Russia-Ukraine War: Dangers of Losing

Back in 2015 at the Munich Security Conference, Senator Lindsey Graham argued for aggressively arming Ukraine in what was perhaps the least inspiring fashion imaginable. “I don’t know how this will end if you give [Ukraine] defensive capability,” he explained, “but I know this: I will feel better because when my nation was needed to stand up to the garbage and to stand by freedom, I stood by freedom. . . . They [the Ukrainians] may die, they may lose, but I’ll tell you what . . . if somebody doesn’t push back better, we’re all gonna lose.”

For nearly eight years now, I’ve made one simple argument ove r and ove r and ove r and over agai n: We should not get too involved in Ukraine, because in the end Russia will expend more political will, take more risks, and suffer more consequences to determine the final outcome there. In short, Ukraine is peripheral to us, and dear to them. So, in the meantime, our politicians and policy-makers should not put their own, and their nation’s, credibility on the line there. These high-flown promises were, I wrote, “the credit-default swaps of national security, a moral hazard that jeopardizes more than our retirement plans.”

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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Back in 2015 at the Munich Security Conference, Senator Lindsey Graham argued for aggressively arming Ukraine in what was perhaps the least inspiring fashion imaginable. “I don’t know how this will end if you give [Ukraine] defensive capability,” he explained, “but I know this: I will feel better because when my nation was needed to stand up to the garbage and to stand by freedom, I stood by freedom. . . . They [the Ukrainians] may die, they may lose, but I’ll tell you what . . . if somebody doesn’t push back better, we’re all gonna lose.”

For nearly eight years now, I’ve made one simple argument ove r and ove r and ove r and over agai n: We should not get too involved in Ukraine, because in the end Russia will expend more political will, take more risks, and suffer more consequences to determine the final outcome there. In short, Ukraine is peripheral to us, and dear to them. So, in the meantime, our politicians and policy-makers should not put their own, and their nation’s, credibility on the line there. These high-flown promises were, I wrote, “the credit-default swaps of national security, a moral hazard that jeopardizes more than our retirement plans.”