• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, October 24, 2024

War is raging in Europe and the Middle East, and what happens there and how it turns out matters a lot to us, whether we pay attention or not.

As a population, it's hard for Americans to maintain a lot of focus on issues unfolding half a world away, certainly over very much time. We live in a massive country, and issues playing out only a few states away can seem like a world away.

Our country is bounded by enormous oceans on either side, and while most Americans have traveled beyond North America and the Caribbean at some point in their lives, only a small percentage do it regularly. Americans are a pretty parochial people, focused very much on ourselves, our family, our communities and our politics -- not so much on the rest of the world.

We need to change that. Like it or not, what happens everywhere else in the world impacts us. Our trade, economy, defense, safety, health, climate, governance and values are inextricably connected to those we share the globe with. We are not alone on this earth, as much as we might think or desire.

Ukraine has been invaded by a foreign neighbor set on destroying its sovereignty, subjugating its population and resources, and making it a vassal state. What Putin and Russia are doing in Ukraine is akin to Hitler and the Nazis in Czechoslovakia in 1938. The free world did not stop Hitler then, and tens of millions of people died in a horrible world war over the next years, which might have been avoided if enough countries and their armies had stood up to Hitler in 1938.

Unlike in 1938, we don’t need to send our armies to stop Putin in Ukraine (yet). Its army, now arguably the strongest in Europe, only needs our weapons, our money and our alliances in key treaty and defense organizations. The longer we wait, the more Putin galvanizes other nations aligned against the U.S., as we watch him increasingly rely on military and economic support from Iran, North Korea and China.

Israel is likewise fighting for its life as a sovereign nation, the only democracy in the Middle East, largely against forces supported by Iran that want more than just the subjugation of the Jewish population in Israel, but their extermination.

Our oceans, once vast, no longer insulate or isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world as they might have once.

What happens in these conflicts will determine the fate of freedom, democracy, national sovereignty and the rule of law around the world for decades to come. I stand wholly and unequivocally with Ukraine and Israel here. We as a country must continue standing with Ukraine and Israel. The future of our way of life and world depend on it.

Are you standing with Ukraine and Israel?