This will be a short post, because there is not much to add to what you’re seeing in the news. If you’re just waking up, then you probably already know that Russia began their invasion of Ukraine late last night. As I write this, the attack seems to be proceeding quickly. By the time you read this, the situation might have changed dramatically.
If the reports I have seen tonight are accurate, this might be the most well-planned invasion since Desert Storm. Russia has clearly been preparing for this for a long time, and despite advance knowledge, Ukraine appears to have been caught flat-footed.
We should pray that casualties will be light, whatever the outcome of this conflict. We should also urge our leaders to resist the temptation to involve American troops. This is not our fight.
In ages past, the American people would rally around their leader during times of war. Franklin Roosevelt during World War II, Harry Truman during Korea, and even George W. Bush in the early days of the Global War on Terror led a unified America into battle. But the American people are tired of war. Forty-five years of Cold War followed by twenty years of the War on Terror have sated our thirst for conflict. Warmongers on the left and the right will try to rouse us into a patriotic fervor, but most Americans are done.
I understand many conservatives still cling to the Cold War era idea that it is America’s job to intervene in any conflict around the world to protect the weak from the strong. But we can no longer act as the world policeman. Our failures in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan showed decisively the problem with trying to control the world.
Is this invasion morally wrong? Perhaps. Is it more wrong than our invasion of Iraq in 2003, or our attempts to overthrow the government of Syria in the 2010s? What about when we helped to oust the leader of Ukraine itself in 2014, an action that led to the events of this evening?
Our leaders will surely impose sanctions on Russia, but President Putin and the Duma seem to have already decided that was something they were willing to endure, so I doubt it will do much good.
As an American citizen I am not required to choose a side here. I will continue to pray for safety for everyone involved, and for wisdom for our elected leaders.
Let us also work to disentangle our country from the affairs of these foreign belligerents. The Democrats crafted a hoax that President Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election in order to hamper his presidency. The Biden family was taking bribes from Ukrainian energy firms in exchange for favorable actions by our government. These foreign entanglements do not benefit the American people, and only drag us into conflicts that are none of our business.
Let us return to the foreign policy of George Washington, John Quincy Adams, and Dwight Eisenhower: Strong defense to deter aggression; trade and cooperation with all; reliance on none but ourselves.