fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Ideology Over Substance

Whatever the respect that must be accorded to Putin’s Russia — given that it is vast, nuclear, rich with oil, and still a strategic player — it is hardly a society analogous to the new democracies of Eastern Europe such as Poland or the Czech Republic. But in all discussions about the thorny issues of […]

Whatever the respect that must be accorded to Putin’s Russia — given that it is vast, nuclear, rich with oil, and still a strategic player — it is hardly a society analogous to the new democracies of Eastern Europe such as Poland or the Czech Republic. But in all discussions about the thorny issues of missile defense, that fundamental fact was lost. It was almost as if Russia’s past anger at the U.S., and Eastern Europe’s support for the Bush administration, earned the one respect from the Obama administration, and the other suspicion. It seems too surreal to even suggest the following, but it is nevertheless likely: The degree to which a nation opposed the United States between 2001 and 2009 now wins it exemption from judgment; the degree to which it once supported us earns it present distrust. ~Victor Davis Hanson

Hanson has made some version of this argument for most of the last two years, and it still doesn’t seem to bother him that it is painfully wrong. It was not lost on anyone that Poland and the Czech Republic are democratic members of NATO and Russia is an illiberal authoritarian state. It doesn’t matter to Hanson that the missile threat against which the Polish and Czech installations were supposed to be defending didn’t exist. It doesn’t give him pause that most Poles didn’t want the installation, or that the Polish government’s decision to accept the arrangement was part of a confrontational foreign policy with its neighbors that the current government has been steadily working to undo. Poland’s relations with its neighbors, including Russia, are much better today than they were in 2008, and the decision not to proceed with the missile defense plan contributed to this desirable outcome.

On top of all of this, the decision removed an unnecessary, pointless provocation, and U.S.-Russian relations have since improved considerably to the benefit of both countries. In addition to being the correct one as far as American interests are concerned, the missile defense decision has so far not had any obviously negative effects on the security or interests of the two allies that the decision supposedly “sold out.” Indeed, far from “selling out” these allies, the decision has allowed them to resume more normal, less antagonistic relations with Russia than would have been possible had the missile defense installation gone ahead as planned. Instead of making them into front-line states that would become the focus of Moscow’s ire, the decision freed them from commitments to a plan that actually made them less secure.

Hanson seems to think that a substantive decision on where or whether to place missile defense installations ought to be driven primarily by the degree of ideological sympathy we have with the governments in the region. Presumably, if Russia were a liberal democratic state and its smaller neighbors to the west were all authoritarian regimes, Hanson would insist that U.S. policy favor Russia regardless of whether that policy serves U.S. interests. Likewise, he seems to judge such decisions not according to whether they enhance or damage U.S. and allied security, but whether they send ideologically appropriate signals of solidarity with other democratic governments. It hardly needs to be said that this way of judging decisions on security policies is absurd.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here