TAP FOR SOUNDHouse Republicans passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on July 14, after a debate that highlighted military priorities versus cultural issues. Images: Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly
Editor’s note: In this Future View, students discuss the war in Ukraine. Next we’ll ask: “After the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s $430 billion student-loan cancellation, the Biden administration is still trying to cancel debt. The Education Department canceled $39 billion in student-loan debt in July for 800,000 borrowers. Is the president overstepping? Should the government cancel student loans?” Students should click here to submit opinions of fewer than 250 words before Aug. 1. The best responses will be published that night.
Vladimir Putin Needs to Go
The war in Ukraine is part of Vladimir Putin’s political immortality project. As a former KGB agent, Mr. Putin is motivated by the prospect of restoring Russia to what he believes is its former Soviet glory.
This would explain Mr. Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and his 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the former of which gave Russia a warm-water port. Mr. Putin wants to provoke the West by expanding Russia’s territory and consolidating power—all under the guise of demilitarizing Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine ends when Mr. Putin loses his power. After he’s gone maybe Russia will become a democratic nation if sanctions and antiwar protests amount to anything consequential. Or maybe an equally corrupt autocrat will replace Mr. Putin and retain the current political system. If Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Wagner Group, had succeeded in his mutiny, we would likely have seen an end to the war but a continuation of the oligarchy.
Regardless, Mr. Putin’s foundation is cracking as Russian citizens and political figures declare their opposition to the Putin regime. The West needs to take advantage of that by continuing to support Ukraine on the global stage.
—Rafael Arbex-Murut, University of California, Berkeley, information and data science
It’s Up to Ukraine
Ukraine’s defense of its territory is righteous. The Ukrainian people deserve praise for their valor and love of country. But that doesn’t make Ukrainian victory and Russian defeat a vital U.S. interest. The U.S. needs to re-examine its policies surrounding Ukraine, particularly its commitment to aid and expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The Council on Foreign Relations has reported that total U.S. aid to Ukraine has surpassed $76 billion—more than double what the European Union has provided to the same cause and more than five times what the U.S. spent in recent years on the next six aid recipients. Though still dwarfed by entitlements, spending at this scale won’t receive Congress’s blessing forever.
President Biden displayed geopolitical ignorance when he committed recently to one day welcoming Ukraine into NATO. Russia now has an incentive to prolong the conflict indefinitely. Why would it end the war when Uncle Sam has pledged to keep Ukraine out of the trans-Atlantic alliance while the clash persists?
A weakened Russia would lead to a safer world, but this goal can be achieved through aggressive sanctions and increased weapons production for Ukraine purchases. Through foreign military financing, the U.S. could offer Ukraine loans to purchase weapons, which it could eventually pay for using Russian assets frozen by the U.S. and EU.
Only Ukraine can decide if it wants to end the war in settlement or victory. Retaking Crimea is certainly a possibility, but Ukraine will need to decide if doing so is worth the price.
—William Rampe, Hamilton College, government
Think of America’s Image
The U.S. plays a crucial role in Russia’s war on Ukraine. On the ground, the safety of Ukrainian civilians is predicated on U.S. aid. Our advanced air- and ground-defense systems have protected countless women and children who would otherwise be ruthlessly shelled by Russian artillery.
On the geopolitical level, any settlement that doesn’t return Crimea to Ukraine looks bad for the U.S. President Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, during which countless allies were left behind, made the U.S. appear weak on the world stage. Foreign adversaries, particularly China, are now looking to Ukraine as a litmus test of U.S. strength abroad. Let them see a country that is resolved in its mission to preserve liberty and protect its allies.
—Stephen Tahbaz, University of Pennsylvania, politics, philosophy and economics
Give It Time
The failures of Russia’s campaign have devolved the Russian military into an irreconcilable mess of private armies and opened fissures between Russian soldiers and their political masters. Wagner’s abortive coup last month was only the most recent example of this degeneration. It will not be the last.
Mr. Putin previously relied on deception, economic warfare and limited application of military force to achieve his goals abroad, but this strategy has reached its limit. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization shows no signs of decreasing its support to Ukraine, and Europe has almost completely broken its dependency on Russian energy imports in favor of non-Russian liquefied natural gas imports. Russia has essentially become a pariah state, as seen recently in the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Mr. Putin.
Even as Ukraine faces setbacks in its counteroffensive, time is still on its side. While a dramatic breakthrough is highly desirable, Ukraine can also win by slowly pushing Russia’s weakened and demoralized forces all the way back to its proper 1991 borders.
—Eli Kravinsky, Haverford College, political science
The Forever War
The war in Ukraine will never be over. The fighting may cease, and diplomatic resolutions may be reached, but an economic war will persist. Drones, satellites, trade restrictions and economic sanctions are the modern weapons of war. Russia may park its tanks, but the status of war in Eastern Europe is ongoing as long as they jockey for financial hegemony through hostile means.
The U.S. may not be in active combat over Ukraine, but through lending and leasing war supplies, we too are fighting. Foreign aid will always be available to Ukraine, even when the time for sending physical instruments of war has passed. The fight for liberty and justice will never be over, and it would be foolish to proclaim it so. Still, when the conflict starts costing dollars instead of lives, we should take care to celebrate.
—Sam Walhout, Brown University, economics
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