• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, Yesterday

The U.S. administration is trying to push Ukraine into a “peace” deal under terms favored by the Russians, including sentencing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian families currently living in freedom to a lifetime of Russian autocracy and oppression.

That the U.S. administration seeks peace is not surprising; all peace-loving people want it. And while unjust, that the U.S. administration is pushing an unfavorable deal on Ukraine, the victim, rather than working with Ukraine and Europe to push an unfavorable deal on Russia, the aggressor, is not surprising.

It's well known the administration fears distraction in Europe while trying to pivot its security focus to Asia and China. And European leaders don't want the U.S. to pivot away from the continent, particularly on security issues like Ukraine, since they are collectively unable to stand up on their own today against a major power like Russia, both militarily and politically.

Europe today lacks both the weaponry and the will to push Russia out of Ukraine without significant U.S. support. Their militaries have been hollowed out these past decades, and their populations are addicted to cheap energy, taxes free of defense spending, and Russian oligarchs spending billions in their markets.

While the U.S. administration’s thinking might be logically correct in parts, it is destined for disaster.

A peace that is not just cannot be a true peace, and will inevitably fail. As the brilliant head of the Ukraine Catholic Church, Archbishop Borys Gudziak, has stated many times, a true peace cannot be separated from justice. It cannot reward the aggressor. It cannot abandon those under occupation. If it does, it will be a false and fragile peace. To be a true peace, it must affirm human dignity, confront evil and secure sovereignty -- not just achieve a ceasefire. 

History is full of “transactional” peace deals that didn’t fare well. Look at dozens of peace deals in Europe in the 1700s and 1800s. Look at 100 years of instability and carnage wrought by the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles and its arbitrary rewriting of national borders. Look at the Munich Agreement of 1938 that not only appeased Hitler, but basically gave him the green light to plunge humanity into a world war that claimed more than 60 million lives over the next seven years.

Finally, look at the Budapest Memorandum from 1992 that promised security guarantees for Ukraine and its sovereignty in exchange for surrender to Russia -- what was then the world's third largest nuclear weapons arsenal, with the strategic bombers and missiles to deliver them. The U.S., the U.K. and France, signatory nations to the Memorandum, all stood by effectively mute when Russia broke its promise and invaded Ukraine with “little green men” in 2014.

In a horrific ironic twist, those same planes and missiles that we made Ukraine turn over to Russia are “returned” to them regularly, but now carrying massive, conventional munitions that kill and maim Ukrainian civilians, women and children in their homes, schools and public places.

When it comes to Ukraine, I am with Archbishop Gudziak and the lessons garnered from the past: An unjust peace will not be a true peace, nor will it be a lasting one. Let’s not fool ourselves that it could be otherwise.

If long-term peace is our objective, then we need to seek a just and true peace, and Russia will have to be forced to the table for that. Forcing Russia to the table will require providing Ukraine with the weapons and support that it needs to achieve peace through victory.

Russia’s economy is in shambles. It is suffering casualties on the battlefield at a 10 to 1 ratio as compared to Ukraine. And Ukraine’s domestically produced “deep strike” missiles and drones are beginning to turn the tide on Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort. Ukraine destroyed 25% of Russia’s oil-refining capacity this calendar year alone -- and Russia is a country aptly described by the late Senator John McCain as “a gas station masquerading as a nation.”

This is not the time for the U.S. to get wobbly. Ukraine and the world need U.S. support, not undermining by the U.S.  There is a minerals agreement in place with the U.S. with a $300 billion draw-down available for Ukraine to buy the weapons it needs.

Like it, or not, the U.S. is already quite involved in Europe. Bilateral trade is more than $1.5 trillion. And the U.S. can use greater ties with Ukraine to actually help its strategic security pivot to Asia and major power conflict with China. There is no better way to help Taiwan to defend itself from China aggression, whether an invasion across the Strait, a blockade around the island or a cloud electronic warfare that shuts off radio signals and GPS.

Ukraine’s incredibly innovative, effective and cheap homegrown air drones, sea drones, sensors and electronic warfare capabilities can give Taiwan the asymmetrical capabilities that it needs to become the “prickly porcupine” to the Chinese that the U.S. and Western world need it to become.

This is the time for the U.S. to help Ukraine, and help Ukraine help us in Asia, not abandon Ukraine and its people to Putin’s Russia. What do you think?