Ukraine should be our line in the sand. It probably should have been Syria, but now Vladimir Putin is pushing against Europe with a brutal war on the Ukrainian people. In the past, Putin’s army has destroyed population centers leaving little but rubble and bodies behind. If he is successful in Ukraine, he will almost certainly do the same somewhere else. It’s time to say “No more!”

Ukraine is bordered by countries that lived under the thumb of Soviet oppression for almost fifty years following World War II and none of those places wants to return to those dark days. The United States and our NATO allies need to acknowledge their fear is rational, not just emotional. Putin has a vision of a new Russian empire even as his invasion has laid bare the weaknesses of his military. 

Fortunately, the mood seems to be shifting from believing a quick Russian victory is inevitable to one that sees a glimmer of possibility for Ukrainian sovereignty. The US is working with Poland to send fighter jets to Ukraine. As Ukrainian President Zelensky has noted, the Russian destruction has come mainly from the skies in the form of bombs and missiles. Ukrainians need planes to fight back. 

While I think reasonable people can disagree on our approach to the Ukrainian invasion, the far left and the far right seem to have met in an ideological circle in Russia. Leftist commentators like Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracy are blasting western countries as war mongers for trying to support Ukraine. A lot of the right is outright supportive of the Russian invasion. After the tanks started to roll, Tucker Carlson declared he supported Russia, signaling to his dimwitted version of dittoheads that Putin was right. 

Both the extremes are wrong. Greenwald, who considers himself and acolyte for free speech, has little to criticize about Putin jailing war protesters. In addition, Putin’s disinformation has been carefully targeted to keep his country ignorant of what’s happening to its neighbor. Most Russians don’t even know their country has invaded Ukraine. It may take a lot of Russian soldiers dying before the truth reaches them. 

On the right, Carlson and other Putin admirers think strongmen are the answer to our problems. They don’t respect or believe in democracy. They’ve supported authoritarian measures in the US and other western democracies and lavished praise on autocrats like Victor Orban in Hungary. 

Personally, I’m not ready to give up on democracy and I’m not willing to acquiesce to dictators who believe they can subjugate their neighbors with little more than hollow protests from the West. There are wars worth fighting and causes worth supporting. There may be limits to how far we can go in supporting Ukraine, but if Putin is going to push the line, we need to let him know that it won’t happen without consequences.