OPINION: America and its allies committed six strategic errors that summoned aggression and ultimately let the Russia-Ukraine war degrade into a humanitarian tragedy, columnist pmorici1 writes.
History will mark the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a devastating attack on the peaceful community of democracies. And that America and its allies—so inured with a sense of moral and systemic supremacy—committed six strategic errors that summoned aggression and ultimately let an invasion degrade into a humanitarian tragedy.
Military appeasement Second, the West appeased Russia when it invaded Georgia and the Crimea and, after establishing a nascent democracy, the United States abandoned Afghanistan to the mercies of the Taliban. Fourth, appeasing Russia by not equipping Ukraine with offensive weapons. Moments after crossing its frontier, if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could have rained missiles on approaching Russian forces and hit several strategic targets inside Russia, then Putin’s adventurism would have looked much less appealing to his military and countrymen.
Sixth, American troops in Germany and the still modest NATO contingents stationed in states bordering Russia remain an inadequate deterrent, and U.S. forces have grown terribly vulnerable. The United States spends $768 billion on defense—Russia $154 billion and China less than $250 billion. I doubt Defense Secretary Secretary Lloyd Austin could adequately explain why U.S. forces lack comparable weapons.
How long would it take for American isolationists on the hard left and right to win the argument to let Russia have the Baltic states or Poland if Putin made the lights flicker and paused transit systems during a Manhattan rush hour or smashed an abandoned Midwestern factory with a missile.
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