[ Opposition to U.S. adventurism is principled. But this is
Putin’s adventurism, and the left must stand firmly against
it....Supporting the defense of Ukraine is the right thing for the
global left to do. Even if our own government is doing it.]
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WHY UKRAINE MATTERS FOR THE LEFT  
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Matthew Duss
June 1, 2022
The New Republic
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_ Opposition to U.S. adventurism is principled. But this is Putin’s
adventurism, and the left must stand firmly against it....Supporting
the defense of Ukraine is the right thing for the global left to do.
Even if our own government is doing it. _

A demonstration in support of Ukraine on May 29 in Krakow, Poland,
Artur Widak/Nurphoto // The New Republic

 

Weeks after the September 11 attacks, Christopher Hitchens wrote a
piece
[[link removed]] in _The
Atlantic_ castigating an American left he saw as unwilling to
recognize the enemy that had just attacked the United States or
support appropriate measures to confront it: “My chief concern when
faced with such an antagonist is not that there will be
‘over-reaction’ on the part of those who will fight the
adversary—which seems to be the only thing about the recent attacks
and the civilized world’s response to them that makes the left
anxious.” 

Hitchens turned out to be totally wrong about this. As the next 20
years demonstrated, he should in fact have been quite concerned about
the overreaction, which would comprise multiple—and some still
ongoing
[[link removed]]—military
interventions, lead to the proliferation of adversaries, kill hundreds
of thousands of people, and displace millions. It would also embolden
very similar forces, marching under different flags but adhering to a
no less radical ideology, here in the U.S. In short, a series of
devastating and still mounting losses for the principles Hitchens
espoused. 

A number of leftists were scalded by Hitchens’s opprobrium in the
piece, which marked a full embrace of the armed interventionism that
would characterize his remaining years (he died of cancer in 2011).
One target that stands out is Susan Sontag (who would die of cancer
three years later), who had dared to suggest
[[link removed]] that
the attacks were partly a consequence of U.S. policies (a
claim, ironically, the Bush administration would affirm with its own
short-lived “Freedom Agenda,” which sought to reverse decades of
U.S. support for Middle East authoritarians) and that Americans should
not allow our collective trauma to be exploited to support a new
Crusades.  

“Let’s by all means grieve together. But let’s not be stupid
together,” Sontag wrote in _The New Yorker. _“A few shreds of
historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened,
and what may continue to happen.” Hitchens scoffed at this
“disdainful geopolitical analysis.” Sontag’s piece was, in
retrospect, more courageous and prescient than anything he would ever
write again, asking tough and necessary questions at precisely the
moment they were needed, when asking them would be the costliest.

There is, however, a line from Hitchens that I’ve been thinking a
lot about lately as I consider the Biden administration’s response
to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the debate within the U.S. left about
it. All the left’s objections, Hitchens wrote, “boil down to this:
Nothing will make us fight against an evil if that fight forces us to
go to the same corner as our own government.” 

Yes, it was hyperbolic and unfair. I would like to make sure it
remains so. Hitchens saw 9/11 as a moment to decisively break from the
left and, if not to join the right, at least to join the pro-war herd.
I am interested in building the left. Today, the U.S. left is stronger
and more influential, and growing faster than at any time in my
lifetime. On the most important national security, economic and trade
policy, and social justice issues of our time, the left has gotten it
right. But it’s important to think through how our values of social
justice, human security and equality, and democracy are best served in
a response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

We should acknowledge absolutely that skepticism toward the kind of
righteous sloganeering we’ve seen around Russia’s war is entirely
reasonable. Our political class advocates military violence with a
regularity and ease that is psychopathic. Our politicians demand
others show more courage in the face of Vladimir Putin’s violence
than they’ve ever been able to muster in the face of Donald
Trump’s tweets. We should not, however, let all of this absurdity
blind us to the instances when provision of military aid can advance a
more just and humanitarian global order. Assisting Ukraine’s defense
against Russian invasion is such an instance. 

The endless military interventions of the last 20 years have
engendered a hard-won skepticism not just among the left but among the
American people toward the use of force. Our arms dealer–funded
think tanks don’t like it, but this is the appropriate default
position for a responsible democracy. It’s hard to escape the
impression that many in Washington see the war on Ukraine as a boon,
something to help both transcend our internal battles and lift U.S.
foreign policy out of the doldrums and restore its meaning and
potency. This is incredibly dangerous.

But we should also recognize that the Biden administration is not the
Bush administration. The Biden team clearly did not seek this war, in
fact they made a strenuous, and very public, diplomatic effort to
avert it. Having been unable to do that, they’ve acted with
restraint and care not to get drawn into a wider war with Russia while
also making clear the stakes of the conflict for the U.S., for Europe,
and for the international system. I have not been shy about
criticizing this administration where it has failed to uphold
progressive principles. It’s a long, depressing, and growing list.
But Ukraine is an area where I think the administration is getting it
mostly right.

Still, for many of my friends on the left, this is all too familiar.
It is all too convenient that, having finally drawn the longest war in
our history to an ignominious close in Afghanistan, we should now
happen into a new one to give us meaning. I get that sentiment. But I
think we should interrogate it.  

In the interest of “steel manning” leftist objections to the U.S.
role in Ukraine—that is, addressing the arguments in their strongest
form—I’ll look at arguments from two of the giants of the
international left, two people for whom I have tremendous respect, MIT
Professor Noam Chomsky and Brazilian opposition leader Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva.

In an April interview
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Affairs_’ Nathan Robinson, Chomsky said, “There are two options
with regard to Ukraine”: 

As we know, one option is a negotiated settlement
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which will offer Putin an escape, an ugly settlement. Is it within
reach? We don’t know; you can only find out by trying, and we’re
refusing to try. But that’s one option. The other option is to make
it explicit and clear to Putin and the small circle of men around him
that you have no escape, you’re going to go to a war crimes trial no
matter what you do. Boris Johnson just reiterated this
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sanctions will go on no matter what you do. What does that mean? It
means go ahead and obliterate Ukraine and go on to lay the basis for a
terminal war.

Those are the two options: and we’re picking the second and praising
ourselves for heroism and doing it: fighting Russia to the last
Ukrainian.

In an early May _Time_ magazine interview
[[link removed]], Lula said,
“Putin shouldn’t have invaded Ukraine. But it’s not just Putin
who is guilty”:

The U.S. and the E.U. are also guilty. What was the reason for the
Ukraine invasion? NATO? Then the U.S. and Europe should have said:
“Ukraine won’t join NATO.” That would have solved the
problem.… That’s the argument they put forward. If they have a
secret one, we don’t know. The other issue was Ukraine joining the
E.U. The Europeans could have said: “No, now is not the moment for
Ukraine to join the E.U., we’ll wait.” They didn’t have to
encourage the confrontation.

First, of course we should be pushing for a settlement. The longer
this war grinds on, the worse it will be, foremost for the Ukrainians
but also for a world already suffering from a pandemic and climate
change–induced food crisis.
[[link removed]] As
of this writing, I have seen no evidence of a settlement in the
offing—as in, a deal that Putin would actually entertain, let alone
accept—that we’re refusing to “push for.” Ukraine presented
Russia with a far-reaching set of proposals over a month ago,
including a commitment to “permanent neutrality
[[link removed]].” Volodomyr
Zelenskiy continues to offer to negotiate
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with Putin to end the war. As for the claim that the U.S. and allies
are “fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian,” this disingenuously
suggests that Ukrainians are merely instruments of U.S. policy. But it
should be clear by now that the Ukrainian people are going to fight
the Russian invasion whether we help them or not. The U.S. should
certainly be actively engaged in finding a diplomatic path to end the
war, and avoid committing to maximalist aims that could foreclose one,
but for the moment that path is unclear.

With regard to Lula’s claim about NATO, it is worth remembering that
in the weeks leading up to the war, U.S. allies, specifically German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, signaled
clearly that these issues were on the table. Scholz
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came out of their separate hours-long meetings with Putin and
specifically cited the issue of Ukraine’s potential NATO membership
as items under discussion. Or, more exactly, _not_ under discussion,
as in it was not going to happen. It was not enough. To be clear, it
was entirely appropriate to discuss these concerns if there was even
the smallest possibility of averting this catastrophe. But we should
recognize that Putin has now made that discussion moot.

Look at what Putin himself said in the speech
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gave on the eve of the invasion, in which he laid out a vision of
reclaiming not only the Soviet sphere but a pre-Soviet vision of a new
Russian imperium. While we should not dismiss the political salience
of NATO expansion within the Russian political system—multiple
U.S. officials
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concerns over the past decades—we also shouldn’t pretend it’s
the whole story. As Putin has made clear, NATO expansion is only one
part of a much larger set of grievances. One can perhaps always insist
that “we should’ve done more,” but based on what we know now of
Putin’s goals and grander vision, it seems absurd to suggest that
even an ironclad public pledge from President Biden that Ukraine would
never be accepted into NATO would have convinced Putin to draw back
the 180,000 troops he had placed on Ukraine’s borders.

It would be foolish, however, not to recognize that Lula is giving
voice to many in the global south who are skeptical toward rallying
calls from a U.S. that acts with total impunity, and toward appeals to
a “rules-based international order” from countries that break
those rules when they see fit. Recognizing that hypocrisy, and
recognizing the role that the U.S. and its allies have played in
undermining the order they themselves built, is essential for building
a better, more stable, humane, and progressive one. But preventing
powerful countries from invading and obliterating weaker ones should
be a core principle of any such order. And past hypocrisy shouldn’t
serve as an excuse for failing to say that clearly, and act on it. 

Yes, it is maddening to see calls for accountability for Putin’s
atrocities from the same people who endorsed, defended, and continue
to oppose any meaningful accountability for America’s own. It is
infuriating to see our political class chuckling about George W.
Bush’s recent Kinsley gaffe
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of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of
Iraq,” as if it isn’t the confession of a war criminal. But
suggesting that Bush’s impunity is a reason not to hold Putin
accountable is asking Ukrainians to join Iraqis in footing the bill
for our corruption. 

As a counterpoint to Lula’s position, consider the stance of Gabriel
Boric, Chile’s new president. Few countries in the world are more
entitled to point the finger back at the U.S. than Chile, whose
socialist President Salvador Allende was overthrown by a U.S.-backed
military coup in 1973, followed by decades of repression under the
brutal military government of Augusto Pinochet. Yet Boric—whose
Cabinet includes Allende
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granddaughter—declared solidarity with Ukrainians. “Russia has
opted for war to solve conflicts. From Chile we strongly condemn the
invasion of Ukraine, the violation of its sovereignty and the
illegitimate use of force,” he said in a March 1 statement
[[link removed]].
“Our solidarity is with the victims, and the peace efforts.” 

The question of solidarity is one we on the left have to take
seriously. And here we should acknowledge what our Ukrainian
colleagues and others
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the region are saying. “The argument of the left should be that in
2003, other governments did not put enough pressure on the United
States over Iraq,” wrote
[[link removed]] Ukrainian
historian and activist Taras Bilous. “Not that it is necessary to
exert less pressure on Russia over Ukraine now.” 

This solidarity has been hard to find in some of the statements from
the Democratic Socialists of America. To be clear: The cherry-picking
of their statements by the White House’s rapid response director
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left-punching of floundering moderates
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transparently cynical and opportunistic. Centering opposition to U.S.
imperialism and militarism is an entirely appropriate starting point
for any U.S. left organization, even if it’s not the whole race.
Hard questions need to be asked, especially now, about the goals and
interests NATO actually serves. But we also need to ask hard questions
about how our struggle against militarism works alongside our
commitment to colleagues around the world who require more than just a
call to stop the war.

With that said, it’s important to differentiate between the genuine
anti-war anti-imperialism of DSA and others in the American left and
the pernicious authoritarian agitprop
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Grayzone
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the like. The right’s goal is to divide the left, and we should not
help them, but the goal of building a stronger left is served by
identifying, engaging, and organizing with those genuinely acting on
principles of solidarity, democracy, and human rights and not wasting
time with atrocity-denying grifters and click-baiting provocateurs.

It is right to be cautious about getting drawn into something bigger
than we want. It is right to be concerned that the administration’s
rhetoric is, to paraphrase one of the Reagan era’s military
recruiting films, increasingly writing checks that its policy can’t
cash. Here, as after 9/11, fear of overreaction is entirely
appropriate—our foreign policy apparatus is designed to stoke, and
then cash in on, overreaction. And our job is not simply to allow
Ukrainians to write U.S. policy. Americans—all of us—are now
implicated in this war. If the American people are providing arms, as
we are to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, then we have a
reasonable interest in, and reasonable expectation of influence on,
its outcome. The Biden administration has made clear
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kind of outcome the U.S. is trying to produce, but also rightly made
clear the limits of U.S. engagement and the overriding concern about
avoiding nuclear escalation. 

One thing the left definitely should not do, nor anyone, is buy into
the narrative that Russia’s war on Ukraine has restored America’s
mission and purpose. That our country can seem to allocate money
efficiently only toward weapons and little else should be a source of
shame, not pride. Observing how easily tens of billions of dollars in
aid to Ukraine were moving through our otherwise obstreperous and
unproductive Congress, Adam Tooze summed it up
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“That they can agree on that and not on health care or climate
change policy is a sign of America’s own dysfunction.” 

Despite the enchantment of our political class
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Russia’s war on Ukraine is not a manic pixie dream conflict that
will lift our country out of its legitimation crisis. If we allow this
moment to be used simply to reassemble a broken Washington foreign
policy consensus, we will not reverse that crisis, we’ll deepen it.
An influential, well-organized, and growing political left is
essential to repairing this country—and that includes its foreign
policy. The response to Russia’s war on Ukraine is a key part of
that. It is possible, indeed it is essential, to apply the historical
awareness that Sontag urged, and not be stupid together, while
acknowledging that supporting the defense of Ukraine is the right
thing for the global left to do. Even if our own government is doing
it.

_[MATT DUSS is foreign policy adviser for Senator Bernie Sanders. The
views expressed here are his own. @mattduss [[link removed]] ]_

* Ukraine
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* Russia
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* Ukraine war
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* Solidarity
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* the Left
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* Vladimir Putin
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* Noam Chomsky
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* Lula da Silva
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* DSA
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* Internationalism
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* Biden Administration
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* NATO
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