America First—But Bad

On Ukraine, national conservatives display intellectual dishonesty and bad faith

For some Americans, alas, this is the face of the real enemy…

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If you believe the natcons (national conservatives), aid to Ukraine is taking bread out of the mouths of the American people. Countless billions are being squandered on another “forever war” for the benefit of corrupt foreigners. Meanwhile, the border is wide open and Americans are suffering, while the Biden administration and the neocons are leading us into a nuclear war. Besides, America can’t win wars anymore—all we do is make things worse! In the US House of Representatives, these claims and attitudes lie behind the current effort by the natcon faction of the Republican caucus to zero out funding for Ukraine.

This narrative is infuriating on many levels.

First, it’s based on the arithmetic of fools. So far, US aid to Ukraine totals around $70 billion, much of it in kind, nor in cash. Placed in the context of the annual defense budget ($753 billion in 2022), the annual federal budget deficit and total budget ($1.38 trillion and $6.27 trillion respectively in 2022) and the total national debt ($31.1 trillion and rising), aid to Ukraine is a trivial sum. People who run around claiming that it’s breaking the bank are either bad at basic math or bare-faced liars.

In short, the above figures demonstrate that Ukraine is taking no bread out of the mouths of Americans.

Second, though it’s true that the Biden Administration’s record on border security is nothing short of disgraceful, that has nothing to do with US aid to Ukraine. The fact that Biden’s bad on the border doesn’t make out a case against his policy on Ukraine. Oh, sure, Biden will defend the borders of some corrupt foreign country, but he won’t defend our on borders, the natcons bluster.

That’s what is known as argumentation by non sequitur, and it has all the intellectual respectability of the Flat Earth Theory.

Third, while it may be true that the government of Ukraine has problems with corruption, that neither makes it equivalent to the gruesome regime presided over by V. Putin nor excuses that regime’s brutal act of aggression, war crimes and genocidal policies. The demonization of the Ukrainian people by way of such arguments can only be described as vile, especially when accompanied by the vicious invective so often directed by the natcons against Ukraine’s president, Vladimir Zelensky.

Claims and charges along these lines are prima facie evidence of bad faith.

Fourth, the cry that America has become embroiled in a “forever war” flirts with the height of absurdity. The United States is not engaged in armed conflict with the Russian Federation. Rather, the United States is providing material and moral support to a country that was invaded without provocation or just cause by a predatory aggressor bent on its destruction. That country, Ukraine, is located in Eastern Europe, bordering several other countries that are America’s NATO allies and potential future targets of Russian aggression. The aid given to Ukraine by America and NATO is, therefore, a wise investment in collective security. For if Putin is allowed to conquer Ukraine and destroy it as an independent country, he won’t stop there.

In reality, the risk of “forever war” becomes most acute not when aggressors are opposed, but when they’re allowed to profit from their aggression.

Fifth, fears that US aid to Ukraine might provoke Putin to resort to the use of nuclear weapons are wildly overblown. While anything is possible, the strategic calculus clearly shows that for Putin, the nuclear option is no option at all. Very likely it would bring the US and NATO into direct conflict with Russia, resulting in disaster for Russia, the Putin regime, and him personally.

Putin knows very well that he can’t bail himself out by provoking a wider war that Russia would lose. That’s why he’s never made good on any of his nuclear threats.

There are some in the natcon ranks who go all in, openly siding with Putin against Ukraine, NATO and the United States. They claim that he’s a Russian patriot, defending his country against “NATO aggression,” globalism,” “Ukrainian Nazis,” etc. But most opponents of the US policy aren’t willing to go quite that far. Thus they rely on the shoddy arguments outlined above.

The real question is whether or not it’s in America’s vital national interest to stand against V. Putin’s imperial ambitions: the restoration of the old Soviet imperium. If the national conservatives in and out of Congress think that it’s not, let them give their reasons. Let them explain why it should be a matter of indifference to America if a new Russian empire arises, tyrannizing over Eastern and Central Europe. But instead of grappling with that fundamental question, they lapse into incoherence.

Sixth, therefore, the natcon narrative of American decline, decay and moral depravity is an intolerable smear on a good and great nation. It’s one of the ironies of the age that people describing themselves as conservatives have appropriated the anti-Americanism of the radical Left, twisting it into a new shape that slots into their dismal ideology.

Joe Biden’s not good for much of anything, and his management of Ukraine policy is worrisome: timid, wavering and hesitant. But the national conservatives are even worse. They have no policy, just the expression of a mood rooted in xenophobia, despair, and a kind of shamefaced, passive-aggressive anti-Americanism.