{"id":45743,"date":"2024-01-31T15:28:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T23:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=45743"},"modified":"2024-01-31T15:28:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T23:28:42","slug":"keep-giving-scores-of-billions-to-ukraine-because-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/31\/keep-giving-scores-of-billions-to-ukraine-because-taiwan\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Giving Scores of Billions to Ukraine Because Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

I was reading Heather Cox Richardson<\/a> again and came across this priceless quote:<\/p>\n

\n

[NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg: It would be a tragedy for the Ukrainians if President Putin wins, but it will also make the world more dangerous and us, all of us, more insecure. It will embolden other authoritarian leaders \u2013 not only Putin\u2026 but also North Korea, Iran, and China \u2013 to use force.\u00a0 Today it\u2019s Ukraine; tomorrow it could be Taiwan. So therefore it is in our interests to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

My goodness: what arrant nonsense.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First, is it only \u201cauthoritarian leaders\u201d and countries that use force? I\u2019m glad the United States and Israel are never \u201cemboldened\u201d to use force.<\/p>\n

Second, is it really the case that a Putin \u201cwin\u201d in Ukraine will be the signal to China to attack Taiwan, for Iran to attack the U.S. or Israel, for North Korea to attack South Korea and the U.S.? After all, Putin has been bogged down in a costly and stalemated war for two years. What has Russia won, exactly, from seizing and occupying territory in eastern Ukraine? Putin\u2019s \u201cwin\u201d doesn\u2019t seem like the kind of victory that would inspire other leaders to resort to dangerous wars as prudent low-cost policy choices.<\/p>\n

Stoltenberg\u2019s comments are a variation on the tried-and-false idea of the domino theory. Let one \u201cbad\u201d country (Russia) win, let one \u201cgood\u201d country (Ukraine) lose, and soon all the other \u201cbad\u201d countries will follow, attacking and defeating all the \u201cgood\u201d ones. The domino theory is of course infamous from the U.S.\/Vietnam War, where the fall of South Vietnam to communism would allegedly lead to the fall of Thailand, the Philippines, and many other countries in Asia to communism. North Vietnam, of course, did indeed win, but South Vietnam\u2019s fall didn\u2019t lead to cascading dominoes.<\/p>\n

The overselling of Ukraine to the peoples of Europe and America has been amazing. I had no idea that Ukraine was the linchpin to world democracy, and that a Putin \u201cwin\u201d would touch off victory parades for authoritarian leaders from North Korea and China to Iran and lord-knows-where-else.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, U.S. leaders continue wholeheartedly to support the wanton use of force by Israel against Gaza with the clear goal of killing or expelling all the Palestinians there. We aren\u2019t supposed to call that ethnic cleansing or genocide in slow motion, apparently because we\u2019re supposed to ignore Bibi Netanyahu\u2019s \u201criver to the sea\u201d goal of dominating and controlling the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m certainly glad Bibi isn\u2019t one of those \u201cauthoritarian leaders\u201d who might be \u201cemboldened\u201d to use force to achieve his aims. Right, Mr. Stoltenberg?<\/p>\n

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. I was reading Heather Cox Richardson again and came across this priceless quote: [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg: It would be a tragedy for the Ukrainians if President Putin wins, but it will also make the world more dangerous and us, all of us, more insecure. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-45743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"So many dominoes might fall if Putin \"wins\""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45743"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45748,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45743\/revisions\/45748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45743"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}