Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal, lawless invasion of Ukraine is the consequence of the former KGB head’s messianic vision and numerous Western miscalculations over the past two decades. President George W. Bush looked into Putin’s soul and mistakenly found him “very straightforward and trustworthy.” President Barack Obama saw a time to reset the U.S.-Russia relationship. President Donald Trump not only refused to criticize Putin but openly expressed admiration for him, while questioning NATO’s reasons for being and undermining American intelligence efforts.
Western Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and a series of high-level misreadings preceded the waves of Russian troops now trampling Ukrainian sovereignty. Whatever had masqueraded as a cold peace since the fall of the Soviet Union is now a new Cold War. Nor can there be doubt about who Putin is — a smart and ruthless tactician with ambitions to reconstitute the failed Soviet Union.
In an address just days prior to the invasion, the former spymaster spun a twisted narrative of disinformation to air old, new and fabricated grievances. In a fairy tale of hard-line Russian nationalism, paranoia and distorted history, Putin asserted that Ukraine should be part of a Russian-controlled republic to justify military action. Notably absent from Putin’s narrative was the popular will of Ukrainians. They desire to tilt away from Russia and toward the promise of closer economic ties to Western European economies, a choice that a despotic Putin despises.
The NATO alliance and a broader international coalition of the willing must stand strong in a moment that is as consequential as the years preceding World War II. NATO must continue to be a firewall to unfettered Russian expansion, and the international community must provide military equipment, and economic and humanitarian support so that Ukrainians can fight for their country. One analyst put it this way: Putin’s invasion is a war of choice, the world’s response a war of necessity.
That response matters not just to Europe, but to Asia, as well. China and North Korea are watching and trying to determine whether the time is ripe for them to pursue their long-standing ambitions to enforce their authoritarian wills on their neighbors.
U.S. troops must not set foot on the ground in Ukraine, which Putin would use as a provocation for full-scale world war, nor is there an appetite in the United States for that step. The world has roundly denounced Putin’s actions and must remain united in the cause of the sovereignty of borders despite inevitable economic and other hardships that will come from opposing Russian aggression.
For Americans, our politics must end at the waters’ edge and push back against the authoritarian strains that fuel Putin’s aggression and dangerously infect European and American politics. Like Putin, authoritarianism knows no borders or bounds, and unity against it isn’t optional. Putin’s calculation is that the world will grow weary and give up.
The world has tried to flatter Putin, reason with him and otherwise coax him to be what he isn’t. Like the fable of the scorpion and the frog, the world has been stung and we all now know who he is.
