Suppose you support Ukraine but not the way the war has been prosecuted – but also want Russian President Vladimir Putin to be soundly and unmistakably defeated. How do you square this problem?
Maybe look back 50 years ago to the fall of South Vietnam for some context and guidance.
Besides the squandered opportunities at the early stages of both fights, Ukraine today brings to mind the latter phase of the Vietnam War.
The Americans were tired of it.
It wasn’t being conducted in a way that seemed sensible or likely to bring victory (and hadn’t been for some time).
And the United States itself was wracked with social and economic problems back in the early ’70s.
Thus, the U.S., and Congress in particular – to include Sen. Joe Biden (‘We are under no obligation to help those people’) – let South Vietnam go under.
It turned out that with just a reasonable level of support, the South Vietnamese could have hung on indefinitely, until the rest of Southeast Asia got its acts together and strengthened their economies and political structures.
Instead we cut them off… while Henry Kissinger in passive-aggressive fashion begged the North Vietnamese for a deal.
And we got everything that followed after Saigon fell – and we’re still paying for it.
Recall what happened after South Vietnam was enslaved – to include ‘reeducation camps’ and summary executions by the North Vietnamese communists.
The ‘Boat People’ tragedies as South Vietnamese fled the country.
Our Hmong allies in South Vietnam were savaged.
And the rest of Southeast Asia suffered.
Half the Cambodian population murdered by Khmer Rouge communists, for starters.
Insurgency in the Philippines brewed up.
And the rest of the world?
Africa – Angola, Mozambique, the Horn of Africa – brutal civil wars that developed to Russia and China’s advantage. Rhodesia, and eventually South Africa – democracies and pro-West (for all their shortcomings) were put into untenable positions.
Central America – Russia and local communists ascendent.
And remember the ‘disarmament’ movements in Europe, egged on by successful Russian political warfare that caused us no end of trouble – to include the ‘peace movement’ in the USA that demanded the U.S. give the Soviets what they wanted. Can’t risk nuclear war, you know.
It seemed like the free world was finished.
The list could be much longer.
All it took to avoid all of this – and the attendant human suffering – was just a little more effort to support South Vietnam. Money, logistics and air support.
The specifics are different with Ukraine – not least that America isn’t doing any of the fighting (a plus) – but the basics are similar enough.
Whatever else happens from here out with Ukraine, it’s imperative that Putin can’t claim to have come out ahead. And his Iranian, North Korean and Chinese friends similarly should wish they’d not gotten involved.
Otherwise, the thuggish regimes from Beijing to Caracas make their moves.
What to do?
Lean on the Europeans to do 10 times more than they are now. The U.S. as well should expand defense production and give the Ukrainians whatever they need – and keep records. Things and money have a way of vanishing in Eastern Europe.
But pumping guns, hardware and money into Ukraine isn’t enough.
Apply real sanctions on the Russians. There are too many loopholes now.
Go after Putin’s personal wealth and make it disappear, and also expose to high heaven what we can’t grab.
Relearn political warfare. Any competent political warfare operator or propagandist has plenty to work with. One idea of a thousand: hammer home that proud Russia is depending on Asians (North Koreans and Chinese) to save it.
Do to the Iranians what President Trump did in his first term, and then some. The mullahs were on the ropes. Bring down the regime. Don’t restrain the Israelis.
Apply real sanctions on North Korea – or even just enforce ones that exist.
But for any of this to work, revoke China’s Most-Favored-Nation trade status and state clearly it’s because of what they’ve done to support Russia in Ukraine.
It has to be a sledgehammer to the head… and this would be.
And break our addiction to the China market and Chinese manufactured goods, drugs, precursor chemicals, rare earths minerals and the like.
We may be ‘tired’ of Ukraine, but nothing good will come of letting it go under – or letting the dictatorships think they’ve come out ahead.
That’s a lesson learned in 1975 in Saigon.