The U.S. administration has been trying to force Ukraine to accept a pro-Russia peace settlement for months, going very public these past few weeks with proposed structures that seem like direct
rewrites of invader Putin’s previous demands for fealty from sovereign Ukraine.
The narrative from the administration has been that nothing matters now more than peace, whatever
sacrifices it forces on Ukraine. But it's increasingly clear the U.S. leadership’s push for a fast and hard peace has more to do with accelerating normalization of economic relations between the
U.S. and Russia than it does with what's right, or any notion of shared defense of the sovereignty of free and democratic nations.
Nothing said it simpler than a headline in The Wall
Street Journal last week: “Make Money Not War: Trump’s Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine.” Then there's the subhead: “The Kremlin pitched the White House on peace
through business. To Europe’s dismay, the president and his envoy are on board.”
advertisement
advertisement
In 1938, then-British-Prime-Minister Neville Chamberlain famously gave Hitler the Sudetenland
in hopes the appeasement would avoid war. Instead, it emboldened Hitler to invade Austria, Poland (in partnership with Stalin) and then most of the rest of Europe and North Africa. Chamberlain was
largely driven from fear that England and its allies weren’t ready to fight Germany and didn’t want to. Economic transactions between the nations were certainly a factor, but not the main
impetus.
U.S. policy now, though, seems quite the opposite. The proposed “peace” is not about Ukraine or Europe’s inability to defend against Russia. Russia’s economy
is failing. It is losing soldiers at 10X the rate of Ukraine. It is capturing minuscule amounts of land at an enormous cost. Just modest Western investments and support can certainly keep
Russia’s position in check -- or, at the least, just permitting Ukraine to use long-range weapons on Russia unfettered.
The policy here seems entirely driven by a desire to do
hundreds of billions of dollars of deals with Russia, possibly enriching some close to the administration.
Fortunately, many in Congress on both sides of the aisle are raising these concerns.
And fortunately, the “peace process” meetings are continuing to reveal that Russia and Putin have no real desire for peace. If they did, they could just stop fighting and withdraw. Russia
and Putin are the invaders. Ukraine is just defending.
I write about this now because we should all want to be on the right side of history when we look back on this time, as we can do with
the mistakes of 1938 that ultimately led to the deaths of more than 60 million across the world.
It’s terrible that it only takes two generations for us to lose our memories and pattern
recognition enough that we find ourselves on the verge of making a similar mistake again, though not even for reasons as morally justified -- from "appeasement to avoid" to "appeasement to
profit."
You probably wonder why I devote so many of my columns to issues of social policy and politics, and to Ukraine specifically. I do it because I believe that these issues -- and
the future of Ukraine -- matter a lot. And I believe we all need to take action on our beliefs. History is full of too many people who saw, understood and did nothing. And I believe we can all make a
difference.
Working in the media gives us responsibilities greater than the value of the advertisements bought and sold each day. We fund the production and distribution of affordable and
independent news, information and entertainment.
We also have a big interest in free, independent democracies. Advertising and independent media can thrive only in democracies. In autocracies,
media is controlled by the government directly or by proxy, and advertising -- to the extent it exists -- is largely a tax to drive payments to the friends of the autocrats..
I hope you care.
I hope you do something about it. What you do -- and what you don’t do -- matters.