Someone needs to explain the meaning of “no” to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He wants NATO to induct his nation and seems to on a mission to get it.
Ukraine Is Desperate for NATO Membership: It Won’t Ever Happen
“An invitation for Ukraine to join Nato is a necessary thing for our survival,” he said in December.
Last month he offered to yield his office if doing so would win alliance approval. After his clash with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Zelensky declared: “If we cannot be accepted to NATO, we need some clear structure of security guarantees from our allies in the U.S.”
Trump said no. Nor is he alone. President Joe Biden said no. President Barack Obama said no. The only president who advocated bringing Ukraine into NATO was George W. Bush, whose reckless foreign policy caused thousands of American military and hundreds of thousands of foreign civilian deaths in the Middle East and South Asia. The transatlantic alliance’s resulting promise to include Kyiv, made at Bush’s behest at the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit, was an essential factor in Moscow’s decision for war nearly 14 years later.
He understood the risks. Fiona Hill, then an intelligence officer, briefed him and Vice President Richard Cheney “that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action.” William Burns, most recently CIA director but then US ambassador to Moscow, allowed that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). … I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” Putin launched the war, but Bush and other allied officials fueled the conflict.
No Means No
After three years of combat in which Washington has slowly escalated its proxy war-plus against Moscow, Trump should confirm that no means no. The US should, if possible, end the conflict, and if not, exit the battle. He also should begin bringing American forces home from Europe, working with member governments to enable them to take over responsibility for their own defense.
The United States created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 76 years ago. The purpose of NATO was to ensure American security by providing a shield behind which war-ravaged European states could recover, unmolested by the Red Army, then entrenching communist regimes across the continent’s east.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the alliance’s first supreme commander and later US president, emphasized that America’s garrison was temporary: “We cannot be a modern Rome guarding the far frontiers with our legions if for no other reason than that these are not, politically, our frontiers. What we must do is to assist these people [to] regain their confidence and get on their own military feet.” Yet the Europeans saw a sucker and almost eight decades later Washington’s legions remain on station across the Atlantic, with another nation, Ukraine, demanding US protection as well.
Allies are not the military equivalent of Facebook Friends. More is not merrier when it comes to issuing security guarantees. War is not an eleemosynary exercise. The US created NATO to advance American security by preventing the Soviets from dominating Eurasia. Starting with 11 other members, Washington only cautiously expanded the alliance during the Cold War. (Although America’s control was not complete, no one had any doubt as to which government was the essential power.) Greece, Turkey, and Germany were added during the 1950s. Just one, newly democratic Spain, entered in the next four decades.
With the dramatic collapse of Moscow’s Eastern European satellites in 1989, the Warsaw Pact dissolved. Then came the end of the Soviet Union. For a time NATO’s very future was in doubt as the State Department developed alternative missions, “to look at how you transform established institutions, such as NATO, to serve new missions that will fit the new era.” Ideas included the sublimely ridiculous, such as promoting student exchanges, combating the illicit drug trade, and advancing environmental amenities.
The alliance also planned to conduct out-of-area activities, which took NATO far beyond its original role. The allies intervened in the Balkans, substituting new political instabilities for old. Later the US dragged Europe into nation-building in Afghanistan and Europe returned the favor in Libya. Even more consequential was the decision for NATO to take on a political role of stabilizing Eastern Europe, a duty that would have been better handled by the European Union.
NATO F-16. Image Credit: NATO Flickr.
In 1999 post-Cold War NATO enlargement began, as much in response to US domestic political pressures as international factors. Virtually everyone assumed that the military obligation would never be called. For example, the three Baltic nations, added in 2004, were irrelevant to the continent’s defense and geographically indefensible. The alliance didn’t bother to develop a plan to defend them. Washington continued to add foreign welfare dependents, including postage stamp countries like Montenegro and North Macedonia. The Duchy of Grand Fenwick seemed likely to follow.
Unfortunately, though few are prepared to fight for Ukraine, its membership remains formally on the table. It is time for Washington to issue an official no to any kind of US security guarantee. Moscow has demonstrated that it is ready to go to war over Ukraine. Washington should make clear that it is not.
Ukraine Has Their Own Ideas
Of course, it is understandable that Zelensky believes the US should do so. Europeans have long been willing to fight to the last American. For instance, British columnist Simon Tisdall generously offered to sacrifice the lives of US military personnel: “To be effective, European leaders need to put concerted pressure on the US government to provide credible, long-term security guarantees for Ukraine and a backstop for any force that the UK and Europe deploy to monitor the ceasefire. It’s reasonable to expect the US to support a European peace initiative.” Americans have spent the last eight decades defending Europe, so why not eight more, Tisdall appears to believe.
Unfortunately, Ukraine is in a bad neighborhood. For hundreds of years, it has been dominated by Moscow. That is terrible for Ukrainians but irrelevant to Americans. If tragedy was a justification for war, the US would never be at peace. Americans remain safe and secure despite the many conflicts that have scarred Ukraine. There is no reason for Washington to change policy today. Indeed, with Russia a weakened conventional power which relies on nuclear weapons to even the odds, battling Moscow would be even more reckless than spending years fighting in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.
Zelensky, along with a gaggle of European officials, unconvincingly predict further Russian attacks on NATO countries if Moscow prevails in Ukraine. Why, then, does Zelensky want to join NATO if Russia’s attacks would continue unabated against NATO? And why would Putin challenge alliance members, having gone “to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders,” in the words of former NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg. If Putin was a serial aggressor, why did he wait more than a quarter century to act, abstaining when countries on NATO’s eastern flank—the Baltic states, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania—were most vulnerable? In this case, at least, Putin is more believable than Zelensky, having told Tucker Carlson last fall that charges of planned aggression are “just threat mongering.”
Image of Russian Artillery Firing. Image Credit: Russian Federation.
Indeed, the collapse in US-Russian relations was tragically unnecessary. Putin never would be confused with a fun-loving democrat. However, he originally looked westward. He was the first foreign leader to call George W. Bush after 9/11. Two weeks later he gave a conciliatory speech to the German Bundestag. He demonstrated no desire for conflict with Europe or the US. Alas, less than six years later he sounded very different, complaining about “ideological stereotypes, double standards and other typical aspects of Cold War bloc thinking,” the flawed “unipolar” model, and “almost uncontained hyper use of force—military force—in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts.”
Admittedly, ending the ongoing conflict would not be enough to restore prior ties and enable Uncle Sam to play a reverse Nixon, splitting Russia from China, as well as North Korea and Iran. However, after transferring to Ukraine arms that have killed thousands of Russians, any reduction in Moscow’s hostility would be positive and encourage it to loosen ties with Washington’s adversaries. Restoring civil relations might give the US more leverage in dealing with Russia on other issues that matter, such as Iran’s proclivity to develop nuclear weapons, North Korea’s desire to target the US homeland with nuclear-tipped ICBMs, and embryonic Chinese military cooperation. Moreover, profitable ties with Washington would make Moscow even less likely to confront Europe militarily.
NATO Is Never Going to Admit Ukraine
Vladimir Putin was wrong to invade his nation’s neighbor, but many of his allied critics share blame for the horror that befell Ukraine. The latter has no good options. However, it is not Washington’s responsibility to fight a war on Kyiv’s behalf.
President Trump should make clear that the US will not offer a security guarantee to Ukraine, whether in or out of NATO, or to European governments that provide their own troops in support of Kyiv.
About the Author: Doug Bandow
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire.
securocrat
March 6, 2025 at 10:38 am
President trump does not want ukraine to join NATO as dangling the offer of membership was one of the reasons for the outbreak of the bloody conflict.
But trump can’t be president of america forever.
Once democrats take back the US white house, ukraine going into NATO would be as natural as a camel drinking water by the gallons at an oasis.
Meaning that kind of highly fateful turn of event can’t be put off. It’s inevitable.
So now the most important thing to do is for trump to STAY THE COURSE.
Western media, especially out-and-out homophilic outlets like the famous ‘Guardian’ regularly scream and bowl and growl that trump is supporting russia, which is patently false.
Trump MUST ensure that hotheaded european warmongers won’t take advantage of any temporary peace in order to prepare for final all-out war against russia.
To endure exactly that would become guaranteed, trump should consult vladimir putin on the final permanent lines of separation between fascist ukraine and eastern ukraine (donbass).
AND NO BRIT OF FRENCH SOLDIERS TO PATROL THE Divider.
To HELL WITH THEM !!!
Fabrice SEGURA
March 6, 2025 at 10:48 am
Maybe Ukraine is irrelevant to US, but by throwing Ukraine under the bus, Yes, Trump is a russian asset, and MAGA merely means Moscow Agent Governing America.
If the fate of Ukraine doesn’t matter to US, it does to European countries, some sharing a border with Russia. So, very likely Ukraine won’t join NATO because NATO just died in the oval office while humiliating Zelensky on front of all world’s viewers. But it will join some European alliance for which a true peace (and not surrendering) is needed. And since Europe will have to do without the US, maybe, it’s not only Ukraine that will be out of NATO. US will too. This has a lot of consequences, and definitely not in line with US interests…
chrisford1
March 6, 2025 at 1:48 pm
Grow up. Shed your Democrat talking points and boot-licking of dictator Zelensky.
Republicans will gladly allow you to have fun bashing Bush-Cheney for being in thrall to Jewish Neocons.
VIctoria Nuland, MIC lobbyist Cheney, and the Neocon “Project for a New American Century” dominated the witless chimp Bush II’s thinking. Besides the lost wars, we also got the Chimpy tool adding the militarily indefensible yet warthirsty Baltics to NATO, and trying to force the militarily indefensible Georgia and incorrigibly corrupt Ukraine into NATO 4 years later.
Nuland continued her perfidy under Obama with the Maidan Coup she and the CIA ran, then returned to run the Ukraine War disaster under the senile Biden.
All the while, Europe became less and less powerful militarily and in industrial output
Jim
March 6, 2025 at 11:38 am
This is key, Reagan’s doctrine & maxim of “Peace through Strength,” which most Americans support has been hijacked by people who claim to act according to Reagan’s maxim.
Let’s be clear, these people are wolves in sheep’s clothing. The real maxim these warhawks go by is “Strength through War.”
The difference?
Peace through strength stands on military preparedness, but also emphasizes diplomacy, as the first response, and to follow through on diplomacy and only when diplomatic channels are fully explored and exhausted does the United States resort to military action… “as a last resort.”
Strength through war stands on the idea diplomacy is mostly a waste of time and the way to security is through “acts of strength.” War is the principle tool of United States foreign policy with diplomacy as a follow-up process, an afterthought, after military action has been initiated and carried out.
But, remember, since most Americans do support Reagan’s doctrine, these rogue warhawks claim to support Reagan’s doctrine without ever telling people their real ideology which inverts and reverses Reagan’s doctrine.
It’s a perversion of Reagan’s doctrine…
And, look at what this has done to our foreign policy:
A series of failed military ventures, which has sapped our strength, our diplomatic standing, and our own financial health and prosperity.
Reagan’s guiding light was the Peace and Prosperity of America.
These warhawks guiding light is that war leads to victory…
Look at the record, nothing but failure.
Wake up! These warhawks want to be the Pied Piper and lead us right over the proverbial cliff.
They never respected Ronald Reagan’s vision of what the future could bring… they fundamentally disagree, but don’t have the intellectual honesty to say it out loud.
Have you ever heard a political leader talk about “Strength through War,” there’s a reason for that.
Only the warhawks support that… the rest of Americans do not.
Jim
March 6, 2025 at 1:26 pm
Another way to put it: Might Makes Right.
This idea has been with us since the dawn of history.
An old idea.
How has it worked out for the United States in the last quarter century?
Val
March 6, 2025 at 3:29 pm
Perhaps it’s time for Europe to aim to go alone. Military, economic and political alliance sans America. Just send them all home where the can be great again.
Also if future Russia regains political sanity and normalcy after Putin they could in time be added to this new team of nations. Could be interesting in so many ways.
Not sure it is in Europes best interest moving forward to be divided minions to a faltering American empire on a warpath with China. We have other viable options on the table.
The Gambler
March 6, 2025 at 6:32 pm
A truly sovereign, democratic, militarily defensible, and economically viable Ukraine in the EU is achievable without Crimea, part of the Donbas, and NATO.
It is not possible, however, if a whole generation of young Ukrainian men – the future builders and defenders of Ukraine – is destroyed.
Ireland in 1921, Finland in 1939 and 1945, and Cuba in 1962 show the way to a viable and worthwhile compromise here.
Having said that, being Russia’s neighbor means that Ukraine will always have to be vigilant against Russian meddling . . . and armed to the teeth.
And who needs an explicit security guarantee when an implicit understanding from enough EU countries and major US capital investments will suffice?
Green Gobbler
March 6, 2025 at 7:40 pm
If the Kremlin does not want to conquer or dominate all of Ukraine, then why should a defensive security agreement between Ukraine and some militarily-capable EU countries frighten the Kremlin?
No one is talking about putting war-ending strategic offensive weaponry in Ukraine.
What better way to ensure détente between Ukraine and Russia?
Ukraine gets a valuable security guarantee.
The EU gets a large buffer between Russia and the smaller countries of Central Europe.
Russia is assured that Ukraine will not acquire or develop war-ending, offensive strategic weaponry.
David Chang
March 6, 2025 at 10:45 pm
God blesses people in world.
It is not important whether NATO still be, and we should even say that NATO has been dismissed by the EU.
Forget policy disputes, but consider the military. Will Britain, France, Germany, and Poland, with Norway, Sweden, and Finland, attack Russia at the same time?
If staying in Ukraine and having a defensive war, as Poland thought during the Warsaw Pact period, would make Poland or Ukraine to be destroyed.
But if the EU declares war on Russia and Belarus, will occupy Moscow, it shows that they are impatient in the Ukraine civil war, so the EU should consider the battle plan of the Berlin crisis again.
But the saddest is that people in the Taiwan Province of the Republic of China do not think about the reality of Ukraine, do not think about the China Mutual Defense (1954) again, but live in fantasy.
God blesses people in America.
Swamplaw Yankee
March 7, 2025 at 2:37 am
The semantic dancing above reads “However it should be Washington’s responsibility to fight Moscow’s war on the WEST”.
Yep, in this peer review the absence of any mention of kidnapped children as a key policy of the orc muscovite elite is an astounding semantic trick.
Many Yankee inner beltway Aquarium types whine, “but we are just 250 years old” and have the brains of a JK/SK child versus the imperial history of the Orc muscovite empire.
I actually went into old Philadelphia to view the fireworks + 200th “birthday” of America, to sample the real Yankee hoi poloi. 50 years later, what do we have bloating inside the Yank aquarium?
America has fought zero for liberating little girl and boys kidnapped from their families from 2014 by orc muscovite elite. Fact: The USA has never fought in Ukraine post 1946.
It is like Canada and Newfoundland watching the Yelloooo Belliiie, during the very long years from March 1939, 1940 and 1941, cowardly avoid fighting the Bolshevik and Nazi orcs. Yeah, the boys up there in Canuck had to be so very polite not to say the word coward as the fat Yankee guys in string bikinis hung out with their hero amigos south of the Rio Grande. Only when the emperor gave his brave boys the signal to wake the snoring Yankee intelligence system on Dec. 7th, 1941, did the Yankee plan to sit out 2 more years, remain “neutral”, not Yelloooo Belliiee, become interrupted. Bad emperor! real bad!
Today, let’s see one Hollywood movie that shows off the American Cowards of 1939, 1940 and 1941. Oh, only in Hollywood the Yankee scared Hitler so much as to kill himself. Hmmm, not a single Ukrainian man fought against the Bolshevik Soviet and Nazi orcs.
And, the Yankee vets! Are you men? Visit a Canadian legion to speak to hero kids who fought the Taliban out of Kabul/Kandahar with light arms, Lav’s and 1944 era Centurian Tanks: real post-WW2 museum tech. Tell the Canucks that you big hero Yank vets are all in for muscovite elite sexual abuse of Ukrainian POW’s. Did the Vietnamese sexually abuse the Yank as they tortured you?
The Yankee only has to sell for cash a small range of weapons that the Yankee makes. Other than that, the “neutral” Yelloooo Belliiee can freely exhibit their ingrained fear of the very scary redlines that Putins orc show off on or under their string bikinis.
The year 1616 often is referenced. The creator of French Canada spent the winter in Ontario as he personally claimed North America for his French Monarch.
The Ukrainian army finally achieved their policy of stopping the Russian deviants. Yes, the orc muscovite slave sex traders who bi-annually raided Ukraine to butcher and kidnap Ukrainian children for abuse and sale to Muslim trader fleet that awaited them in Crimea. Yes, in 1616 the Ukrainian Sich Cossacks built a small fleet that sailed into the Black Sea to defeat the huge Muslim sex slave trade fleet. The Cossacks defeated the Muslim fleet and then attacked in Crimea the Muslim in Kaffe, an ancient greek state, Italian state fort with huge dungeons for Christians.
Yep, the Cossacks liberated the christian sex slaves from the Muslim buyers and then marched to the northern hideout of the sex trader deviants themselves: Moscow. There the Sich Cossacks showed Putin’s great grand pappy that the ancient Russian appetite for little children was a no-no to the Ukrainian state.
There was no concept of a Washington inner beltway in 1616. But there were orc muscovite elite who kidnapped little children for fun and profit. Just as we see the muscovite elite kidnap in 2025.
The moral + national problem: The above author just has an ingrained inability to first, foremost, mention the release, reparation and compensation of these little children. The author refuses to demand $10, 000, ooo in gold bullion for each Ukrainian child the Putin elite has snatched from ancient Ukrainian soil. Or, does the author think that Putin will not redline his demand to the USA chief magistrate that his clan, the Russian Deviants get their tabletop dancing Ukrainian kiddies for free. Like the USA unilaterally gave them in 2014 ancient Ukrainian soil of Crimea for no-cost, free of charge or reprecussion from the H. Obama Yankee “coniuratio”.
Blab about NATO, NORAD, EU rules and/or membership concepts is the fenced in cognitive area for some authors. The brigade of fellows, academics, military, defence and intelligence hanger-ons show off their love and open admiration of the ancient Russian child slaver clan when they refuse to advocate in print for the immediate release and immediate punishment of the current kidnapping Russian deviants.
Ad rem, these comment vanish momentarily, the evil orc muscovite elite infamy lives for Millenia! Now, can we ignore complete focus on the lesser topic of NATO. -30-
David Chang
March 7, 2025 at 8:03 am
Moreover, Mr. Bandow has a question. Why was Russia a friend of the United States during Woodrow Wilson’s Administration?
Why was the Soviet Union a friend of the Democratic Party and the American Policy scholars in the 1940s?
Why did Russia cooperate with the US Democratic Party in the Bosnia war?
So in the end, the Democrats have to explain the moral principle of foreign policies to people.
And we shall remember,
“Whatever the course, however long the process took, and whatever its outcome, I wanted to see stable, and above all peaceful, change. I believed the key to this would be a politically strong Gorbachev and an effectively working central structure. The outcome depended on what Gorbachev was willing to do. If he hesitated at implementing the new agreement [i.e. the Union of Sovereign States treaty] with the republics, the political disintegration of the Union might speed up and destabilize the country … If he appeared to compromise too much, it might provoke a coup—although there was no serious signs of one. I continued to worry about further violence inside the Soviet Union, and that we might be drawn into conflict.”
If people in Europe wanna war, they should bear the responsibility of the war and confess their sin to God, it’s like more than 10 million people of the Republic of China died in the first half of World War II.
God blesses people in America.
European friends
March 7, 2025 at 3:42 pm
Now, the idea, that Putin doesn’t want agression (outside of Georgia and Ukraine) is blatantly false. When he grew up in the USSR, the ideology was one of defeating the west. And he has carried it (sometimes hiding it) all his life. An old KGB vet to the end.
Now, if the US feels like it should not mingle in european things, that’s up to them. But, with that comes giving up the leadership position. The trade between US and europe benefits the US greatly, so giving up this position will, in the long run, mean the US citizen will no longer live in the luxury it has afforded up to now.
For europeans democracy and independence from tyranny means a lot. I guess quite a few have living memories from the USSR or occupied Poland etc. and realise why the Ukrainians are fighting. And today the europeans already are planning to deal without the US in the picture.
Most likely NATO will split, with the US leaving. And France will take on main nuke and airforce duty, Germany armour, UK navy. And Ukraine will be liberated through european action.
The US will be left alone to deal with China, as the europeans are much too far from that ordeal, and given the US unreliability in regards to defending democracy when it really counts, most europeans already today don’t think helping America again like post 9/11 is going to be reasonable.
Given huge corporations like google, facebook, amazon etc. have about 50-75% of their clients in the EU, this isolationism is going to be interesting to see. And something where the EU has a lot to gain by going domestic, and the US a lot to lose.
What’s especially funny, is the fact, that russia is at the end of their capabilities, they are already stalling pension payments, due to lack of funds. Ukraine has spent the russians military capability to the point, where the EU just has to arm Ukraine and can be quite calm in preparing for a post-US military alliance. While the US having to face China alone will be a much more interesting future.
As an European, I’m actually glad the US is pulling out of Europe, while we have gained Swedish navy and Finnish army to pledge wider European armed allegiance. It will mean more manufacturing and jobs for Europeans. And we won’t have to worry about china.
But, in a way it is ideologically sad, the one nation that lead the way, “fighting for democracy and peoples liberty” has given up. At least France can take over that part, their “Libere, Egalite, Fraternite” slogan is pretty cool.
But, this whole spiel of an peaceful putin and NATO somehow being to blame for the war is bs. I live in an post-soviet occupied nation and visited russia quite a few times pre-war. Their mentality is totally different, and 99% of americans don’t understand it. But I can assure you, the regular russian, from old granny, up to generals, all want to comquer more land, and destroy the western world. And that includes america, they are great at backstabbing, so even if they play buddies with america in the near future, their real plans are to destroy the US. There’s a reason all russia bordering nations have conscription military service. And russia sees america as the big prize. That won’t change in the next 100yrs.
All I can say is “have fun!” to the US.
Ollie Ramsey
March 7, 2025 at 8:27 pm
A good security guarantee will deter Russia without provoking it.
So how about a solid security guarantee combined with reasonable and verifiable arms control measures?
Of course, the Kremlin will call any useful guarantee provocative whether it is or isn’t.
That’s because the Kremlin first wants to isolate Ukraine from all outside help. Then the Kremlin wants to be able to coerce Ukraine to obey its commands or bribe select Ukrainians to obey them or, failing that, tear off additional chunks of Ukraine.
The best thing about a good security guarantee for Ukraine is Russia will never want to test it and Ukraine and its friends will never need to use it.
Dave Nelson
March 7, 2025 at 10:26 pm
Wrong answer Mr. Bandow.
Ukraine belongs in NATO precisely because it is not already there. NATO poses no threat whatsoever to Russia so long as Russia minds its own business, but it doesn’t, and therein is the real problem as well as the real reason why NATO exists.
David Chang
March 8, 2025 at 7:19 am
God blesses people in world.
Everyone in Europe should confess sin to God, obey Ten Commandments, should oppose socialism and evolution and liberation theology. Because from 1789, World War I, to the present day, the war policy, evolution of Charles Darwin and socialism of Karl Marx are from Europe, and of Democrat, Communist, Nazi.
People in Europe should be humble to God and take responsibility of the socialism war, should avoid expanding the civil wars in China and Korea.
The US President Trump’s foreign policy is against Monroe, Wilson, the Roosevelt family, Nixon, Kennedy and Democratic-Republican party. He hopes that the United States will continue General Washington’s policy.
However, Mr. Trump has taken on the sin of Democratic-Republican Party and the policy announced by Nixon in 1969. Therefore, it is impossible for President Trump to avoid the nuclear war with socialism countries, but this is also caused by the sin of the people in Europe and Asia.
As Nixon says,
“Asians will say in every country that we visit that they do not want be dictated to from outside, Asia for Asians. And that is what we want, and that is the role we should play. We should assist but we should not dictate.”
At this time the political and economic plans that they are developing are very hopeful. We will give assistance to those plans. We, of course, will keep the treaty commitments that we have.
But as far as our role is concerned, we must avoid the kind of policy that will make countries in Asia so dependent upon us that we are dragged into conflicts such as the one we have in Vietnam.”
As George H. W. Bush says,
“Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.”
So people in Ukraine and China should obey Ten Commandments, should confess sin, should oppose socialism and evolution and liberation theology.
God blesses people in America.
Doorman
March 8, 2025 at 11:02 am
Russia wants to dominate Belarus and Ukraine not because it fears attack from NATO.
We all know how things turned out for Napoleon and Hitler. . . and that was before Russia had nuclear-tipped ICBMs.
Therefore, no one is threatening Russia with anything but angry letters to be more democratic.
Russia wants to dominate these two countries so that it can project force into the heart of Europe and, thus, meddle freely in European affairs.
It has been successful in reducing Belarus to servility. Ukrainians have shown themselves to be more resistant.
Don’t underestimate how much mischief Russian meddling causes in the smaller countries of Eastern and Central Europe (see Moldova, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Balkans, etc).
A strong and truly independent Ukrainian buffer state is good for NATO and the EU. It is especially good for the countries just west of Ukraine.
The imperialists in the Kremlin see and fear losing this power.
They don’t fear for the security of the Russian people.
They fear an end to their imperial dream of Russia as a European power.
Aw Shucks
March 8, 2025 at 11:28 am
If Europeans step up big for Ukraine and themselves, then things will look better for Ukraine and worse for Russia.
If both things happen, I see more Americans being willing to re-open the checkbook for scrappy Ukraine.
David Chang
March 8, 2025 at 11:42 am
Go blesses people in world.
The Democrats describe Putin, who practices socialism, as the Russian Empire, is the same as Zelensky says Putin is fascist, that proves that the Democrats and Zelensky are also communists.
Judging from the poverty and risk of the US military, the Democratic Party of the United States is not only Nazi, but also Communist, so the Democratic Party continues to cooperate with the Russia socialism Party, Putin, and promote the socialism war to destroy the economy of countries in world.
In East Asia, the Red Sea War is caused by the Democratic Party’s opposition to the Abraham Accords, so the Red Sea war is the cause of higher prices in Japan and the Republic of China.
In Africa. The Democratic Party provoked Russia’s socialism policies and caused the Ukraine civil war, it’s the cause of insufficient food supply in Europe. Africa has become socialism Africa, so the US military’s Africa Command is like the fire support base in the Vietnam civil War.
The Democratic Party is an ally of the Communist Party since the 20th century, so Roosevelt and Truman helped Mao Zedong occupy mainland China, let China civil war expanded to the Civil War in Korea and Vietnam.
God blesses people in America.
Swamplaw Yankee
March 8, 2025 at 1:01 pm
The rare visit from a European to this site brings perspective. European Friends @ 3:42 is a great read from someone living always right beside orc muscovites. From European we read” Their orc mentality is different and 99% of Americans don’t understand it”. I agree with that.
Muscovites “all want to conquer more land”.
European states his observations are true from orc Grannies to orc generals.
So, re-read this very rare posting as it is full of fact that is totally absent from those living inside the continental USA. Remember that all of our comments vanish very quickly. Only the original Danster article remains longer.
Ed rem: Ukrainians know the orc muscovite elite + the slave sex trader Russian peasant mentality for thousands of years. The very recent Yankee, of hardly a 250 year span, lives in a luxury fantasy world. Particularly those fellows, academics, defence, military and intelligence hacks who post for and from the inner beltway aquarium!
VICTORY for the WEST is VICTORY 100% for Ukraine. Otherwise, do you believe a guy like European or the types like the author? The games afoot! -30-
R. Nott
March 8, 2025 at 2:38 pm
There are SO many errors and flaws of reasoning on display here!
NO, the US did NOT “create NATO”. It began as a Franco-British alliance and the charter was written by a Canadian. It’s based in Belgium. Don’t you think that if NATO were an American creation, it would be based in the US, like the UN is?
Obama and Biden had said “no” to Ukraine’s entry to NATO for the simple reason that they did not yet qualify with NATO’s requirements for anti-corruption, human rights, etc., and NOT for any philosophical or geopolitical reasons. Every membership qualification can be satisfied with Ukraine’s movement — already underway — towards meeting those requirements.
Russia’s claims that Ukraine should not join because they are “on Russia’s doorstep” are utter nonsense. Poland joined in 1999 and Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania all joined in 2004. ALL FOUR share land borders with Russia. The Kremlin’s response to NATO now being on their western “doorstep”? A yawn. In 2000 Putin explicitly said that if Ukraine wanted to join NATO, it was up to them. Hell, in 2000 Putin *himself* expressed an interest in joining NATO to Bill Clinton, but he didn’t think that Russia should have to go through the MAP process “like countries that don’t matter” had to.
Anyone who claims that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “a proxy war-plus” has been drinking at the trough of Russian propaganda and can’t be taken seriously. Russia’s unprovoked invasion is no more a “proxy war” than Germany’s invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 was.
The author claims “Europeans have long been willing to fight to the last American.” The reality is *the opposite*, as Starmer, Macron and other European nation leaders have explicitly suggested that they are weighing sending their own militaries to provide peacekeeping in Ukraine. No one has seriously suggested that the US should send ground troops to Ukraine.
The rhetorics of appeasement are on full display here. Why did we bother to arm the UK and Russia against Nazi Germany in 1940-’41? Russia was hardly our ally, being communists. Surely they could’ve just dealt with it themselves; no need to trouble ourselves with a war a continent away, right? Chamberlain’s call for “peace in our time” clearly still resonates with Mr. Bandow.
The next president (almost certainly a Democrat) should and probably will, see the value in constraining Russia’s bellicose expansionist ambitions, and will welcome Ukraine into NATO as a valuable partner. Georgia should as well. I would welcome Kazakhstan and Mongolia, furthering the bulwark against the world’s most problematic empire.
The Voice of Reason
March 8, 2025 at 11:47 pm
This is a great article.
Despite all the furious USAID Ukraine boosters here, it is dead on right.
The fact that Europe is and will collectively shrug the “Russian threat” as US dollars stop flowing is proof positive this was all a giant grift.
Just like Iraq and Afghanistan, whose only meaningful change after the “defeat of the West” was an end to many USAID programs (the horror!) and a reduction in opium production.
David Chang
March 9, 2025 at 3:50 am
Mr. Nott and Democrats and other people in Europe are wrong.
As democracy promoted by Gorbachev and the liberation theology implied by Putin in his war declaration are neither imperialism nor fascism invented by the Communists. They are atheists as the same as Democrat, Communist, German SPD, and, Nazi.
Signing of the NATO Treaty
“NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. After the destruction of the Second World War, the nations of Europe struggled to rebuild their economies and ensure their security. The former required a massive influx of aid to help the war-torn landscapes re-establish industries and produce food, and the latter required assurances against a resurgent Germany or incursions from the Soviet Union. The United States viewed an economically strong, rearmed, and integrated Europe as vital to the prevention of communist expansion across the continent. As a result, Secretary of State George Marshall proposed a program of large-scale economic aid to Europe. The resulting European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan, not only facilitated European economic integration but promoted the idea of shared interests and cooperation between the United States and Europe. Soviet refusal either to participate in the Marshall Plan or to allow its satellite states in Eastern Europe to accept the economic assistance helped to reinforce the growing division between east and west in Europe.
In May of 1948, Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenburg proposed a resolution suggesting that the President seek a security treaty with Western Europe that would adhere to the United Nations charter but exist outside of the Security Council where the Soviet Union held veto power. The Vandenburg Resolution passed, and negotiations began for the North Atlantic Treaty.”
As Lord Robertson of Port Ellen says,
“I am also pleased to be here because I believe that we too often forget a fundamental truth: that security and economics are linked. One cannot flourish without the other.
NATO has acted in accordance with this logic since its foundation, half a century ago. Indeed, from the very beginning in the late 1940s, the project of building Europe was a twin project: on the one hand, to encourage political and economic integration; on the other, to provide security. And the first concrete manifestations of that logic were the Marshall Plan and NATO.
In 1948, George Marshall’s five billion dollar “European Recovery Program” — the Marshall Plan — was enacted. The aim of the programme was simple — to provide seed money for the reconstruction of a Europe shattered economically by the Second World War. But there was a wider political goal as well. As General Marshall put it, the plan’s purpose was to revive Europe’s economy “so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”
However, history scholars don’t talk about two basic reasons why the voters of the Republican Party in the United States are suspicious of NATO. The first is religious reasons. General Patton and General MacArthur opposes the cooperation of the Democratic Party and the Soviet Union in the first half of World War II. Also, in the Korea Civil War, General Eisenhower opposes Britain’s policy of hostility towards the Republic of China and prevents the China Communist Party from helping the Korea Communist Party occupy Korea. Therefore, Eisenhower signed the China Mutual Defense Agreement (1954) on behalf of the United States with the Republic of China.
As General Marshall’s thought of defending Europe and preventing civil war in China. He opposes the socialism war that started with Communist Manifesto. However, right economy policy and Constitution are the basic conditions of defensive war. So the war policy of Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton and MacArthur is not a war against empire as atheists say, but a war against atheist parties.
Therefore, the United States’ defense policy in Europe and Asia should be one that obeys Ten Commandments and Augustine’s just war theory, rather than one that worships democracy. This is the justice stipulated in Article 1 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Only God is justice.
Because the people obeyed the Ten Commandments, the country prospered and the army had enough budget to train soldiers and manufacture weapons. This is the moral policy that the people in Europe should abide by, and it is also the policy of the North Atlantic Treaty and the China Civil War that the United States should uphold.
No money, no weapons. No people, no soldiers. So Ten Commandments are the right of education and economy policy.
God blesses people in America.
David Chang
March 9, 2025 at 5:17 am
When the Republicans and Democrats joined to oppose Mr. Colby’s military thought, the Democratic-Republican party should repent to God, because this is the hope of people who trust God.
Because there are shortcomings in SDI, it need much of the defense budget, the USA Senate should think about the policies of defense war and monetary.
The policy of defense war should be one America under God, one China under God, one Russia under God, one Ukraine under God, one Europe under God, one Africa under God, and one world under God.
Semper Kyrie fidelis