J.D. Vance argued a few days ago in an NYT column that the Ukrainians simply don’t have the resources or the manpower to win back all of their territory, even with American help. He may well be right; I have said the same thing myself. Is that a valid reason to deny them military aid?
Vance’s position doesn’t even make sense. Is doing what is necessary to guarantee the survival of Ukraine as an independent state somehow far less compelling than helping it win back the Donbas? Of course not!
The fact is that Vance is a Putin appeaser. There are three possible reasons for that:
- He admires Putin and believes he should be rewarded for being an anti-woke warrior;
- He believes, like Ramaswamy, that Putin is one of us, and can be flipped in the existential war against China; or
- He just doesn’t think Ukraine is worth fighting over, and he doesn’t see Putin as a threat to the rest of Europe. China is the priority.
I don’t see a lot of evidence for #1. The other options sound like a British right-winger arguing that Hitler is less of a threat than Stalin. How did that turn out?