Why Do We Care About Ukraine?
By: Jp Kobel
Tags: History, Ukraine, Russia, Trump, Foreign Policy

Why is America involved in what is essentially a family squabble among sibling nations in an out of the way corner of Europe? First, Ukraine acts as a buffer between our Western European allies and an increasingly aggressive Russia. Second, it is because America needs to always stand on the side of democracy, national sovereignty, and personal liberty.

In an increasingly dangerous world, America needs to stand with democratic nations against nations that would impose tyranny on other nations. In this time of increasing nuclear proliferation, democratic nations are less likely to go to war than nations led by autocrats. Think of the 20th Century wars in Europe; how many were started by democracies?

America should not pick its allies based on the economic systems in place within the allied nations. We should not care if they are socialist, capitalist, or mixed as long as the personal liberties of the people are not infringed upon. Economic issues are for lenders such as the World Bank, commercial banks, and bondholders that may demand market reforms.

The only measure of the economy the American government should consider when trading with another country should be the level of income inequality within the other country. If the people of the nation are not receiving their fair part of the trade with America, we should not grant such a nation ‘most favored trading’ status. Of course, we need to get our own house in order when it comes to income inequality first. See the link to my story, Income Inequality in America Compared to Other Nations at the end of this story. That story provides the reasoning behind requiring a certain level of income equality for our trading partners. We should also demand compliance with certain labor rights and environmental regulations for the workers that are citizens of our trading partners.

America needs to be slowing our relationship with nations that subject their citizens to human rights abuses on a massive scale, i.e., the persecution of the Muslims in China and the opposition to Democracy in Hong Kong. America does not need to grant favored nation trading status to a nation led by thugs. Yes, this would be a loss of business for America, but we would adjust. The trick to doing this without causing too much pain for our own economy is to impose the requirements gradually. The ‘stable genius’ in the White House doesn’t seem to understand that business and the economy do not react well to abrupt change, e.g., sudden trade wars that are supposedly easy to win. Business relationships with bad actors will always end badly. This doesn’t mean we have to make sudden moves that hurt our own nation’s businesses.

If China were to invade Taiwan, we should impose strong sanctions on China just as we have with Russia in response to their aggression in Ukraine. What America does not need is a policy of not caring who we are doing business with as long as we can make an extra dollar. We are the wealthiest country on Earth and we can use our wealth to bend other nations to our will. We need to do this whenever a nation is aggressive against its neighbors.

We need to be pulling back from our relationship with nations such as Saudi Arabia. There was a time when we were dependent on their oil. This led us into a war to ‘protect’ another nation in the early 1990s with the Kuwait/Iraq War. We need to develop energy alternatives so that the world is not dependent on the product (oil) from such an unstable part of the world.

We do not need to go into a nation to establish a no-fly zone to protect its people, and then expand it to an air support operation for rebels. We should only be there for humanitarian protection; not for nation-building or toppling a dictator. Toppling dictators should be handled using our economic power. In this paragraph, I am specifically thinking of the Libya operation. In that operation, we turned a no-fly zone into an air support operation that has led to Libya into chaos.

I am not saying that America needs to adopt an isolationist position. I am a globalist. I am saying that we need to take the moral high road. Taking this ‘moral high road’ is not only the right thing to do, but it is also good business in the long run.

Further Reading: Income Inequality in America Compared to Other Nations