Opinion | This Is About the Future of Freedom: What Does America Owe Ukrainians? – The New York Times

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Today on The Argument, whats our responsibility to Ukraine?

Im Jane Coaston. And this week, Im joined by two of my colleagues from Times Opinion, columnist Bret Stephens and editorial board member Farah Stockman. Brett and Farah both write about foreign policy, and theyve spent time reporting in Europe and the Middle East. Their reporting has given them pretty starkly different ideas about when the U.S. should bang down doors to defend democracy and when its better to butt out, which brings us to the topic of todays show, the crisis in Ukraine.

Tensions are mounting in Eastern Europe, where more than 100,000 Russian troops are deployed at Ukraines border.

In response, Ukraine is carrying out its own drills. Meanwhile, NATO forces are training in nearby Estonia.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said yesterday he believes Russian president Vladimir Putin has not made a final decision on whether or not to invade Ukraine.

Germany and the United States, together with our allies and partners, are working closely together to pursue diplomatic resolution to this situation.

Today, the eyes of the world are on the United States to see how we will respond. Will we stand strong in support of Ukraine, or will we sit passively on the sidelines?

Bret, its been a long time.

Hi, Jane.

Farah, its a pleasure.

Thanks for having me on.

And I think I speak for many Americans when I say, what is happening between Russia, the United States and Ukraine?

Just in basic terms, we see more than 100,000 Russian troops surrounding Ukraine. You see warships. Theyre encircling Ukraine. And either Putin wants hes going to invade or he wants us to think hes going to invade. And theres essentially been a war going on there on the border since 2014, when Putin annexed Crimea. And hes been taking little bites out of Ukraine ever since. I think Putin saw that his influence is waning, his ability to influence Ukraine in a political manner is going away, so now hes going to do it by brute force.

I think Russia is profoundly threatened by the fact that Ukraine, particularly under its new president, is consolidating its democracy, moving towards the West, becoming increasingly anti-Russian in its orientation. I mean, this is a pretty rank act of aggressive behavior to, first, eight years ago seize portions of sovereign Ukrainian territory, in wanton violation of international law, wage a war that has lasted now eight years, taken thousands of lives, involve the downing of a civilian jetliner people sometimes forget and now, massed 130,000 troops in a manner that Europe hasnt really seen probably since before the Second World War.

So Putin, I think, is eager to cast himself as a potential victim of NATO expansion. Everybody knows that the chances of Ukraine joining NATO are basically nil because NATO expands only by unanimous consent, and Germany has long made its opposition clear. NATOs a defensive alliance. People join NATO because theyre afraid of Russia, not because they want to threaten Russia.

How much does this have to do with the United States at all? How much is this about the United States role, and how much is it about, like, Russia believes that Ukraine will always be a Russian territory, despite independence efforts since 1917, and large swaths of the Ukraine say we are not?

This is a big deal. This could result in the biggest security challenge that Europe has seen in decades. And it has to do with us because we really we are the backbone of NATO. We are. Those are our allies there. And this is a test of US leadership. This is a test of the resolve of the West. China is looking at this. Putin wants to get Ukraine, just like China wants to get Taiwan. And theyre all looking to see what were going to do. It matters because were talking about the future of Europe. Were talking about where will Europe end, essentially, and Russia begin. Its about much more than Ukraine.

And we saw the other day that, after the West started threatening sanctions on Putin should he decide to invade, what did Putin do? He went to Beijing and he sat down with President Xi in China and sought his backing so that he can withstand Western sanctions with Chinese support. So we are kind of seeing a little bit of a replay of the Cold War rhetoric coming out of Bidens mouth, and the response its creating. To them, this is about whether the US is still the boss of the world and whether we can boss people around and tell them what to do in their own backyards.

I would add to what Farah said, this is also about the future of freedom. I mean, the touchstone event in Vladimir Putins life as a young KGB agent was the collapse of Soviet power and control in Eastern Europe and Germany, where he was stationed. And theres a psychological element I think hes been looking to avenge what he sees as that historic and personal humiliation for a long time. But theres also, I think, an ideological component thats really important.

You know, in 1991, we had the sense that, in some way, there was a universal consensus, or near universal consensus, that liberal democratic governance was kind of the inevitable destination toward which every country was heading. Some of them quickly, some of them more slowly. But you now have a real ideological competition in the world between liberal democracies, which, lets face it, are not as attractive as they used to be, beset by all kinds of problems, doubts, fissures, partisanship, polarization, inequality, go down the list, and a kind of a model of what you might think of as efficient autocracy.

China, which, when it wants to build things, builds it with astonishing speed. Personalized power in Russia. And I think much of what is now happening is a challenge because the autocrats see an opening in Western weakness or division. But I would say at the core of this dilemma for us is the question of whether the liberal democratic model, which the United States has championed, for better or worse, and well or badly, since the end of World War II, is enfeebled. And theres a question as to whether it is going to remain at least the default aspiration of much of the world, or whether countries are going to look at China and say, well, you know, they make the trains run on time, as someone used to say.

You just made a Mussolini reference. And Im not going to go on a tangent about how Mussolini didnt actually make the trains run on time, and that is a historical myth.

I know he didnt make the trains run on time, but people said he made the trains run on time.

People did, people did. Bret, you wrote that the United States must restore the concept of the free world.

Yeah.

What is the free world?

As I defined it in that column a few weeks ago, the free world is an idea that countries that, to one degree or another, adhere to the values of democratic processes and liberal norms Im thinking about freedom of speech, rule of law, due process, presumption of innocence that those fundamental values in a deep way bind these countries together, and create expectations of solidarity and common interest that are important to maintain, not least because many of these countries tend to have the same enemies.

And we used to talk when I grew up in the 80s, the expression the free world was a common expression. It has gone into disuse. And I think when you have a challenge like Putins challenge to Ukraine, its worth restoring the concept. Its worth thinking that, even if we dont have legal treaty obligations to Ukraine, we have a certain set of moral obligations. And those moral obligations are important not simply for morality itself, but because as goes Ukraine, to some extent goes liberal democracy elsewhere in the world.

I mean, Im just having flashbacks of domino theory all over the place when Im hearing Bret talk. This is what got us on the path of Vietnam, right? We started off giving arms and having military advisors, and as soon as we knew it, were deep in a war. And we said it was a war over freedom and, you know, exactly like this, about ideas. But at the end of the day, when you look at how wars actually feel and the logic of wars, all of these things that we talk about tend to go away.

Look, I agree that democracy is the best system. I agree that capitalism is the best system. I think it would be great if everybody had freedom all over the world. My five-year-old daughter also wants a pony. Right? The question is not whether these things are desirable. The question is whether they are achievable, and whether they are achievable with us. Can we really spread democracy and ensure that every country in the world has democracy and freedom?

How do we stand up for those ideas in a way that doesnt overstretch us, that doesnt squander our limited resources in wars that are actually not to protect our own homeland? We have been blessed with two oceans and two pretty friendly and not so strong neighbors. And so thats the reason weve been able to run around the world doing things in Somalia and all kinds of places that actually dont have immediate national security interest for ourselves.

I was on the ground in Pakistan in 2001 when we started Operation Enduring Freedom after 9/11. And the people there joked it should have been called Operation Endure Our Freedom. They were just waiting for the bombs to drop on their heads. All the Iraqi families that were gunned down by, like, scared to death American soldiers because the car came too fast at the checkpoint and the soldiers thought they were terrorists, like, when you start these wars, it doesnt matter how many great, lofty goals you had.

At the end of the day, you know, wars are dirty, and theyre terrible ways to spread democracy, often, especially in countries we dont happen to know all that much about. We dont have the greatest track record right now of actually making democracies come to fruition in these countries. And we also, the other thing thats gone on, theres a big change, another big change in the world since the Cold War, is that the Global South has grown up. Theyre a lot wealthier. Theres a lot more educated people there. And theyre kind of tired of us wagging our fingers in their faces telling them how to run their countries.

We can be overbearing in the way that we help. And we can inadvertently do more harm than good. Weve proven that over and over again over the last 20 years.

I want to come back to the current crisis because I do want to stay on this point of what this all means for the future of liberal democracy such as we see it. The United States has deployed troops to Poland and Germany. Its repositioned troops from Germany to Romania. But theres not been any talk about troops going into an armed conflict. So Farah, what do you think we should do in Ukraine, or not do?

We have to stand with our allies and for our values, but we cant get overstretched. And so far, I think weve done a pretty good job. I hope that they end up convincing Putin not to invade. But what should be the future of Ukraine?

To me, I think Ukraine should be a bridge. It should be a bridge between Russia and the West. It should not be a NATO member. And if, as Bret just said, no one thinks its going to become a NATO member anytime soon, just say that. Theres worse things in the world than being a buffer state. Either Ukraine is going to be a buffer state or its going to be forcibly taken over by Russia. And I think thats the choice.

But based on polling that was done in December, Ukrainians support integration with the European Union by about 58 percent and integration with NATO by 54 percent. But Im curious, from the Ukrainian perspective, this seems like a lot of decisions being made over their heads. Where do their voices lie in this?

Bret, this is your chance.

Ah, OK, well.

To come in and talk about how we have to stand up for the Ukrainians.

Well, look, I mean, Farah has said a few things I really disagree with. Number one, we talk about how we dont want to be the ugly Americans, but here we are, two columnists for a prominent American paper, basically suggesting that, well, Ukraine ought to be a buffer state. I think Ukraine ought to be what Ukrainians want it to be. And thats the fundamental issue at stake here, which is that Vladimir Putin is signally unwilling to let Ukrainians decide their own future. And if we believe that the idea of democratic self-determination is impossible, then the suggestion that we ought to bargain away that fundamental Ukrainian right to decide by democratic majoritarian means where they see their future I think is almost like a kind of weird form of neo-imperialism.

And its easy to cherry pick examples from the past and look at places where American intervention went wrong. It certainly did go wrong in many places. But there are many places where it went right, and it made a huge difference in the lives of people. I mean, my mother was liberated from Nazi-occupied Europe by force of American arms. If you are South Korean and America certainly made many mistakes and actually committed crimes in the Korean War. Nonetheless, the reason why a member of the Kim dynasty is not your ruler has to do with an American intervention. The tragedy in Southeast Asia, the real tragedy began not when America intervened, its when America left.

So the shadow of the ugly American, I think, hangs over our heads very heavily. And to some extent, maybe its not a bad thing that we should be particularly conscious of the ways in which indeed, as you point out, we can be foolish, overbearing, overconfident and overstretched. But we shouldnt lose sight also of the fact that the world in which we live, in which there was an enclave in West Berlin, in which there was a free South Vietnam, in which now countries like Lithuania that lived under Soviet occupation for 50 years enjoy freedom because the United States chooses to exercise a vigilant role in global affairs.

But we cant separate that intervention from then leaving. Like, these interventions at some point may have been successful, and then theres the and then the United States left. And Im not sure how we can separate that.

Well, I mean, intervention is a big word, right? I mean, we intervene in all kinds of ways. And sometimes we intervene in foolish and catastrophic ways. But the great tragedies that I see befalling places like Afghanistan are the tragedies that are befalling it now. I mean, were talking about a million refugees already outside of Afghanistan and the prospect of mass hunger in that country because of our absence.

I only mention that to say that we have this idea and I think its a very American idea that once were out of town, its someone elses problem. And A, I dont think its someone elses problem. That problem tends to metastasize. But if were going to talk in moralistic terms, lets recall that many of the tragedies in the world unfold in our absence, not in our presence.

Dont get me wrong, I think we have done many good things in the world, and there are many good things that are worth doing. But I have seen us time and time again make a mess of things. What I want to say about Ukraine is not that I dont think we should sit down and bargain their future away. But I also dont think we should promise them that we can save them. We have made statements in the past.

The first Gulf War, we made a lot of statements supporting the Shia, telling them to rise up against Saddam Hussein. They rose up, and they were slaughtered by Saddam Hussein. And they remember that. OK? In Syria, we made statements in support of the Syrian uprising against Assad. And what did we give them? MREs.

In the early days of Syria, I remember being on the phone so many times with people who were like, why arent the Americans giving us more support? Theres only so many insurgencies for democracy and freedom that we can realistically support around the world. We need to do a better job picking our battles. We really do, because we have to protect ourselves and our own democracy first, because we cannot help anyone else if we are in disarray. And guess what? Were in disarray right now. We really are.

Just to be clear, I dont think anybody is talking about American troops fighting in Ukraine. I certainly am not, and I probably I know I hold up the right wing of The New York Times editorial page. Lets just be clear about what were saying, which is not to deploy American forces anywhere in Ukraine, but maybe to do what we can to deter Russian aggression by arming Ukraine before Russia comes in.

Were doing that.

Well, no, were giving them aid in the form thats being counted in pounds, not tons. Its not massive aid. But your point, Farah, about pragmatism is totally well-taken. And I dont think anyone thinks that we shouldnt be anything except pragmatic.

We dont want to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. What we want to do is provide a margin of deterrence against a potential invasion and give Ukrainians a fighting chance if they do invade, because if we dont do that, then the next target isnt going to be Kyiv. Its going to be Vilna or Warsaw or other places that are inside of NATO. And it means that the danger will be greater, not less.

Final point. You know, one of the arguments that I always made is that there was this odd confluence, oddly enough, between Barack Obamas foreign policy and Donald Trumps. They just came in very different-looking packages. Barack Obama loved to talk about the need for more nation-building at home. And Donald Trump actually picked up on that theme with America first.

I mean, theyre really actually very closely related, even if the means differed. And I would push back at the argument that the United States conducts foreign policy at the expense of domestic policy. Theres actually very little evidence. So the idea that were spending ourselves to death in places like Afghanistan or NATO when those priorities really belong at home I think is a misunderstanding of actually the relative balance of our budgetary attention.

I want to get in on this, because Bret, you were talking about holding up the right wing of The New York Times Opinion page, but

Ross might argue with me, but, you know.

Yes. But actually, Ross would argue with you on this point. Theres this weird confluence between the isolationist post-liberal right and a very specific swath of the very far left where its like America should have no influence because America sucks. And we actually saw an op-ed in The Times by Sohrab Ahmari, Patrick Deneen, and Gladden Pappin saying that hawks are standing in the way of a new Republican Party.

Now, I objected on a couple of points, because I think that one of the problems that they see with hawkishness is that the liberal democracy or liberal values that we would be defending are values they dont like, including, quote, a virulent cultural libertinism that dissolves bonds of family and tradition, which I believe means gay people. But I think that theres a general hawkishness or however you want to interpret that is growing increasingly unpopular with Republicans. As someone who clearly believes that we should be taking a somewhat more muscular position, how do you respond?

Yeah, I mean it ought to tell the far left that if their arguments sound exactly like the far right, theres something the matter with them and vice versa. And it is part of what I was describing earlier, which is, I think, a broad ideological assault on the tenets of liberalism. Because youre absolutely right, regimes like Hungarys regime, not only is it against civil liberties when it comes to freedom of the press, but its also, in my view, militantly homophobic and frighteningly so.

The new right has become sympathetic to Putin, because he seems to be a good horse for them to ride in terms of the broad assault the idea of what a liberal democracy should stand for, which is precisely the right of individual human beings to pursue their own happiness and find their own future. And thats whats really under attack.

So its not a surprise to me that the American conservative crowd, which has echoes for me of Father Coughlin back in the 1930s, is banging the anti-war drums. And thats a force thats probably going to gain strength within the Republican Party. Its why, if you follow my column, you know that Im almost or perhaps even more uncomfortable with the Republican Party today than I am with the Democrats.

I do want to get back to the narrower question of Ukraine and talk a little bit about Bidens strategy. What is a good political outcome for Ukraine as the Biden administration sees it? Whats a win here for the Biden administration?

I think if Putin doesnt invade, I think thats an achievable goal. If he pulls his troops back and then Biden can claim a diplomatic win. I think just showing that NATO is standing strong. Showing Putin that by being aggressive, hes actually being counterproductive to his own goals. I think, just realistically, Putin is always going to mess with Ukraine. And whether its covert or overt or whatever, thats a reality.

And we need to get creative about how we push back. And we need to be smart. Im not saying leave the Ukrainians high and dry. But I do think, you know, Russia has a voice in the Security Council. Russias been at the table with us to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Theres a lot of places we need Russia and China, by the way. So to me, its a win to simply dial it back and get back to a place where the powers of the world can make things manageable.

Bret, what do you think? What will be a success here to you?

I largely agree with what Farah just said. And obviously nobody wants a violent outcome here. I have to say the Biden administration has exceeded my expectations in the way in which they have handled things so far. They have whipped NATO into shape, deploying troops to front-line NATO states, so far in relatively small numbers. But definitely as tripwires, its an important signal.

Biden, I think, did well in his meeting with the German Chancellor in insisting that Nord Stream 2 would be shut down in the event of an invasion. Giving Putin a clear sense that hes not, as I think Putin may have suspected, facing a weak, feckless and confused American administration that is going to kind of scamper out of Central Europe or Eastern Europe the way we did scamper out of Central Asia. So I think thats about right. I mean, if theres a face-saving solution for Putin, obviously we should seize it, right? Because its not in our interest to risk a kind of military confrontation on this scale.

Since you acknowledge that Ukraine is not going to be a NATO member anytime soon, why not give that to him?

Because I think its none of our business to give that to him.

What do you mean its none of our business? NATO is none of our business?

Its not our business to bind a future generation, say 25, 30 years from now, to whether its in the United States, a future American president, or future Ukrainian government to say, no, you will never ever join NATO. I mean, look

Promises are broken all the time.

But diplomats exist to come up with language that is appropriately ambiguous. But the main thing is Russian forces on the borders of Ukraine have to melt away and Ukrainian sovereignty has to be upheld. And then everything else is, in some ways, open to some kind of creative solution.

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Were working on an episode right now about whether the left has ceded the idea of patriotism to the right and how much that matters. Its a big complicated question and I want to hear how you think about it. Would you call yourself a patriot? Whats the behavior or action that feels patriotic to you? And if you dont feel patriotic, whats standing in the way? Leave me a voicemail by calling 347-915-4324.

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I want to ask both of you as journalists Im curious how you think that this potential conflict is being positioned to Americans. I remember being in high school when 9/11 took place. And that was the idea

See, I dont remember being in high school.

Oh.

I was. I am but a youth. And I remember that there was a lot of media coverage of how the Taliban treated women and the executions of women in soccer stadiums. And Laura Bush talked a lot about this. And Im aware that that was part of an ideological effort to get Americans on board with war in Afghanistan. And let me tell you, as a freshman in high school, it worked

Oh, yeah.

on me. I opposed the war. But I also was like, I dont know what to do with that. I dont know what to do with bad actors who are hurting innocent people. And part of me is very much of the we got to do something. That in times in history when we didnt do things, we look back on those moments that are like, why didnt we permit ships of Jews fleeing Europe to land? Why didnt we get involved in Rwanda earlier? Like, why didnt we do these things? But at the same time, Im like then we wound up in Afghanistan for 20 years. So this is complicated.

These are hard questions.

Right.

I lived for several years in Kenya, which I had a wonderful experience, but you would go and visit the Maasai and many of them still did female genital mutilation, right? What am I going to do? Its one of those youre a guest in this country. And the best thing you can do is give your example and moral support to those Kenyans who are standing up against the practice, right? But would it have made a difference? Were we going to send military to come over and overthrow the government because of this practice?

There are any number of interventions, but the very first has to be providing a model thats different a successful model thats different, and showing, hey, there is a different way and I hope you follow my way. But in order for the United States to lead the world into these values, you have to have followers. And you either get them to follow you by convincing them that your way is better or you get them to follow you at the end of a barrel of a gun.

And thats what we did in Pakistan. We forced them. We said youre either with us or against us. And Pakistan pretended to be on our side. But at the end of the day, they supported the Taliban and we all see the results here all these years later.

These are not easy questions. This is part of this is modernity, right? We talk about individual values. In a lot of parts of the world, they talk about communal values the rights of the family, the rights of a clan. You know, this gets really complicated when we boil it down to our ideas of what liberal values should be spread around the world.

And a lot of times the United States has hid behind the notion of a rules-based order or freedom were spreading freedom. But we get to determine, right, what we think freedom is or what we think the best way to spread those values are. A lot of your examples, Bret, of us doing it right happened a long time ago. I havent heard you give a recent example of us doing it right.

So what should we do in Ukraine? Its what were doing, right? But I think the question is, is there any amount of weaponry that we can give them that is going to stave off an attack from Putin if he decides to attack? And then to what extent are we morally responsible for the outcome?

I guess, again, Farah and I disagree about all kinds of things. You mentioned that weve had a lot of failures. And thats true. I mean, I guess were all a product of our generation. And from my generation, what I recall is that America actually stood up for freedom in Western Europe and won the Cold War. We stood up after dallying for some time, we stood up for the people of Bosnia and ended genocide in Bosnia, and did the same thing in Kosovo again.

And yes, by the way, there have been catastrophic misjudgments and a real question of whether the American government has the competence to get some of these large-scale interventions right. I mean, some of the abuses and failures in Iraq and Afghanistan are going to be legendary.

At the same time, I worry about this belief that we are uniquely blundering, stupid, incompetent people who really need to just tend to our own house, which is a broken house, and let the rest of the world fend for itself. We dont have that option. Theres no U.N. waiting to rescue us from international or global anarchy in the event that the United States just folds up shop and says were going to tend to our own knitting for the next 20 years.

What are we not doing that we need to be doing?

So we are sending pounds were measuring in pounds the amount of military aid that we are sending to Ukraine. It should be measured in thousands of tons. There should be an airlift to Kyiv with various kinds of weapons that would make a Russian general think very hard about the costs of an invasion.

Step one, do everything we can to raise the prospective costs of a Russian military incursion. Step two, which is what Biden, to his great credit, is already doing, is beefing up Americas military presence and NATOs military presence in frontline states.

Step three, begin immediately taking actions against Putins inner circle, especially their financial means, as a way of showing that for the 100-odd people or 1,000-odd people however many it is who really rule Russia, a Russian invasion of Ukraine is a really bad bargain, because theyre not going to have their mansions in Belgravia, or in Monaco, or elsewhere in areas where the United States or NATO exercises a great deal of influence.

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Opinion | This Is About the Future of Freedom: What Does America Owe Ukrainians? - The New York Times