OPINION:
Well, it’s happening again. Are we even surprised at this point? Not even a full year after abandoning millions of women and girls and religious minorities to the tender mercies of the Taliban, the capital of another American ally is on the verge of falling to an enemy who wants to destroy our way of life.
In the 77 years since the end of the Second World War, democracy and free markets have again and again proven to be the best systems for both human happiness and national success. Yet many in our society have become so ashamed of themselves that they cannot even enunciate these universal values.
The price of our weakness is the same as it would be on the schoolyard or the prison yard: Aggression. Thugs and bullies who only understand the language of physical strength take advantage of those who appear weaker or, worse, have a high-minded belief that such things don’t even matter until a fist comes crashing into their face.
It’s different on the international stage, though, because innocent people will be trampled underfoot if we don’t defend our fundamental values. In fact, the bulk of the work of defending freedom today is being done not by international institutions, nor even by the United States, but by just three small nations that aren’t even part of our official alliance structure - Ukraine in Europe, Taiwan in Asia, and Israel see in the Middle East.
Let’s start with Ukraine, where this week’s Russian invasion proved what many of us have long feared. The bear has not been defanged, and Putin has a more consistent belief in destroying the democratic world order than most Westerners have in defending it. Losing Europe’s second-largest country by land area, with its forty-million pro-American citizens and the best arable farmland in Europe, would be a massive material loss to our side and a proportionate gain to Putin’s. Moreover, Russia probably doesn’t plan to stop with Ukraine, but to gobble up the other post-Soviet neutral states as well.
However, this goes far beyond the post-Soviet space - what’s at stake is the post-World War II order, which has depended on American hegemony and control of the sea lanes (just as the British-led order before it did). Russia is playing its old role of spoiler, seeking to turn our freedom-loving allies into provinces and “buffer states” of a revived Soviet Union (recalling a favorite maxim of George F. Kennan, the architect of containment, that Russia can only border two kinds of states - enemies or vassals).
Russia’s quasi-ally Iran is playing the same role in the Middle East, attempting to form an empire based on hostility to the “Great Satan,” the United States, and its perceived proxy in the region - the besieged State of Israel. Similarly, China announces nearly every day its desire to destroy the tiny island nation of Taiwan - and to seize the island of Okinawa and the 1 million Japanese citizens who live there while they’re at it.
If weakness invites attack, strength brings peace via deterrence. What can we in the West do now? We can give as much support - material, moral, personal - as possible to the bravest of our allies, the Ukrainians, the Israelis, and the Taiwanese. The fight forced on them is our fight - for the right to live in freedom and peace. Let’s be ready to defend it.
- Ryan Fournier is an American conservative activist and political commentator best known as the co-founder and acting national chairman of the American youth group Students for Trump.
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