Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Ukraine #5

Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

March 20, 2015

So as I wrap up my discussion of issues surrounding Ukraine, I want to do three things, which I will take in the standard order of 1,2,and 3.

First I want to provide a handful of links (from various sane perspectives) to help illustrate how much this is like trying to unscramble a pan full of eggs. My paramount concern, as I have already mentioned, has to do with the plight of fellow Protestants in Ukraine — as this short piece illustrates well. Crimea presents some unique tangles, as my friend Peter Hitchens points out.

Alexander Motyl gives a critique of the “realist” understanding of Russian/Ukrainian geopolitics here. And Timothy Snyder takes the discussion way back. 

Second, the question that many have wanted me to get to is what I think we should do about all this. How does this cash out? The simple part concerns what I would not do. I do not believe that we should commit American troops to any conflict like this. I am not an isolationist, but I believe that any constitutional foreign policy will generally be accused of isolationism. We are not the world’s policeman, and we ought not to commit troops anywhere unless our national security is directly threatened. And where it is arguably threatened, but by an inchoate threat like ISIS, I believe we ought to use letters of marque and reprisal instead of regular troops. In short, I am in favor of a strong military defense, and am no fan at all of things like neo-con nation-building.


But third, I do believe that we should have supported the (new) Kiev government far more vigorously than we have done. We had given assurances to them about their borders, and this should have meant more than the assurance that we would dither.

So this is a good time to use my standard joke. If I were president — and what a glorious three days that would be! — what would I do about the renewed Russian aggressiveness in eastern Europe? My approach would have three components.

The first would be a vigorous, full-throated verbal defense of the Ukrainians, and not some tepid State Department functionoid telling reporters that “of course” we “stand with” the people of Ukraine.

The second is that I would sign an agreement with the Ukrainians, the Poles, the Baltic states, and whoever else over there who was willing to sign, in order to sell them defensive anti-missile shield systems — the kind that Obama double-crossed the Poles on. This is the kind of defense expenditure that even a Quaker should be able to love. Let’s help these people with capacity to knock incoming missiles out of the sky. What’s not to love? It is tangible support, but it is demonstrably not offensive weaponry.

And the third element of my grand strategy would be to abolish the EPA, and open up a full-tilt energy race with Russia. What with Alaska and fracking and North Dakota and the Keystone Pipeline and removal of all the bureaucratic insanities, we should be able to reduce Russia’s hegemonic flexing within a very short time. And without one bullet being fired.