A foreign policy debate is raging in the United States as Russia escalates its attacks on Ukraine — chiefly over what America should do in response. What is oddly absent is the unmistakable neoconservative war cry to send in the troops.
Sure, some talking heads haven’t been shy about where they’d like the conflict to lead. But most of it is implied.
Establishment media outlets have hinted at getting involved militarily, asking Biden what he’ll do next if sanctions do not work and if the US will have to use force if Putin expands beyond Ukraine.
The old hawkish right has used similar softened rhetoric to imply support for a military response. Jonah Goldberg hit at the nationalist right, claiming they “don’t care very much when an imperial power tries to erase a nation.” Bill Kristol asked in a column, “Will Vladimir Putin’s invasion of a peaceful and democratic Ukraine do anything to liberate the American right from its attachment (or regression) to the foolish and dangerous doctrine of ‘America First’?”
The establishment right, which would typically be leading the war charge, has instead vaguely called for Putin to be held “accountable” for what he’s done.
The hawks know that there is little appetite for war. Americans are tired of playing the world’s policeman. Most of them favored withdrawing from Afghanistan, even if they opposed the way it was done by Biden. They don’t want to send their sons and daughters to die for a hazy definition of “democracy” or “freedom abroad.”
Just 26 percent of Americans say the US should take a major role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The elites are throwing a temper tantrum because nobody wants to play toy soldiers with them anymore.
You cannot point out the hollowness of cries for Ukraine’s freedom considering the US government watched silently as the Canadian government froze and seized the assets of peaceful protesters. Nor may you note that we must not really care about Ukraine’s state sovereignty if we simultaneously allow hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to flood our southern border. You may not say that Putin outsmarted Biden or took advantage of his weakness. You definitely can’t ask if Ukraine is strategically important enough, or Putin a big enough threat, to justify US military involvement. Any of these reasonable questions will earn admonishment that you are a Putin puppet, a traitor, or insufficiently patriotic.
The new right, with the isolationist bent championed by the likes of Senator Josh Hawley, former president Donald Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, is in step with the American populace’s foreign policy exhaustion.
The neocons know this, so they couch their desires for World War Three in hyperbolic critiques of the war skeptics. If you’re not banging the drum, you’re probably just a Russian stooge.
