If the Russian invasion of Ukraine is even the slightest bit comparable to some of the dilemmas the United States faced during the Cold War, the path forward is going to get more difficult.
Matt Bai, a columnist for The Washington Post, says that while America and its NATO allies have been remarkably unified against Vladimir Putin since he sent troops into Ukraine three weeks ago, the history of the Cold War indicates this won’t last for long.
Different goals already are showing. Ukraine’s president wants a no-fly zone over the country to keep Russian jets out. He also wants the West to give him some leftover Russian-made fighter jets. President Biden, however, has made the right decision not to approve either request, as doing so would put America closer to a direct confrontation with a nuclear power.
Bai noted correctly that the United States, compared to Ukraine, “has a different bottom line, as it did throughout the 40-year Cold War: to avoid a shooting war with a country that keeps nuclear missiles aimed at U.S. cities.”
It’s a good point. The Ukraine people’s defense of their country against overwhelming odds has been admirable. Ukraine is receiving arms from Western nations that have stopped many enemy advances. And Western economic sanctions have hit the Russian economy hard, making its currency virtually worthless.
Ultimately, though, if Putin is determined to keep his army in Ukraine until he gets control of some or all of the country, there may not be much more the U.S. and NATO can do about it unless they want the sort of battle that thankfully never occurred during the Cold War.
American presidents from Harry Truman to George H.W. Bush faced similar decisions from 1945 to 1990, and many had to make compromises in pursuit of a larger goal.
Truman and Franklin Delano Roosevelt before him wanted Russia’s help to defeat Japan. To get it, they had to give Josef Stalin control of Eastern Europe, and the Iron Curtain was born.
“For decades afterward, American presidents enabled repressive regimes — Chile, South Africa, Iran and so on — all in the cause of containing Communism,” Bai wrote. “We abided assassinations and undercut democracies when we thought we had to do so.
“But from the end of World War II to the fall of Communism, East and West did not come to all-out war, and not a single nuclear-armed missile was fired. You might say we avoided Armageddon at the cost of our collective conscience.”
Biden, frankly, has performed better than expected. He and NATO members have presented a unified opposition that Putin clearly did not anticipate. Sooner or later, though, the president will have to make a tough decision on Ukraine that is sure to upset many Americans.
But the overriding goal of the United States is to keep the missiles in their silos. We may lose some battles along the way — Vietnam is the most painful reminder of that — but we won the Cold War. Freedom will win out in Ukraine, too; though perhaps over a long period of time.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
