Yesterday, the New York Times wrote about Joe Biden’s comment in the Ukraine crisis that the United States could not in good conscience sit by while Russia moved troops and weapons across its border.
Having watched the intense fire from President Vladimir Putin for weeks now, I too see very clearly how any US attempt to pick sides in Ukraine, especially in terms of arming the population, would backfire. The message sent would be: “Oh, aren’t you supposed to have a coalition of nations fighting alongside the EU? Well, we’re fighting on your side, anyway.”
The Ukrainian people would come away saying: “I guess we’re still the US’ junior partner. Or the junior partner of Putin’s Russian partner – a partner whose power, privileges and uses of Western markets they have so grudgingly been bussed into. Or the junior partner of the EU – which has given them the food, medicines, books, and other basics of life, yet they still only have the support of 27 EU members.”
If the US did somehow try to start fighting the Russian army in the Ukraine, it would cost American lives. I’ve heard someone, possibly Biden himself, having said that the more boots on the ground in Ukraine, the more American lives it would cost to get the job done.
This is the equivalent of saying to the peoples of Berlin in the second world war, “Guess what, don’t help us – you’ll pay the price.” The very deployment of US troops in today’s Ukraine would signal that the US was indeed willing to pay the price of war, even though most Americans were fearful of anything even close to a military conflict of that nature.
(It should be noted that I am not advocating for the deployment of US troops in Ukraine. You should take my words with a grain of salt.)
I feel that, in the case of Ukraine, another country should be lining up with the US – instead of the way in which it has been lining up with China. I hope that recent overtures from China for a detente with Putin are sincere and are for real, but if they are not, the US will have to help Russia.
I ask all of you to please make your voices heard. It’s time for the US and EU to take an active stand against Russia and provide weapons to the people of Ukraine. A nation that has been almost bankrupted by US and Russian medicine will have a fighting chance if it can find a new and civilized way to do this, and an old medieval way won’t.
If the US and EU do not decide to act, then Ukraine will quickly choose to side with Russia, and the rest of Europe will have to choose between Russia and Germany. These are decisions that everyone needs to consider right now.
What is your stance on arming Ukraine with weapons?