Right and Wrong on Ukraine

By Douglas Murray

Thursday, January 19, 2023

 

Why has the debate on the Ukraine–Russia war become so fetid, especially on the political right? Why are members of Congress from the Republican Party the ones most outspoken against support for Ukraine? Why is it the Right that has produced the most fervent anti-interventionists, when it used to be the political Left that did so?

 

Having recently returned from the front lines of the conflict, I have been struck by how extraordinarily divisive the issue has become. For even having the temerity to go and see the conflict for myself I have found from the political Right in this country a degree of ideological opposition that has surprised me. I have been turning over in my head the various reasons why this might be and have come to a few conclusions.

 

It appears to start from the same place as everything else: domestic politics.

 

For four years, during the Trump presidency, the question of Russia was essentially impossible to debate in this country. The Democrats’ weaponization of talk about Russia and its leader, claims of collusion between Trump and the Russian government, and Trump’s own often-infelicitous comments on the issue meant that the moment Vladimir Putin was discussed, domestic politics immediately intruded. To miss four years of serious discussion on a serious foreign-policy question is quite the loss when you are the world’s superpower.

 

Then there was the fact that during the same period, Ukraine made it into the national consciousness on only two occasions. The first was when the issue arose of Hunter Biden’s presence on the board of a Ukrainian energy company despite his having absolutely no expertise in energy policy. The Burisma story pointed to a corruption in Ukraine that undoubtedly exists: a corruption that may be within the realms of normalcy for the region but may be beyond the bounds of some people’s tolerance.

 

The only other time that Ukraine was injected into the U.S. domestic debate was in 2019, when a phone call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky led to leaks, a range of allegations, and an impeachment inquiry against Trump. These are not the ideal conditions for a country to be looked on favorably from here in the U.S.

 

And then there is the other side, which is the changing way in which Russia has been viewed by the American Right in recent years.

 

There is no need to persuade me, or very many other conservatives, that the Left has both come to dominate the culture and gone mad. It is inevitable under such conditions that many of us will wish to look to other countries for an example of how things could go differently. And here two things have happened at once. The first is the simple fact that 1989–90 and indeed the whole Cold War period have been receding into history. Many people who are politically active have no memory of the time when the Soviet Union posed a serious threat to the democratic world order. They did not live through it, have never learned about it, and do not seem curious to do so. The second thing that has happened is that Vladimir Putin has noticed this and has fairly skillfully used speeches and other occasions to present himself as a bulwark against the wildest extremes of the American culture wars.

 

Though he may not possess a smartphone or use email, he follows these ructions with enough detail to know that transgender controversies, for instance, are dementing the West. He knows enough to cite the case of J. K. Rowling. Many people of a certain age may be wise enough to know that we can afford to ensure that the answer to one form of left-wing madness at home does not lie in the Kremlin. Likewise, if you are of an age to know what the KGB did to the churches when the Soviets were in power, you will be wise enough to know that Vladimir Putin’s presenting himself as some kind of savior of Christendom is an idea either too ridiculous or too heretical to take seriously. Yet a generation exists that does not have this knowledge, or that has forgotten it or fallen for propaganda. As Steve Bannon and Erik Prince, respectively, said memorably at the start of the Ukraine war: “Putin ain’t woke. He’s anti-woke.” “The Russian people still know which bathroom to use.”

 

There is one final factor that should be mentioned here, which is a version of post–Cold War politics that sees Russia as a victim and NATO as an aggressor. The entry of Poland and the Baltic states into NATO is seen by these figures as an intolerable provocation by the West or a deliberate encircling of a then-enfeebled Russia. This analysis always fails to take into account that NATO did not parade around looking for recruits in these years. These countries, and others, came to NATO to lobby for and apply for membership because of genuine security fears of their own.

 

Still, we come back to the fact that even if NATO had expanded needlessly or too far, or had not given enough assurances that Ukraine was not about to join the alliance, nothing justifies the military action that Vladimir Putin has taken. The war was utterly avoidable. If another person had been in the Kremlin, or Putin had been differently informed, advised, or evolved, then the war that will shortly enter its second year need never have happened. The war was not inevitable. It was not provoked. It was certainly not provoked for the reasons that Vladimir Putin claimed it was (such as the need to “de-Nazify” Ukraine). 

 

And even had these facts been otherwise, they would still not justify Putin’s rolling Russian tanks into Ukraine, attempting to topple its government, and shelling and occupying vast civilian areas of the country. For all the prevarications and excuses being offered — including those from certain NATO members — this single fact should be enough to concentrate the mind: that invading another country and destroying it in a manner not seen in the region of Europe since World War II is not something about which any Western country can or should remain neutral.

 

How then to explain what is happening in the Republican Party and at the grassroots level (because there is no doubt that it is not simply some lawmakers but a significant portion of the Republican base who are agitated by American and wider Western support for Ukraine)? It would be too easy if this opposition came simply from the Republican Party’s version of the “Squad.” Marjorie Taylor Greene and Co. are the gift that will keep on giving to the Republican Party’s opponents as surely as AOC and others are the gift that will keep on giving to opponents of the Democrats. When MTG says that the money being sent to Ukraine should be going to the southern border, she is simply, like her hero Donald Trump, mistaking a Twitter take for a policy proposal. If, starting tomorrow, not one more dollar went to arming Ukraine, there would still be no scenario under the present government, any more than there was under the last Republican one, in which a wall would be constructed across the southern border. Donald Trump had his own chance to do that, while there was no war in Ukraine, and he noticeably failed at the task.

 

But it isn’t just Greene or Matt Gaetz and their talk of “traitors.” It is mainstream Republicans, or people who would have been mainstream Republicans before this strange turn of the axis. It is J. D. Vance, who said last year that he didn’t really care what happens to Ukraine “one way or another” and in September said, “We’ve given enough money in Ukraine.” It is Josh Hawley, who made a point of not even attending Zelensky’s speech before Congress. When Kevin McCarthy said there shouldn’t be a “blank check” given to Ukraine, he not only created a straw man (literally no country has simply given a blank check to Ukraine), he was also backed up by the president of the Heritage Foundation. Representative Michael McCaul, Representative Jim Jordan, and others have made the same claim. It seems to be one of the ways that Republicans can oppose arming Ukraine without actually saying as much. But there is nobody who is opposed to transparency. And if legislators are concerned about accountability, then that is something they can address. To believe that a lack of accountability would justify the withdrawal of U.S. support and the resulting defeat of the Ukrainian military is short-sightedness of an extraordinary kind.

 

But perhaps it was Chip Roy who put his finger on part of the Right’s beef with Ukraine last May when he talked about the fancy “blue and yellow ribbons” everywhere and people’s need to “feel good about themselves.” We do indeed live in an era of maddening narrative changes and impositions. For many conservatives who have gotten into the habit of reacting to the Left more than thinking from first principles, Ukraine and the Ukrainian flags seemed to come on too suddenly and pervasively. It was too much like the last flag-imposition. One month it’s the pride flag, another month the trans flag, another the Ukrainian one. I can see why there is suspicion of this.

 

And yet, to go back to those first principles, what should the reaction of the world’s superpower be to the land invasion of a country by an overt and stated aggressor? A period of isolationism is understandable as a reaction to the costly wars of the 2000s in the Middle East. But Ukraine is not Afghanistan or Iraq. There is no need for American or NATO forces to be on the ground. As I witnessed myself at the front lines, all that the Ukrainians need are the arms that will give them a tactical advantage against a Russian military that is their numerical superior but need not be their technological one. The Ukrainians want to do the fighting themselves and are highly motivated to do so. Far more motivated, certainly, than the demoralized Russian troops, who are increasingly press-ganged into fighting a war they have no need to fight.

 

So, as I say, what attitude would the Right like to take to this? If you oppose sending American troops around the world, and you oppose arming countries fighting for their own survival, then do you have any remaining foreign policy at all? And if not, for how long do you expect America to remain the dominant power in the world? It was always the expectation that Europeans would be the ones to go weak on the Russia question first. Who could have guessed that it would be the Americans, and the American Right at that, who would beat them to it?