MBD, I’ve been meaning to engage with you on your truly excellent intervention-skeptical piece about our commitment to Ukraine. I’m a hawk, of course, but have learned my lesson about listening to dissenting voices, even voices I consider crazy. (A category, I assure you, I do not believe includes you!) A lot of the people I thought were crazy in the run-up to the Iraq War turned out to be right that Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. (Many were still crazy, but that’s another matter.)
My question about Ukraine is that, despite the considerable costs and risks that you’ve outline, what’s the alternative to backing Ukraine? Even if you think we should have handled the diplomacy prior to last February differently, Russia did launch a brutal invasion, and simply letting Ukraine get run over would have posed its own considerable costs and risks.