Republicans Stand up for Ukraine
Republican Congressman Don Bacon from Nebraska wrote an Op Ed for the NY Times this week called “My Fellow Republicans and President Trump, We Must Stand Up to Putin”.
This is a summary of his Op Ed.
Representative Bacon challenged some of his Republican colleagues for treating Putin with kid gloves and asked them all to affirm their commitment to protecting Ukraine’s sovereignty and opposing Russia’s expansionism.
Bacon went on to explain that Russia started this war based on its belief that Ukraine does not have the right to exist. This goes back in history to the Ukrainian independence movement in the early twentieth century, which the Bolsheviks extinguished.
In addition, Bacon reiterated that Ukraine in 1996 gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security agreements from the Russian Federation, the United States, Britain, and France in the Budapest Memorandum.
He reminded his colleagues that in 2014, when Putin invaded Crimea and the Donbass, those same Western nations did little beyond speeches and minor sanctions against Russia. This weak response paved the way for Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Considering these failures since 2014 to hold Russia in check, Bacon makes the case that the United States must continue to support Ukraine until Russia commits to a fair peace negotiation with Ukraine at the table.
If Ukraine is asked to cede territory to Russia, the United States should provide security assistance while Europe provides on the ground peacekeepers.
Many Americans have begun to question the prudence of continuing to support Ukraine. They question whether it's our fight, if we can afford it, and if Ukraine’s fate matters.
Bacon makes the argument that supporting Ukraine is not only a moral imperative, but it is also in our national interest. If Ukraine is abandoned now, it will cost the United States more in investment later. If Putin wins in Ukraine, he will continue his aggression to reconstitute the old borders of the Soviet Union. If Putin succeeds, it will embolden our adversaries, China, North Korea, and Iran, to move against their neighbors, causing more global instability.
The withdrawal of the United States from the global stage today echoes a similar time in the 1920s and 1930s, which led to World War II and the loss of tens of millions of lives.
Even though the majority of Americans support Ukraine, some Republican support in Congress for further Ukraine aid is diminishing as concerns about fiscal responsibility and affording our own looming debt. These are concerns Rep. Bacon also shares.
Bacon continues to argue that if Russia gains Ukraine’s coastline and controls the Black Sea shipping lanes, food prices will rise across the globe and in the United States. If Ukraine loses, millions more refugees will flood into Europe, destabilizing it, trade may be disrupted, and energy prices will soar.
The United States must defend and aid Ukraine, not only because of economic interests but also to send a message to authoritarian leaders that they will not be appeased. According to Bacon, it is possible to end the war in Ukraine while holding Russia accountable and protecting American long-term national interests.
He calls this a Reagan moment, and we must not waver in our resolve.