Ukraine: Whose War Is This Anyway?

War

Report: America may soon have to decide whether to arm itself or its anti-Russian proxy

Rod Dreher

Jan 11, 2023 6:03 PM

Above, US M1 Abrams tank arrives in Poland for Ukraine.

Within the next six months, the United States Navy may need to decide whether to arm itself or Ukraine due to a reported weapons shortage.

The comment was made Wednesday by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro to a group of reporters on the sidelines of the 2023 Surface Navy Association National Symposium in Arlington, Virginia, Defense One editor Marcus Weisberger reported.

Weisberger tweeted that although the bulk of American weapons given to Ukraine are land weapons and not naval weapons, Del Toro's concerns are shared by others.

Russia is wrong, and ought to get out of Ukraine. That said, I'm glad somebody in Washington is looking out for American interests in all this:

Freshman Republican Sen. JD Vance is set to demand that the Biden administration release a "full crosscutting" report on the exact amount of security assistance that the United States has provided to Ukraine since February 2022 in order for lawmakers to "make a determination on the wisdom" of additional spending.

Fox News has exclusively obtained a letter that Vance, R-Ohio, intends to send to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young.

The letter is currently circulating among Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. GOP Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina has signed onto the letter, as well as GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

"Congress has shelled out more than $100 billion in support to Ukraine since last February, yet we have zero insight into exactly what this money is being spent on," Bishop told Fox News Digital. "The American people deserve to know exactly where their money is going."

From the Washington Post:

In a statement, Vance told The Daily 202: "The American people deserve to know the extent to which they are underwriting our government’s endeavors in eastern Europe. I do not intend to sit back and allow the Biden Administration to keep this information under wraps.”

Here in Europe, I meet conservatives in different countries who tell me that it's very difficult to speak out against NATO policy on the Ukraine war without being accused of being a Putin simp -- even just to ask questions about whether it's really in Europe's interests to continue the fight. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, the only European leader who keeps calling for peace before the war takes everybody down, will be vindicated by history, I think. You don't have to agree with him, but you ought to listen to him. For example, here he is on the West bleeding political capital on the global scene:

Hungarian Prime Minister, Orbán: This conflict assumed by the entire West revealed how weak we (the West) are. I have never seen in 32 years that the Americans were dismissed like this (like the OPEC countries did.)#Orban #Hungary pic.twitter.com/UiyQF2rdOa

— Sanctus Andreas (@Hunter4Bindera) January 8, 2023

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Fran Macadam

What happens to the ethnic majority Russians in eastern Ukraine? Genocide?

Really my friend. What about that? No joke.

The 2014 U.S. coup created a civil war. What border are the American nuclear missiles going to be based at once the eastern Ukraine has been cleared of all those Ukrainians who are linguistically, ethnically and culturally Russian?

Since those were the issues at the last negotiations over a year ago, and Blinken and company averred their right to put them right on the border minutes from Moscow, you have to be consuming a whole lot of jingoistic propaganda to write what you did. Live not by lies.

5 months ago

Zenos Alexandrovitch

Exactly. He also avoids the extreme persecution of the canonical church going back to the NATO coup. Now they are stripping citizenship from the embattered Orthodox.

Siluan

The peace process simply will not work until there is a fundamental change in Russia's foreign policy assumptions. This war was always a guarantee regardless of Ukrainian or Western actions precisely because of those assumptions. Supporting Ukraine is absolutely in our national interest as it is precisely what is keeping US and NATO troops out of a large-scale land war in Europe. The problem is that so many in the US simply have no idea how Russia sees the world political landscape and thus fail miserably to analyze its actions.

As far as Vance's letter goes, I'm cautiously optimistic about it. If the Republicans use it to demand an end to Ukrainian support, they will create an international disaster of epic proportions. On the other hand, though, I have absolutely no doubt that powerful career politicians in DC are trying to use this crisis to line their own pockets, and that much of the aid money is ending up in politicians' bank accounts and campaign funds. That has to be stopped. (I also absolutely expect that much of the aid money is being siphoned off by the Pentagon to fund US military "Black" projects, but that a whole other can of worms.)

What the Navy Secretary said just reeks to me of typical Pentagon budgetary territorialism. From what I could find so far, we sent the Ukrainians a hand full of coastal defense boats (basically glorified speed boats), and two Harpoon coastal defense units. If our national defense rests on that, we have far bigger problems. The Secretary is just peeing on the nearest fire hydrant.

As someone who studied geopolitics at the University of St. Petersburg, the vague idea that Russia just 'thinks wrong' is the stupidest thing. These military actions were geopolitically necessary for Russia - as real existential threats have been posted by the West in extremely obvious ways. The idea of the West that all other nations need sacrifice their children to look the boots of the West is the only wrong assumption behind this war.

The problem is that what Russian leadership sees as an existential threat is the existence of Europe, and what it sees as necessary to its survival is the conquest of basically everything east of the Carpathians. Russia doesn't get to decide that, though. That's the mindset that actually turns Russia into an existential threat to everyone else in the region. You yourself clearly demonstrate the common Russian dualistic, zero-sum mentality; acting as if Russia's only choices are aggression or boot-licking. How about maybe Russia try joining the civilized world? That would greatly benefit everyone, the Russian people most of all. But, then the Oligarchs wouldn't have their billions and Putin wouldn't be able to keep LARP'ing as Peter the Great.

"The problem is that what Russian leadership sees as an existential threat is the existence of Europe." You are delusional.

Apparently you don't watch Russian media.

Bogdán Emil

I never finished my point about the whole Hungarian state media vs American state media analogy mess. Future President Vance, DeSantis, or maybe just Tim Scott (a pretty good one by my lights), if you're reading and contemplating, consider not defunding NPR and PBS, but re-organizing the leadership, the brain-trust and the programming by making all of it lean conservative, and then turbo-fund the project. Increase the budget of the new and refreshingly reinvigorated Public Radio and Public Television by ten or twenty-fold, and see what happens. We might end up with three or four separate NPRs presenting all kinds of incredible programming by truly diverse hosts, instead of just one with its liberally boring Terry Gross blather (I'm pretty sure she's still there, but I haven't been able to listen to NPR in many years, they're so tedious it's repulsive)... so, just imagine, if you will.

Regarding Ukraine, there's no use pretending anyone knows what to do except the fanatics. Russia obviously will not withdraw just because it should, just because somebody says so. Russia has to be either ignored, or compelled. Right now, we're doing neither. I have no suggestions. Well, that's not true, Biden has to organize a massive global conference on the rights of national minorities everywhere, starting with the Russians in Ukraine... and don't forget the handful of Hungarians who also live there as ethnic minorities.

What about their use of the mother tongue without recrimination? What about their educational rights? What about them not being seen as foreigners in their own homeland by an intolerant majority? So, Mr. President, settle that, and then settle Afghanistan again, and the Iraqi sectarianism, and the Israeli-Palestinian pit of eternal national cohesion and brotherly love, and all the other fanciness will somehow take care of itself. First and foremost, we need to convince every country that has ethnic minorities to start acting like Switzerland: respect the autonomy of the other. Respect their individual rights but also their collective rights, as nations within nations.

Seems to me that halting the eastward advance of NATO missile bases is the easy part. The hard part is actually living in Ukraine. Or living in Russia, with all their burdens.

Optimus Prime Minister Orban, the heaviest weight of all, himself made it very clear: it is NOT in Hungary's interest to be bordered by Russia. It IS in Hungary's interest to be buffered by a viable Ukrainian state. Pure realism, but he also made it clear, it seems to me, that he has absolutely no clue how to maintain the viability of Ukraine, absent NATO action, which he reluctantly supports, maybe against his better judgment... but maybe not.

The truth is, in politics, we just don't know. It's too raw, realist and materialist. That's why we need the religious sensibility. We're up to our neck in blood without the guidance of the holy.