Too proud to fight?
Bringing people together to resolve conflicts without war is not weakness - it is strength. pic.twitter.com/BkZh4z3Mc6
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 10, 2022
I've never liked this argument. Partly it's because I dislike the whole framing of war as weak or strong, but mostly it's because this is such an unconvincing bit of sophistry. I mean, does anyone really believe that refusing to fight shows resolve and strength?
I don't mean this as anything against Bernie. He's just parroting a common liberal refrain here. But regardless of whether it's true or not, I really don't think anyone buys it. Why not simply frame it in terms of national interest instead?
I confess I'm lost trying to understand what American liberals think ought to be done about Ukraine. After a day arguing with increasingly agitated commenters at 'Lawyers Guns & Money', the best summary I can give of their position is this:
- Russia and Putin are entirely in the wrong.
- Ukraine has every right to join NATO if it wants.
The flaws in this position ought to be obvious. Or rather, the massive issues that it fails to address. It's an academic abstraction which offers zero practical ideas for solving the actually existing crisis in Ukraine. To my repeated suggestions that Bush/Cheney were wrong to insist that NATO promise membership to Ukraine back in 2008, and America ought to say so, the response was as above. Which is not remotely relevant to stopping the fucking war!
The overwhelming impression from some supposed liberals is that clinging to a morally virtuous position is more important than devising a workable strategy for avoiding the dreadful risk of a conflict in eastern Europe.