I continue to be amazed and disappointed at the hostility and/or ambivalence to our friends, and openness to our enemies by politicians. The Biden Administration continues to romance the Iranians, who are the worst global actor there is, seemingly willing to do anything for a deal. For years, American presidents have been suckered by Vladimir Putin and the Russians, from George W. Bush (I looked into his soul), to Barack Obama (Wait till after the election and I’ll have more flexibility), to Donald Trump (Putin is a genius and savvy for invading Ukraine). Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a reset with Russia, although later she realized that Putin had played the U.S. and she adjusted. One of the most widely hated Republicans by the base these days is Mitt Romney, who in his debate with President Obama in 2012 called Russia our greatest geopolitical threat, to be ridiculed by Mr. Obama:

“When you were asked, ‘What’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America,’ you said ‘Russia.’ Not al Qaeda; you said Russia,” Obama said. “And, the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

Republicans and Democrats alike welcomed the Chinese for over twenty years, and yet now are equally trying to be the toughest on China. Mr. Trump cited national security threats as a reason to start a trade war with Canada and Germany, as if our two allies are especially problematic. What’s the point of this? Our politicians, left and right, routinely misidentify who our friends and foes are for domestic political purposes, or ideological predilection.

Let me make it easy for the politicians. Here is who our enemies are: the countries that explicitly say they hate us. When they whip up frenzied protestors calling for death to America, that we’re the great Satan (Iran), and they are the leading sponsors of state terrorism in the world, then they are our enemy. When they threaten to destroy Los Angeles with a nuclear bomb if we support Taiwan, when they build up man-made islands in international waters and then claim we’re not allowed to sail through them, and when they send poison to the narco-terrorists to poison our people (China), then they are our enemy. When they defy international non-proliferation rules to develop a nuclear weapon, then regularly threaten the U.S. with a nuclear attack, when they daily engage in massive cyberattacks against the U.S. (North Korea), they are our enemy. And when their leader openly seethes against the U.S., wanting to bring back the Soviet Union, and sends troops around the world against our interests, who hosts the world’s largest cybercriminals who daily attack U.S. citizens and businesses, and whose main foreign policy is to prop up authoritarian dictators around the world (e.g., Syria and Venezuela), using the Wagner group to kill tens of thousands worldwide (Russia), they are our enemy.

So who are our friends? Our friends are those who are relatively ok to us, that whatever warts they have internally, they are not hostile toward our interests. That doesn’t mean we really like them. Many of us are glad we have fences between our neighbor’s house and ours. Of course this is a matter of degree. We’re friends with both Israel and Saudi Arabia (prior to Mr. Biden’s outburst), and yet our relationship with Saudi Arabia is….complicated. BTW for you Saudi haters, are you aware of the dramatic liberalization (especially for women) that is underway right now in Saudi Arabia? Yes, there is a looooong way to go–it is complicated. But when we are criticizing other countries over moral issues (corruption, violence), let’s remember that we have the current president of this country–at minimum–aware of and not stopping his immediate family members from profiting off their potential ability to sway Joe Biden. And we have thousands of children being abused by pumping them full of hormones, and in some cases, removing healthy body parts for an ideological agenda. And we are still killing ~1M children a year through abortion. So the U.S.A. is a bit messed up too.

Which, yes, brings me back to Ukraine. Yes you can probably find some reasons to be upset with Ukraine. For me, I’m troubled that they were/are the world’s leaders in surrogate mothering (mostly for LGBTQ+ parents). I’m not too fond of that, as the data are and always have been compelling that the best situation for any child is to be in a two-parent family with a mother and a father if possible, consistent with what we expect from a biblical worldview. Nevertheless, Ukraine wasn’t attacking anybody, and certainly was not our enemy. So in the world of international politics, we would have to call them one of our friends (or if you have no convictions, we were neutral toward them). What Russia has done to Ukraine is beyond barbarism, and there is a reason Mr. Putin may not now travel abroad. Ohio’s own JD Vance says the U.S. is now in a quagmire in Ukraine. So let’s think about it–a quagmire is something you can’t get out of. Our traditional version of a quagmire is when we had troops involved in the conflict. But in this case, in Mr. Vance’s mind, we are in a quagmire because the war doesn’t seem to have an end and we’ll have to continually fund them. So his solution is that we should stop funding Ukraine. If that is the solution to his perceived quagmire, then by definition it is not a quagmire because we can stop funding Ukraine tomorrow, a year from now or five years from now. We won’t be left holding the bag whenever we stop funding (which will not be forever, and despite the rhetoric, no one has ever asked for a blank check). But yes, Mr. Vance, you’re right. Ukraine is a quagmire–one country has gotten themselves into a mess that will be very hard to extricate. One country has lost massive amount of lives, shredding their country’s reputation globally, and is slowly losing even more capability. This quagmire has already resulted in an attempted coup on the regime due to the quagmire of this war. One country has had over one million men flee the country to avoid being cannon fodder for a crazed regime. One country has seen their geopolitical goal of dividing the west and making NATO impotent destroyed, with new, capable members that were formerly neutral now firmly arming up and pledging to combat that country together should that country attack. Yes, Ukraine is a quagmire, for Russia. And that leads us to the U.S.’s strategic objective in Ukraine.

For Mr. Vance and others*, one of the central criticisms of our policy is that there is no stated end game or strategy. And I would agree that Mr. Biden is not a particularly effective communicator; indeed his rhetoric both before and after the war started has been…..unhelpful. Nevertheless, for the end of the conflict, it is impossible for us to say–war is politics by other means, and war continues until one of the belligerents is willing to cede their position. I think it’s pretty clear that Ukraine is in this for the long haul–it’s their country and they have shown they are willing to fight and die for it. And Mr. Putin has now invested so much in Ukraine, that I don’t believe he can survive a cessation of hostilities without something to point to as victory. So this battle will rage on. I’ve suggested repeatedly on BATG that the solution is to give Ukraine the military resources to win, and not just to extract maximum pain from Russia. But Mr. Biden is trapped in his inability to lead, and his fear of escalation. So given all this, what is the U.S.’s strategy? To make this quagmire for Russia as painful as possible, so that whatever the endgame is–which we do not get to decide, since we’re not one of the combatants–, neither Russia nor China (nor any other autocrat) will want to embark on such a monstrosity again. Our goal is for Ukraine to take out as much Russian military capability as possible so they are less of a threat for a longer period of time in the future. To achieve this strategic objective, we must both equip them with the military resources they need, and do so for the period of the conflict. Anything less and we risk leaving our enemies stronger. But if we do this well, we leave both Russia (especially) and China weaker.

* I may comment on Mr. DeSantis’s debate remarks in the future, but not today.