Abandonment? By Al Sikes

Abandonment?  It is hard to know where to start. How many in the political party of Ronald Reagan can now be said to find Vladimir Putin more persuasive than our enduring friendships and alliances? How those who live in freedom could possibly be interested in supporting, even admiring, the callous Putin. As hundreds of Russians flee their country, how could those who swear an oath to freedom turn their back?

I don’t use the word callous casually. Russia is now deploying what are called “double-taps” ballistically. After an initial missile hit, there is a pause to let rescue workers arrive, and then a second missile attacking the rescue workers is fired.

Most glaringly, Putin is a loser. He, regardless of how the attack on Ukraine turns out, has sacrificed his country on the altar of his megalomania. Backing Putin is backing a loser. And backing an alliance that includes Iran and North Korea, whose organizing principles are hatred for our country.

Let’s see, Putin has managed to grasp for what is impossible: the successful subjugation of Ukrainians and their vast human and territorial assets. But, if Russia was in most respects unpopular after the takeover of Crimea, it became Satanic in the minds of Ukrainians after its attempt to absorb them by terror and killing. The freshest graves include children indiscriminately slaughtered.

America, in the beginning, joined all of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in both explicit and implicit support of Ukraine. And the Russian assault caused much of Europe to increase sizably their defense expenditures—a key US objective. Europe’s military increasingly reflects the reality of living alongside Russia.

While spending was going up, Finland and then Sweden came aboard NATO. Their annual defense expenditures and technological heft added immeasurably to NATO’s strength and their location added geo-strategic leverage. The Finns share a long border with Russia and they are not confused about its intentions.

Some believe its superior size and military assets will lead to victory. It will be hard to know as almost nobody has defined victory. America’s recent wars, in which it actually deployed troops, were against Afghanistan and Iraq. Did it win, either? Or, looking back, Vietnam? In short, size and destructive assets do not predict eventual outcomes. History records successes and failures and I predict, it will not be on Russia’s side.

It is said that Donald Trump is more comfortable with Putin. While that seems true we have one President at a time and that fact is especially true in foreign affairs. Regardless of partisanship, this is a battle with America and NATO’s strength on the line, along with a brave people whose trials we can barely imagine.

But back to the most telling characteristic of military alliances. If the US abandons an ally and our alliance with NATO, it will be weaker—it will be relegated to the world of transactional politics. A world in which our strength will be counted in military armaments shorn of enduring principles of freedom. History will not be kind, and generations ahead will not be forgiving.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.