Charlie Rose chatted up Bibi and GS, consecutively, in early 1994. I re-watched the back-to-back interviews yesterday and laughed, remembering their brief meeting in the Green Room before going on air. At the time, I was coptering over Chara and eating reindeer hearts. Francis A later filled me about that revealing conversation, which has has everything to do with alright, back to square one, fallibility, or whatever you want to call it.
Almost 30 years later, on a cold Sunday in Kyiv, heart of democracy, we are still at war and re-contemplating the reasons for the calamity. I enjoyed this essay.
Apropos of this, a thread on Twitter, which I (liberally redacted below and) often regurgitate to my progeny.
Explain to me a single material benefit the average American making $60,000 a year gets from supporting Ukraine?
The short answer: Team USA wrote the rules of the international system after WWII in ways that benefit us, including the average American. Consequently, defending the system is good for John Doe taxpayer,
The longer answer is that history is built on lessons — learned in 1917 and again in 1941 and 1991 — teaching us that when the United States decides to be isolationist and disengage and let the other major powers do what they want, we get dragged in later, at greater cost.
Its not an accident that 'why do we really need the international system?' has emerged as a strain in US politics, because the last generation that remembers WWII has, for the most part, are turning in their graves. We built that system because WWII sucked. Big time.
There are also moral reasons to defend Ukraine: it is a poorly governed, freedom-loving country unjustly attacked in a naked war of conquest by a strong, authoritarian, fascistic nuclear power bent on committing genocide. Helping Ukraine is the right thing — and the smart thing — to do.
When it comes to Israel, both the moral and strategic cases are more complicated and it is not, in fact, clear that it is either morally correct or in Team USA’s interest to back the country as we did in the past.
As for the moral case, Hamas is a jihadist movement. Its leaders are barbarian killers. The flip side is Israel has been a awful steward of the peace process for, er, 30 years,, thanks in large measure to Bibi. In the strategic case, it's not clear Israel’s political leaders are committed to defending the rules-based order. West Bank settlements are illegal.
Ukraine clearly is the front line of an effort to upend the US-led world order. The reintroduction of wars of conquest would, by causing large-scale global economic disruption, make John Doe taxpayer, much poorer.
Maintaining the rules-based international order is, in the long run, very good for the average American. The alternative is awful. The problem is Team USA haphazardly re-writing the rules for its own benefit. Compared to what supporting the the unredacted order has demanded in the past, the cost of supporting Ukraine is remarkably small considering the geopolitical upside. It’s an opportunity to protect something that benefits humankind, cheaply.