Aid debates are necessary, but the Heritage Foundation shouldn’t pretend Ukraine is a peaceful oasis
Tom Rogan
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There’s a necessary debate underway as to whether the United States should be providing such significant aid to Ukraine. A public policy think tank, the Heritage Foundation is right to engage with that discussion.
The statistics are certainly stark: The U.S. has committed approximately $80 billion in aid to Ukraine since Russia began its war in February 2022. About 35% of this aid has been in the form of financial or humanitarian grants. The remainder has been military aid. This is a lot of money, and the U.S. is already subsumed by a massive national debt. We should debate whether it is in the national interest to provide continued aid at this level.
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My view is that the aid is broadly appropriate. I have two caveats, however. First, considering the grave consequences for the U.S. were Taiwan to be conquered by communist China, I believe certain military aid should be prioritized for Taiwan (although that nation needs to get far more serious about its own defense). Second, I believe the U.S. should be putting far greater pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government to ensure U.S. aid is not stolen by corrupt elements. Zelensky should also show less ingratitude over aid that Ukraine has received.
Still, it is silly for the Heritage Foundation to present Ukraine as an oasis of peace. And that’s what Heritage did via its juxtaposing of a photo of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, alongside a photo of fire-scourged Maui. As shown below, the photo posted on Tuesday implies that President Joe Biden places Ukraine’s happy-go-lucky living before the misery of Americans in Hawaii.
https://twitter.com/Heritage/status/1694012835842375809
Again, the debate over whether the U.S. should be providing such generous aid to Ukraine is necessary. That said, the suggestion that Ukraine is somehow an oasis of peace is an unserious one. At least 100,000 Ukrainians have been killed since Russia launched its February 2022 invasion. Ukrainians continue to be killed in significant numbers as Russia escalates its targeting of civilians. Moreover, Heritage’s photo choice contradicts its own legitimate argument here. After all, while Kyiv is relatively peaceful today, that peace is not a function of Russian generosity but rather of Western military aid and Ukrainian fighting spirit. And Kyiv is still subjected to regular missile attacks.
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Moreover, while the debates over what the U.S. should and should not do for Ukraine are critical, America’s moral support for Ukraine shouldn’t be controversial. Putin has basically admitted that this war serves his broader construct of a new Russian imperium (Putin warned as much six months before launching the war).
In turn, just as it was right that Cold War-era U.S. presidents such as Ronald Reagan boldly opposed the Soviet Union’s territorial imperialism against free peoples, so should conservatives oppose it now. That shouldn’t mean a reflex toward providing unconditional and limitless aid, but it should mean greater honesty about the war Ukraine now suffers.