The Selfish Case for Supporting Ukraine

We are in the third year of the three-day Russian “military exercise” into Ukraine, and with the incoming American political administration, questions have arisen over whether the US should cease supporting Ukraine’s struggle for sovereignty. 

These questions have crossed the left-right partisan divide. The alleged couch molester and incoming Republican vice president has stated that he doesn’t care for the fate of Ukraine. Russian bots that have gained sentience through the magic of several million rubles such as Tim Pool and Dave Rubin have expressed their “independent” thoughts on why Ukraine should just give up. 

Leftists who tow the line between political pundits and professional jabronis such as Hasan Piker have occasionally echoed aspects of the Kremlin’s narrative about the war in tweets and videos (though he has since changed his stance to be more pro Ukrainian and has helped fundraise money for the cause). 

As such, I think it is important to reiterate the importance of supporting Ukraine — especially for people who do not think the way I do.

Ukraine is in a fight for its independence and its democracy against an expansionist global power, and my stance is that this alone warrants our support. However, for a large subset of the population, doing the right thing — whatever that may be — is not a good enough justification for committing resources to a cause. If this money and material aren’t directly helping the United States, they should be better spent. 

While I disagree with their framework, I wish to argue for the support of Ukraine using their framework. This will hopefully be an effective way to convince them of my position. And for those of you who already agree with me, I hope to give you a set of arguments that can help you engage with isolationists and subscribers of realpolitik if you ever encounter one in the wild.

Let’s do a guided meditation to get into the proper headspace.

America is the greatest country on Earth, USA #1!! We invented liberty and we have the highest freedom per capita! The world is divided into two: USA and not USA, and buddy we only have room in our head to care about one of those two things and you can bet your apple pie soaked in cheddar and bacon grease which one we care about! Yeehaw and wahoo!

I don’t know about you, but I think I just heard an eagle screech.

Now that we’re in that headspace, we must turn our attention to a country that is not the United States: Russia. The Russian Federation has been a geopolitical rival of the United States for as long as it has existed. The Obama administration attempted to develop friendlier ties and have a ‘reset’ in diplomatic relations which involved a darkly humorous moment where Secretary Clinton and Russian Minister Lavrov simultaneously pressed a red button with Russian text mistranslated to say ‘overload’ instead of ‘reset’. However, these attempts basically ended when Russia invaded the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014.

As a geopolitical rival that has meddled in our elections, meddled in our elections again, meddled in our elections again again, and has threatened to put us all out of our misery by starting a nuclear war, it is in the best interest of the United States to have the Russian Federation be as weak as possible. 

By supporting Ukraine, we are grinding down Russian war capabilities and exposing the Russian military as far less capable than what they advertise. Through sanctions, the Russian economy is bleeding really badly and the only thing preventing the Russian Minister of Finance from jumping out of a window is Putin threatening to throw him out of a window or worse. 

On June 23rd 2023, a private military company launched a coup that was way closer to succeeding than it had any right to. Yet some in the United States strongly believe that America should cut off or limit aid to Ukraine to encourage them to find peace with Russia, even at the cost of Ukrainian land and sovereignty. 

That belief is problematic for several reasons that are important for European stability (and that benefit the US). 

Firstly, there is little trust that the Russian government will honor any peace deals it makes — mistrust that’s supported  by Russia’s reneging of the Budapest memorandum through its invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

Secondly, a successful invasion of Ukraine could embolden Russia to invade other countries, which could destabilize Europe. Former Soviet States like Estonia are worried that they may be next on Russia’s chopping block if Ukraine capitulates, which would lead to more conflict and a progressively destabilized Europe.

Since this essay is trying to convince people who fundamentally don’t care about others, I’m not going to argue why destabilizing forces leading to war and suffering is bad on a humanitarian level, especially when those forces have a penchant for war crimes. I’m not going to argue that many of us know people with ties to these threatened countries or have such ties, and that their suffering will reverberate through our communities.

The argument I will make is that if Europe is destabilized, we as a country will be worse off. Europe buys a lot of American goods and vice versa: in 2022 alone, there was about $1.3 trillion in trade between the US and EU making them our largest trading partner. A destabilized Europe means all these economic benefits are threatened.

Failing to support Ukraine could have knock-on effects far outside of that region as well. The United States is a key aspect of many countries’ security, and refusing to support one ally could signal that we will not support our other allies. 

One very important example is Taiwan. This island off the coast of China has been governed independently since 1949 but is considered by China to be a part of its territory. Chinese President Xi has openly stated he wishes to achieve “reunification” with Taiwan (despite Taiwan’s desire to remain independent) and has been saber rattling to show he’s serious.

One of China’s biggest deterrence is the United States’ repeated commitment to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. If China believes America is wavering in its commitment to its allies, the likelihood of an invasion becomes much higher. 

Again, I won’t argue that a bloody invasion should be avoided for the sake of humanity. But I will argue that Taiwan is incredibly important for American interests. It is well known that Taiwan produces most of the world’s computer chips (including the ones America buys), but what is less well known is that many countries in the region look at Taiwan the same way post-Soviet states look at Ukraine.

Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and many others in the region are greatly interested in maintaining peace in the Taiwan strait. Violence there would be incredibly destabilizing at best, and has the potential to quickly escalate as some in the region said they will help Taiwan militarily if invaded. 

And for the ghouls who aren’t appalled by the idea of high levels of casualties, consider that it’ll likely be bad for the US economy and our ability to import anime, Samsung TVs, and ube.

Ultimately, the throughline of all these arguments is that the world is far too interconnected for any nation to be isolationist. The goings on in one corner reverberate throughout, and isolationism is not only foolish but dangerous. So if you want the United States to be as selfish as possible, we must look out for the well-being of other countries.