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No US Troops in Ukraine, Thank You Very Much
If you’ve listened to today’s flagship podcast, you know it got a bit spicy. (If you haven’t yet listened, you’re in for a treat.) To briefly recap, co-host @jameslileks noted his support for Ukraine. Our guest considered his support insufficient because he does not want the U.S. military sent into the war zone.
This critique struck many Ricochetti as odd since the public agrees with James by a large margin. A recent Reuters poll showed that only 26 percent want troops tromping about the Transdnieper. The guest said, no problem, because public opinion is “malleable” (shudder). After the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention general governmental incompetence over two decades, I suspect we are less malleable than expected.
The days of massive American intervention are gone, at least for quite a while. I prefer a foreign policy that’s more John Quincy Adams than Woodrow Wilson, especially considering all the messes on the homefront.
In an 1823 letter to our Minister in Madrid, Hugh Nelson, JQA wrote:
It has been the policy of these United States from the time when their independence was achieved to hold themselves aloof from the political system and contentions of Europe… The first and paramount duty of the government is to maintain peace amidst the convulsions of foreign wars and to enter the lists as parties to no cause, other than our own.
Just so. The exigencies of the Cold War drastically changed this attitude, but it is long past time we return to its wisdom.
In his Independence Day address of 1821, Adams more completely laid out his foreign policy vision [emphases mine]:
America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.
She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama [field of blood], the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….
Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
America was founded as a nation that minded its own business. The sooner we return to that vision, the safer we, and the world, will be. This is not “isolationism,” but common sense. We elect leaders to enact our will and protect our nation; it is other nations’ duty to do the same. If an enemy attacks us, we unleash hell upon them; that doesn’t mean we can police the world. We refuse even to police our own borders.
George Washington foreshadowed J. Q. Adams’ foreign policy. In his farewell address, our first president said:
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?
…In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur…. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.
So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.
… it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
…Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.
They might even demand you place a Ukraine flag emoji on your social media profile. Washington continues…
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.
Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it…
Wherever it is possible, bring our troops home. As long as we are not attacked, keep them here. Our military was founded to protect America, not any other nation, no matter how noble their fight may be.
Fair warning: I am not very malleable when body bags are advocated.
Published in Foreign Policy, Military
You mentioned the no-fly zones. That’s good. We should also mention the economic sanctions that were placed on Saddam Hussain’s Iraq.
Once we toppled Saddam Hussain’s regime in 2003, we ended the no-fly zones and the economic sanctions because the reason for those, Saddam Hussain, was gone.
That’s a win.
They are controlled by Iran.
And no wmd. That was a lie.
You may feel comfort in just dismissing every U.S. military action or war as “losing,” but it is at total odds with what practically everybody else knows as fact.
Huh, it’s my impression Iraq has become a puppet of Iran. Soleimani was on a victory tour when he was droned into oblivion by Trump.
Isis was not a result of defeating Iraq in 2003. It was started four years before we went to war with Iraq. The general consensus was (though I am not an expert on this) that ISIS was formed as a result of the Russian Invasion of Afghanistan. Currently ISIS has been reduced to almost no territory outside of Syria.
Those two worked out really well but if you simply pick the two best examples as the standard bar, then every other single war was a loss for both sides.
I agree with your specific criticisms. But everybody here seems to be expecting perfection. Anything short of that is considered “a loss.” Even Japan and Germany were not perfect. We had an insurrection that killed American troops in Germany in the immediate aftermath of the war, and worse than that, we lost half of the country to Communism. Americans spent the good part of the 1980’s and 90’s complaining that the Japanese were taking away all our automobile and electronics sales and manufacturing jobs. We’ve spent billions of U.S. dollars protecting both of them for the last 70 years.
You support Putin? Not being snarky. It is just an unexpected comment.
They are? That is news to me.
During the Cold War, the West German government often didn’t do what the US president wanted it to do, including have closer relations with East Germany than the US wanted. But that doesn’t mean the US didn’t win World War II.
I am admittedly not an expert on current Iraqi politics, but the New York Times has an op-ed claiming that “Iraq is not a Puppet of Iran.” If a leftist organization such as NYT is willing to print such an op-ed that would be so totally contrary to their own narrative, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/opinion/iraq-iran-haider-al-abadi.html
That’s a deep point, and I don’t want to sound like the man from 1946.
More later, got a couple of things going on.
Old enough to have served in the ’80s and narrowly miss the recall for the 1st Gulf War. Good enough for you?
Also old enough to remember that the no-fly zones required an enhanced presence in Saudi that resulted in the deaths of 19 USAF troops in the 1996 Khobar Towers terror bombing.
Plenty! Then you must be aware of how lopsided the Persian Gulf War was.
Yes, and how many were disappointed that we didn’t finish the job.
At that time, it seemed like even some of the “allies” who were okay with getting Iraq out of Kuwait, thought that taking out Saddam would somehow be going too far.
WWII was not a win because Hitler was dead in his bunker or because the Japanese surrendered after being nuked. It was a win because it made Nazism unthinkable to Germans! It forever crushed the imperial ambitions of the Japanese empire, making Japan truly an island (isolationist) nation to its own people.
This is the problem with the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan. Our leaders failed to clearly identify either the enemy ideology or the objective — George Bush II’s “religion of peace” my a$$. The enemy to the (formerly Judeo-Christian) West was and is Islamism. That the primitive goatherd Taliban now rules in Afghanistan is shameful — a humiliation to the West and a tragedy for our families who sacrificed so much. That Iranian mullahs (with whom our own government is currently “negotiating” the nuclear destruction of Israel) still rule in Iran and have undue influence in Iraq (whatever the NYT op-ed writers* would like to believe) is a failure of our strategic imagination and implementation.
And the idea that our so-called leaders might have a notion of a clue of a thought about what to do to “solve” Ukraine is wishful thinking at best. Wishing will not make it so. Who is the enemy once Putin is dead? The Russians fleeing Putin’s military conscription? The Russian speakers in Ukraine? Yeah, sort those people out, geniuses. Is the enemy ideology communism? To the socialists running the US and most of NATO?
You see the problem? We have (or had) the potential to change leadership every 4 years. Who takes over the strategy is anyone’s guess. But, right now? There isn’t a person anywhere near the top of our (un)Intelligence Community, military command, federal government I trust to do anything competent or effective about Ukraine. And I don’t see that changing for any duration anytime soon.
*And the idea that lefties aren’t all-in on foreign entanglements does not bear out either historically or contemporaneously. Remember Hillary’s “we came, we saw, he died?” Oh, yeah. That worked out great for Libya.
But half of Germany after World War II was under communism. If you can call that a win, I don’t understand why you can’t call the Korean War a win.
Just because the US military didn’t completely wipe the religion of Islam off the face of the earth doesn’t mean the US military didn’t win the 1990-1991 Gulf war and the 2003 war against Saddam Hussain’s regime.
You have created expectations that are so high, there’s no way that they could be met. And then we hear all the complaining about how we can’t win wars. Baloney.
Over the past month the Ukraine military has re-taken thousands of square miles of territory and they aren’t done.
Quit with the defeatist pose already. Geez.
I didn’t actually comment on Korea (in which my father-in-law was a combatant; my dad in the European theater in WWII). Korea was a draw. Or, if you prefer, it worked out well for the South, but not so much for the north.
Straw man. I didn’t say “completely wipe out the religion of Islam.” My point was we failed to defeat Islamic extremism as an option in the minds of Muslims. You know, make Islam “kinder and gentler” again (for the first time). I agree with BDB. We win battles. Not wars. Try refuting the actual arguments we’re making.
Good for Ukraine. It’s not our victory and not our war. So far.
And I gotta say, as a conservative mom with kids “of age” (although mine would never be called up due to health concerns, their friends would qualify), I’m happy to side with the veterans on this issue and not the saber rattlers with no skin in the game. So I suggest you back off, Jack. Geez.
Wellsaid.
You forgot “draw”
I have screenshots of their lists of wmd that Saddam had to justify Clinton’s drone strikes, and screenshots of their claim that Saddam had no wmds to justify their opposition to Bush wanting to go in, and screenshots of an article they did to attack Bush for poor support to war veterans with health issues caused by the WMD shells they destroyed after the war, and screenshots claiming those weren’t the wmd we were looking for.
Exactly, the end goal should be to defeat the enemy to the point he can’t rise again.
Ukraine is capturing key cities in the East. Ukraine seems well on its way towards pushing the Russians out of their territory without US boots on the ground.
That’s a victory in my book.
Victor Davis Hanson’s book The Second World Wars does an excellent job of breaking WWII into mini wars in different theaters. Your comparison is off. The three western countries controlled and protected to great success the land they liberated and Russia controlled the land it “liberated.” I wouldn’t call that a loss or a draw. Iran and Isis didn’t help us liberate Iraq.
I saw this last night, and I can’t get it out of my head. It could be saying a lot about what is going on in Russia. This is the type of fear that the terrorist leaders raised in their followers. It’s the type of fear maniacal leaders have always used to justify a draft and any other wartime martial law and rationing they wanted to do.
It’s possible that Putin has realized that he can’t win a limited war, that he is up against the United States, and that he needs to take his political support to the next level now so as to make this a bigger war than it has been.
I can’t begin to imagine how this war is going to go. But Putin is definitely stoking fear in the Russian people, fear of the United States specifically. He is making us “the other.”
The Democrats, in accusing Donald Trump of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people from covid-19, launched their followers on a holy crusade. It is really easy to do, to manipulate people. It sounds like Putin is doing this right now, promoting a holy crusade against the United States.
You are moving the goal posts too far. You are basically saying that to win a war one must guarantee the security of a certain territory infinitely into the future. It’s interesting goal. But that’s all it is.
That isn’t what I am saying.
It is good news, but not victory. You could even say it’s A victory, but then you are speaking of a battle, not the war. A victory and The victory are very different things.
There is so much understandable animosity on Ricochet and elsewhere toward 41, but for me, he always clarified the moral ambiguities of the moment. He is my favorite president. But I do realize as I say that I am alone in honoring him in my heart.
I was raising little kids when he and Reagan were in office. My kids refer to this as “Mom’s blackout period.” What got my attention was the Gulf War, and I admired how 41 handled it and the outcome, which was that there were nowhere near the number of American military deaths as there might have been under anyone else.
Don’t everyone get upset with me at the same time. I know the feelings go completely opposite to that point of view. :)
But if anyone is interested, this is his speech to Congress on the Gulf War. It inspired me at the time, and it still does. It seems relevant to the Ukraine crisis. The point of international unity against Russia should remain that it invaded a sovereign nation. Just as the world responded swiftly and surely to Saddam Hussein in 1990, I think we should do the same to Putin. There should be a global coalition of some sort that stands firm against Putin. For everyone’s sake. And it’s all the more important because of the weapons of mass destruction available to people with money.
PS: My nephew was in the Air Force up to about five years ago, and his four kids are all in the military now. And I did have two nephews in the Air Force during the Gulf war as well.