On the conservative side of the fence we have a large number of people convinced that support for Ukraine is linked to rescuing globalism from its death spiral.
They have a point. I just think they’re wrong.
On the pro side, NATO’s sudden revitalization does strengthen the globalist position. Ukraine really does have corruption problems internally. Putin had garnered a reputation for being a force for the so-called civilization state. Europe is tossing everything but the kitchen sink at Russia.
On the con side, NATO is being pushed, not pulled, and if anything, it’s revitalization strengthens nationalism even more. Ukraine isn’t as bad as Russia. Putin is an imperialist and mostly pro-Putin. Europe is tossing everything but the kitchen sink at Russia.
Some commentators, notably Peter Zeihan, have observed that globalism is an American invention. There’s truth to that view. I don’t think it’s a complete picture, however. We might have laid this particular egg but every hen in the henhouse has tried to dress it up. Whatever they were trying for at the end of WWII, it probably wasn’t the monster they got.
Politically. Globalism comes in multiple flavors like everything in politics. The scary one is the pathway to one world government flavor. This is the one that nationalists and populists do NOT like and rightfully so. We humans can barely govern individual nations. We’re not ready to govern the planet even if it were a good idea which it isn’t.
But globalism also comes in a couple economic flavors. World trade really has been a net good for the world. It hasn’t been handled the best in the world – this is why we really shouldn’t have just one world government – but it has done a lot of good all over the world.
It works like this: The US provides security so that any nation-state can trade with any other without fear that more powerful nation-states will steal their stuff. Chile can send boatloads of whatever to whichever country wants to buy their knickknacks. So some Dutch kid can buy a straw hat made in Nigeria courtesy of the US Navy.
This is a good deal for the US. Poor desperate countries create all sorts of havoc. Germany no longer needs a navy to trade worldwide which keeps them from accidently setting off their paranoid and not so paranoid neighbors. The Middle East doesn’t become a flaming bloodbath because they can sell oil anywhere to anyone and buy off their sand farmers with the proceeds.
Poor countries become less poor. Resource limited countries become less insecure. Europe settles down and stops killing hundreds of millions of people every twenty years. Win-win-win.
The US doesn’t have to sort out the big fights anymore – that’s what we get out of it. And being the world’s reserve currency is a major perk. We can buy those Nigerian hats, too – just don’t buy them from Nigerian princes – and a huge number of other products inexpensively.
That’s where the downside comes in. A lot of those cheap goods came at the expense of American jobs. Globalism certainly facilitated this but I suspect corporate greed more than American trade security caused that problem. Still, don’t overlook it because this is a MAJOR source of discontent.
It’s a lie to say there’s an easy answer. Just taking our ball and going home has consequences that we cannot handle. No one wants to be the America that let people starve because we didn’t want to play world policeman anymore. Just trying to keep things as they are also has untenable consequences because this system hurts the little guys in well to do countries and that has to stop, too.
So, at least we can stop supporting Ukraine, right? Not so fast, Kemo Sabe. The Ukraine War happened in part because Russia (and China as well) does not like the current world system but that’s not because Russia is anti-globalist – it’s because Russia is still very much imperialist. Russia is all for a one world government as long as it gets to be that government.
Globalists in Europe are mostly in Western Europe. Western Europe isn’t completely stupid (although we do wonder about them sometimes). If Russia takes Ukraine, does it stop? History says that’s a big fat no. Even if history is wrong this time, Eastern Europe isn’t going to hang around to find out. If Russia even looks like it might challenge NATO, those folks are heading west in the tens of millions.
The US is used to ridiculous numbers of illegal immigrants and yet we couldn’t handle that influx that fast. Western Europe would be devastated long before they could close their borders. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an existential crisis for Europe. That’s why NATO is hanging together so well. It simply has no choice.
A lot of my conservative friends are worried – and rightly so – that this will pull the US into a direct conflict with Russia. That is a valid concern but its probability is fairly low right now. That probability goes up, not down, if we stop support to Ukraine. If we pull out, Western Europe will have to fill the gap and they will be much more likely to fill that gap with their own militaries if things take a turn for the worst.
Wars have a way of taking a turn for the worst, especially if one of the combatants can’t get weapons. Disarming Ukraine doesn’t stop the risk of war spreading in this case. Russia is a take a mile sort of nation. It would not be at all difficult to unintentionally escalate this conflict into a European war if the US isn’t there to keep the war where it is.
And guess who gets to clean up that mess? It ain’t the globalists.
Whether this is a mess of our own making or evil globalists are trying to take over the world, it is NOT in the US’ best interest to let Russia take Ukraine, not even in part. We aren’t really the world’s policeman as much as we are the world’s Boy Scout. It’s in our nature. It’s in our blood.
And crazy world wars always end up at our doorstep anyway. Better to keep things under control as much as possible than to go home and wait for the wars to come to us.
Or worse, tear stained little faces wanting to know why we let them down.
