capability to reach out to destroy our enemies at any time, and against wars of conquest or goals that seem out of touch with reality.

It was this attitude of permanent Jacksonianism that Donald Trump tapped into as a candidate for the presidency. He ran not against all wars, but against dumb wars — not as a dove, but as someone who wanted the ability to strike back against America’s enemies with the greatest possible might. He stressed the need for other nations to live up to their obligations, via NATO and other security commitments. In his frame, America was done fighting the battles of others for them on the backs of American taxpayers. But if you proved you were willing to fight for yourselves, you would receive the tools to do so — and to be backed by the Americans meant you would be backed to the fullest.

As such, it would be utterly wrong to frame Trump’s behavior as president as non-interventionist — he certainly did not behave as such when given the opportunity to negotiate on the country’s behalf, choose our top diplomats, or kill those he viewed as threats to the national interest. Instead, his foreign policy resolved itself as consistent with a realist-Right perspective that has a long history in the conservative movement. America should be feared by our enemies, everywhere and anywhere, and trusted by our allies, who do their part to share the burden of maintaining a world where America is in charge and does whatever is necessary to maintain that leadership.

So it should surprise no one that within short order after Vladimir Putin’s advance westward, the former president began sounding increasingly hawkish notes in favor of the Ukrainian forces who put up a courageous fight against the invaders. Trump called for tougher sanctions, heavier weapons, and more advanced fighters to be delivered on Ukraine’s behalf — a reminder that the media-concocted fiction about his relationship with Russia ignored so much of his actual policy instincts. And the Republican Party stands with him, with overwhelming numbers suggesting we ought to do more to help the Ukrainians, and overwhelming majority support from Republicans for President Zelensky. Republicans are where the former president is, and he is with them.

All this serves to make the letter from non-interventionists, organized under the auspices of Sohrab Ahmari’s new publication, Compact, extremely odd as a first major foray for the new publication into the realm of foreign policy. The signers, whose ranks include integralist thinkers, leftists, and a cross-section of others, pledged their names to a letter that seems to be operating in a fantasyland where things are going the way they might have according to months-old predictions, not in the world we inhabit today.

The letter warns repeatedly against “escalation,” apparently defined as a path toward World War III. But despite the intemperate ramblings of the current occupant of the Oval Office, there is no support whatsoever in the Congress or the country for a war of regime change in Russia. There is not even any significant support for a no-fly zone, except perhaps after a negotiated peace. And the only way such a negotiation for peace can take place is if Russia is truly on its heels, a circumstance that can only be achieved if the Ukrainians have the heavy weapons and anti-air capability they have been asking for in the past month — something the signers of the letter apparently view as an escalatory act in itself.

The authors write: “Foremost among the victims are the Ukrainian people. They bear the brunt of Russia’s aggression and of the attempt to bog down Moscow in a long, devastating insurgency.” That latter clause is telling, implying the Ukrainian people would be better off defeated and dominated, subservient to Moscow, rather than mounting an armed resistance as they most obviously will should they be the losers in this war. Is it the belief of these signatories that the world and Ukraine would be better off if the Ukrainians would just lose faster?

The authors also raise the specter of future ramifications in death and upheaval for “billions” in the global south should the war proceed, and they are right — but as others have noted, “the nations most reliant upon Russian grain and fertilizer are still trading with Russia.” And as for the sources of grain in Ukraine, these are overwhelmingly the same eastern portions of land seized by the Russians — so if that product declines, whose fault is that?

Most stupid of all in a letter that manages to embrace a great deal of stupidity in very short order is the line, “We urge the White House and Western allies to keep open channels of dialogue and diplomacy to Moscow on all issues.” That sounds nice, and I have good news for the letter’s authors: This is happening. It has been happening. And when it doesn’t happen, it’s because Moscow quite literally isn’t picking up the phone. So, again: Whose fault is that?

The central problem with the Compact letter is its attempt at an impossible balancing act: “a permanent peace that takes into account Ukraine’s right to self-determination and Russia’s legitimate security needs.” Russia’s leadership emphatically believes these two directives to be in direct conflict. This is the overwhelming justification for the war they are currently waging. Suggesting that these two imperatives could coexist requires a level of fantasy on the level of neoconservatives two decades ago, not a reality-based view of the world as it is.

There is currently a large discussion about the future of conservatives’ understanding of what it means to adopt an America First foreign policy. As with so many slogans, this one is ripe for interpretation and reinterpretation. But one thing an America First policy cannot be, and will not be, is something at odds with the overwhelming interests of the American people in supporting our friends, opposing our adversaries, and maintaining America’s stature in the world. The American people have very clearly picked a side in this conflict, casting aside any past illusions of a productive relationship with Vladimir Putin, a view shared by our allies in the West and beyond. An open letter based in such fantastical assumptions about the nature of the current conflict is unlikely to change the minds that matter, nor should it.

Editor’s note: This article was updated to clarify the ideological composition of the letter signatories.