What should we make of the “evolving” war in Ukraine? Should President Biden be congratulated for sending Ukraine more military and related aid, including increasingly advanced munitions? Or is Biden leading us into World War III? These are legitimate questions because American weapons are killing Russian soldiers every day. Pundits suggest that if Putin continues to suffer losses, he will turn to chemical or nuclear weapons. Or might he do something else to slow or stop the flow of arms into Ukraine?
What is the difference between giving Ukraine a lethal drone and a F-16 fighter? Or a nuclear submarine? Or a missile with a nuclear weapon on it? If the U.S. gave Ukraine the capability of launching a raid on Moscow, would the U.S. or Ukraine be responsible for the death and destruction that followed?
These are complicated issues. The war in Ukraine would already be over if the U.S. had not resupplied Zelenskyy’s forces. Tragically, Russia may have won the war, but the dying would be over. Instead, hopes for a quick end of the war prompted by Putin “realizing he made a mistake” have proven naïve. I know, I had those hopes.
Now I wrestle with how to reconcile hatred of Putin with the idea of the U.S. being at war. Morally, as President Biden tells us, Putin must be stopped. But the war in Ukraine is now a conflict in which the U.S. is all but a direct combatant. And that might be an understatement. I wonder whether U.S. service members might be lending a hand in flying the drones that are killing Russians.
Ukraine is yet another war that the U.S. entered without a formal declaration of war. The public did not demand that the U.S. get involved. Rather, the president and his advisors decided getting involved was the right thing to do. Democrats and Republicans eventually followed his leadership.
Today the debate in Washington is not over whether we should aid Ukraine, but whether we should aid them more. A vote in the House of Representatives for more weapons passed 361 to 69, with only 54 Republican votes and 15 Democrats voting no. (Want to see a vote where AOC (D-NY) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) voted the same way? This was it. By the way, Andy “Handgun” Harris voted for the bill.)
While I am OK with where we are today, I am nervous. Because Putin is a growing threat to world peace, I welcome Ukraine’s success in fighting back. But, less than a year after getting out of Afghanistan, the U.S. is moving towards direct involvement in another war. Will this “proxy war” evolve into another Afghanistan, or Vietnam?
To date, U.S. service members are not dying, but recall that for the last year or two of the war in Afghanistan, there were very few U.S. casualties. With the benefit of modern military technology, the U.S. was able to wage war in Afghanistan with few casualties. To date, we are waging war in Ukraine with no U. S. casualties. How much longer is that likely to continue?
Much will be written about the war in Ukraine in coming months, most of it an attempt to decipher the thinking of Vladimir Putin or to document the courageous leadership of Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people. Less will be written about the complicated and unresolvable ethical issues raised by the modern rules of war.
In six months, after the mid-term elections are over, the war in Ukraine may still be raging. By then, the U.S. is likely to have made several more gifts of arms to permit Ukrainians to continue the fight against Russia. As the 2024 presidential race gets underway, will Democrats run on their record in Ukraine? Will Republicans criticize them for not arming Ukraine enough or not engaging in direct combat? Or will Republicans, like Trump, blame Biden and the Democrats for leading the country into war and suggest that had Trump won the 2020 election, the war would never have happened?
If the above sounds to you like a murky, confusing, or useless debate, we agree. I cannot see a “right” answer emerging from the discussion or any answer clarifying the “modern rules of war.” The “rules of war,” surprisingly don’t provide an answer. As published by the International Red Cross, the rules “outlaw” things such as torture and killing civilians but don’t define what constitutes being in a war.
I wonder how many sitting members of Congress think the U.S. is currently at war in Ukraine. Isn’t it bizarre that a country can be at war and not be certain that it is?
J.E. Dean is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and other subjects.
Bill Barron says
I appreciate your cautious view of the situation in Ukraine; it’s complex. But I have a visceral feeling that failure to noisily support Zelensky may be the more dangerous course. Inaction will almost certainly embolden Putin to display his “crazy autocrat” nuke threat again and again to support future adventures in the former SSR’s. And it may encourage other nuke-armed states (e.g., China, N. Korea, Pakistan, India) to do the same. At what point do we refuse to be blackmailed?
It occurred to me the other day that our failure to step up more boldly in defense of Ukraine is not the first time that rational, caring people have stood by while a bully has had his way. Are you old enough to recall Kitty Genovese? She was a young woman from Kew Gardens, Queens who, in 1960, according to the NY Times account at the time, was murdered outside her apartment in a protracted one-man attack in full view of no less than 53 uncaring onlookers who watched from behind their curtains but did nothing to help. Wow! What a metaphor for the situation in Ukraine: We watch. We lament. But we do nothing substantive or in time to help. We don’t want to get involved because we fear the uncertain consequences. Perhaps this bad guy knows where we live.
There’s just one thing wrong with this analogy. Kitty Genovese died that night, for sure, and violently. But subsequent investigations revealed that the “callous witnesses” part of the news story was a bare-faced lie fabricated by the Times reporter in conspiracy with his editor to sell papers. In fact, according to later police investigations, there were just a few witnesses to parts of the incident, most of whom contacted the police, believing the attack to be a drunken domestic brawl common to the area. Nevertheless, the initial story steam-rolled into a cottage industry of books and other media devoted to “exposing” chronic indifference, even schadenfreude, of typical Americans to the plight of their unfortunate neighbors. The good news is that it just wasn’t true. People did care….and acted. Most of us are not content to allow evil to reign unchecked. In this case, I believe that Biden and the rest of U.S. leadership accurately represent “most of us” by showing some spine in the face of threats from this medieval bully. I wish that they had acted more swiftly.
Bill Barron
John Dean says
Thank you for this excellent comment. I hope it is widely read.
I agree with your comments, especially the wish that the US had acted earlier and with more aid. I remain concerned over a possible escalation of the war but believe that significantly increasing aid to Ukraine now will shorten the war.