Three articles that are worth reading on Ukraine
Brian Bonner came across these gems over the weekend.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
Recently, three opinions caught my eye – one I mostly agree with, another I partially agree with and the third I disagree with almost entirely. They were all, nevertheless, thought-provoking. Starting from most agreeable to least, here they are:
The Times of London on Sunday, April 14, 2024: “The storm is gathering, and Europe is still dithering on defending itself by Matthew Syed”
British author Matthew Syed nailed it in the Sunday Times. The sub-headline was as arresting as the main one: “We are a few geopolitical inches from a Third World War. When will we take the warnings seriously?”
He asks readers to guess who said the following: “We cannot continue to pay for the military protection of Europe while the NATO states are not paying their fair share and living off the fat of the land. We have been very generous to Europe, and it is now time for us to look out for ourselves.”
Is it Donald Trump, the former and, God forbid, possible future president of the United States? Or Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state?
Neither. It was U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
That’s right. Europe has been freeloading off Americans on defense for decades while sneering at Americans, whose resentment has been growing for just as long, Syed writes. And he’s right, in this American’s opinion.
“As Russia attacked Georgia, European nations cut military budgets. When Russia annexed Crimea, they cut them further. Even after the invasion of Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin’s pitiless troops tortured prisoners, raped women, and abducted children, most European NATO nations were still failing to meet their obligation to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense.”
I especially enjoyed his takedown of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
“We praised ‘rational’ leaders like Merkel, a supposedly mature stateswoman, while she slashed an already feeble defense budget, accelerated dependency on Russian natural gas, and jettisoned nuclear power…If World War III is ignited before Europe has had a chance to remilitarize, history will judge her less favorably than Neville Chamberlain.”
He also blasts UK Foreign Minister David Cameron.
“This is the man who, as prime minister, perfected London’s status as a money-laundering hub for Putin and his cronies, thereby making a unified response to the invasion of Crimea almost impossible…”
Syed concludes: “It’s time for Europe to wake up.”
This American could not agree more.
Roman Sheremeta, the former founding director of American University Kyiv, attacks America, on Sunday, April 14, 2024.
After Iran’s massive missile attack on Israel over the weekend, Roman Sheremeta wrote on his Facebook profile: “A painful truth: the U.S. has never been a true ally of Ukraine and their policy towards Ukraine is hypocritical and cruel. Last night, the U.S. intercepted over 100 Iranian missiles and drones directed at Israel. It was the right thing to do. But it also showed one simple and painful truth. The U.S. has never been a true ally of Ukraine. Almost every day, Russia is launching similar types of attacks on Ukraine. And Ukrainian ‘allies’ don’t give nearly enough weapons for Ukraine to defend itself.”
He goes on in that vein. Perhaps someone got to him, and several hours later he moderated his views:
“Why did the U.S. close the sky for Israel, but not for Ukraine? I believe that one of the reasons is that Israel has a very strong and systematic lobby in the U.S. First, there is a diplomatic relationship that has been built for decades. Second, there are strong economic ties. Finally, there are religious ties, especially with the Protestant community. Through congressmen, organizations, churches, and communities, Israel has been working systematically and has been doing it for decades. And when the time came, Israel knew they could count on U.S. support. Similarly, Ukraine needs a strong and systematic lobby in the U.S. Supporting Ukraine requires money, and money requires votes. Therefore, Ukraine needs votes in the U.S. Congress. Such votes will come only through strong and systematic lobbying efforts.”
While this American winced at Sheremeta’s harsh attack that “the U.S. has never been a true ally of Ukraine,” he’s right, of course. I live in Ukraine. It is not right that the world cannot come up with the air defenses that the nation needs to protect me and the rest of the nation from getting killed by Russia’s relentless bombardments. Israel’s successful defense against Iran’s onslaught – with the help of its friends – showed how it could be done.
As far as America not being a “true ally” of Ukraine, how could it be anything different? The blame goes both ways.
For seven decades, Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Union, so a Cold War adversary. It’s no news bulletin that Ukraine, after achieving national independence in 1991, squandered the first two decades and more mired in corruption and oligarchy – all the while remaining highly dependent on Russia economically and highly stagnant and Soviet in other areas. I first came here in 1996 and, at the time, the nation was still celebrating the October Revolution as a holiday on Nov. 7.
Then the real darkness fell in 2010 during Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych’s four-year misrule until he fled the EuroMaidan Revolution on Feb. 22, 2024. He left Ukraine defenseless and the government with no money. It was only seven years ago – in 2017 – that Ukraine finally made up its mind to go West and adopted NATO membership as a strategic goal.
America’s share of the blame, of course, comes in persuading Ukraine to disarm itself of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles in the 1990s while offering toothless security assurances in the form of the Budapest Memorandum in 1994. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, seizing Crimea and invading the Donbas, U.S. President Barack Obama could not be bothered to do much other than mouthing meaningless platitudes. His disdain for Ukraine showed in becoming the first American president not to visit the nation since Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and the current incumbent, Joe Biden, have all made the trek.
But if Ukraine wants the U.S. as its “true ally,” Kyiv will have to follow the advice of Sheremeta’s second, more temperate post and get to the hard task of building and nurturing bilateral ties at all levels – as well as getting its own house in order democratically.
J.D. Vance: The math on Ukraine doesn’t add up (New York Times, Friday, April 12, 2024)
If U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (Republican-Ohio) is not on the Kremlin’s payroll, he surely sounds like an employee of Vladimir Putin’s Evil Empire.
Basically, his point is this: The U.S. cannot afford to provide enough aid so that Ukraine can defeat Russia, so it should not even bother trying. He, of course, is wrong on that score and doubly wrong by ignoring the potential power of America’s alliances with Europe and others, notably Japan, in providing enough firepower to expel Russians from all of Ukrainian land. He also ignores the basic truth that a Russian defeat of Ukraine will prove to be vastly more costly to democratic nations in a destabilized world with autocrats and dictators on the march.
Even blind squirrels catch acorns, and Vance is right about at least two points:
U.S. President Joe Biden does not have a viable plan for Ukrainians to win this war.
Ukraine does not have enough soldiers.
The answer to both problems is the same.
For the U.S. on strategy, get one.
For Ukraine on soldiers, get them.