What US policy "should" be with regards to Ukraine is a political question, and people are going to have their opinions on both sides.
My preferred policy is peace. That means both Ukraine and Russia need to stop shooting at each other, and for that to happen Russia needs to pull its forces back to Russia proper.
What US policy "should" be with regards to Ukraine is a political question, and people are going to have their opinions on both sides.
My preferred policy is peace. That means both Ukraine and Russia need to stop shooting at each other, and for that to happen Russia needs to pull its forces back to Russia proper.
However, the historical reality is that Ukraine has been part of NATO's "Partnership For Peace" program since 1994, as program whose participants have included Russia herself (Russia is stil technically a member of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), although its membership is suspended at the present time (for reasons that I trust are obvious).
Russia under Vladimir Putin committed to the NATO-Russia Council, which in the 2002 Declaration of Rome committed NATO and Russia to work together on a variety of issues, including combating terrorism, but also non-combat concerns such as search and rescue at sea and submarine rescue (these were of especial concern after the Kursk disaster).
Nor was NATO the only engagement Russia had following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia was an initial and highly engaged participant in the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, the Nunn-Lugar initiative to, among other things, put former Soviet scientists who had been engaged in research for weapons of mass destruction (including biological weapons), to "peaceful" employment and so keep their dark arts off the black market.
Through another outgrowth of the Nunn-Lugar initiatives, the International Science And Technology Center (which was headquartered in Moscow until 2012), Russia received considerable western funding for biological "threat reduction" research involving pathogens such as variola (smallpox), avian influenza, and monkeypox--the latter included a joint project with USAMRIID to map the monkeypox genome.
There is a lot to question about the propriety of the Nunn-Lugar concept of "threat reduction", but the NATO engagements and the ITSC funding for biological "threat reduction" research does not reconcile well with the narrative of a predatory NATO hell bent on dismantling and dismembering Russia.
Moreover, given that Russia was herself a participant in the same NATO programs as Ukraine for years, and given that Ukraine's involvement with NATO dates back to Ukraine's independence, the idea that NATO represents an existential threat to Russia in 2022 is a narrative in want of evidence.
Why not in 2017, when NATO membership was made an official foreign policy objective for Ukraine by act of the Ukrainian Parliament?
Why not in 2019, when the goal of NATO membership was written into the Ukrainian Constitution?
Why not in 2020, when Zelensky furthered the NATO membership agenda in Ukraine's National Security Strategy?
As regards NATO membership, Ukraine was even before Putin's invasion optimistically YEARS away from accession. At a minimum, the separatist conflict in the Donbass and Russia's occupation of Crimea needed to be fully resolved--this is part of the membership requirements that were laid down by NATO after a 1995 study regarding NATO enlargement.
Viewed historically, NATO is of course a military alliance principally directed against Russia which unites three of the four loci of geopolitical power in Europe--London, Paris, and Berlin--against the fourth, Moscow. From this context, it is not hard to see how NATO expansion reduces Russian influence in Europe and, arguably, Russian security. While the defensive nature of the NATO alliance makes an offensive war against Russia unlikely, the existence of the alliance makes such an offensive war a possibility. For this reason we must acknowledge that Russia has legitimate security concerns regarding NATO expansion. I have stated in other comments that NATO was reckless in its expansion, because it failed to acknowledge even the existence of Russia's concerns in this regard.
Still, one reason NATO has not faded away after the fall of the Soviet Union is that Russia has always retained the resources which would make a return to Great Power status in Europe inevitable--a status Russia had clearly achieved by 2014. I suspect the reason the NATO relationship with Russia collapsed, and the reason Russia withdrew from CTR and the ISTC in 2012, was because Putin has from the start wanted to return Russia to Great Power status.
This much is made plain in Putin's ethnonationalist essay on Ukraine from July of last year, in which he argued that Ukraine only exists as an appendage to Muscovite Russia.
Much of the conflict Putin sees with NATO is the inevitable clash of territorial and geopolitical ambitions that have informed European history for centuries (and even today, Paris and Berlin jockey for hegemonic influence over the EU while jointly seeking to thwart Moscow's pursuit of hegemonic influence over Europe).
Yet, as the joint history of Russia and NATO shows, this quest for geopolitical influence within Europe has always been something of a balancing act. NATO's engagement with the former Soviet bloc states is in many ways analogous to Bismarck's system of interlocking treaties, through which he gave Europe a longer period of peace between wide continental conflicts than it had enjoyed previously--and which has been surpassed only by the duration of the NATO alliance.
So while NATO expansion and policy arguably create legitimate security and geopolitical concerns for Russia, in no way shape or form can that expansion and policy be deemed in 2022 to constitute an existential threat to Russia that could only be mitigated by conquering Ukraine.
Not for nothing did Sweden and Finland do the math on a militaristic Russian foreign policy as evidence by the invasion of Ukraine and seek the embrace of NATO. By invading Ukraine, Putin in an instant validated all of NATO's logic and rhetoric about a resurgent Russia and the ramifications for Europe.
What US policy "should" be with regards to Ukraine is a political question, and people are going to have their opinions on both sides.
My preferred policy is peace. That means both Ukraine and Russia need to stop shooting at each other, and for that to happen Russia needs to pull its forces back to Russia proper.
However, the historical reality is that Ukraine has been part of NATO's "Partnership For Peace" program since 1994, as program whose participants have included Russia herself (Russia is stil technically a member of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), although its membership is suspended at the present time (for reasons that I trust are obvious).
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/51288.htm
Russia's engagement with NATO dates back even farther, as it was a charter member of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, EAPC's predecessor.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_69344.htm
Russia under Vladimir Putin committed to the NATO-Russia Council, which in the 2002 Declaration of Rome committed NATO and Russia to work together on a variety of issues, including combating terrorism, but also non-combat concerns such as search and rescue at sea and submarine rescue (these were of especial concern after the Kursk disaster).
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_19572.htm
Nor was NATO the only engagement Russia had following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia was an initial and highly engaged participant in the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, the Nunn-Lugar initiative to, among other things, put former Soviet scientists who had been engaged in research for weapons of mass destruction (including biological weapons), to "peaceful" employment and so keep their dark arts off the black market.
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/when-is-bioweapons-research-not-bioweapons
Through another outgrowth of the Nunn-Lugar initiatives, the International Science And Technology Center (which was headquartered in Moscow until 2012), Russia received considerable western funding for biological "threat reduction" research involving pathogens such as variola (smallpox), avian influenza, and monkeypox--the latter included a joint project with USAMRIID to map the monkeypox genome.
There is a lot to question about the propriety of the Nunn-Lugar concept of "threat reduction", but the NATO engagements and the ITSC funding for biological "threat reduction" research does not reconcile well with the narrative of a predatory NATO hell bent on dismantling and dismembering Russia.
Moreover, given that Russia was herself a participant in the same NATO programs as Ukraine for years, and given that Ukraine's involvement with NATO dates back to Ukraine's independence, the idea that NATO represents an existential threat to Russia in 2022 is a narrative in want of evidence.
Why not in 2017, when NATO membership was made an official foreign policy objective for Ukraine by act of the Ukrainian Parliament?
Why not in 2019, when the goal of NATO membership was written into the Ukrainian Constitution?
Why not in 2020, when Zelensky furthered the NATO membership agenda in Ukraine's National Security Strategy?
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_37750.htm
As regards NATO membership, Ukraine was even before Putin's invasion optimistically YEARS away from accession. At a minimum, the separatist conflict in the Donbass and Russia's occupation of Crimea needed to be fully resolved--this is part of the membership requirements that were laid down by NATO after a 1995 study regarding NATO enlargement.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24733.htm
Viewed historically, NATO is of course a military alliance principally directed against Russia which unites three of the four loci of geopolitical power in Europe--London, Paris, and Berlin--against the fourth, Moscow. From this context, it is not hard to see how NATO expansion reduces Russian influence in Europe and, arguably, Russian security. While the defensive nature of the NATO alliance makes an offensive war against Russia unlikely, the existence of the alliance makes such an offensive war a possibility. For this reason we must acknowledge that Russia has legitimate security concerns regarding NATO expansion. I have stated in other comments that NATO was reckless in its expansion, because it failed to acknowledge even the existence of Russia's concerns in this regard.
Still, one reason NATO has not faded away after the fall of the Soviet Union is that Russia has always retained the resources which would make a return to Great Power status in Europe inevitable--a status Russia had clearly achieved by 2014. I suspect the reason the NATO relationship with Russia collapsed, and the reason Russia withdrew from CTR and the ISTC in 2012, was because Putin has from the start wanted to return Russia to Great Power status.
This much is made plain in Putin's ethnonationalist essay on Ukraine from July of last year, in which he argued that Ukraine only exists as an appendage to Muscovite Russia.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
Much of the conflict Putin sees with NATO is the inevitable clash of territorial and geopolitical ambitions that have informed European history for centuries (and even today, Paris and Berlin jockey for hegemonic influence over the EU while jointly seeking to thwart Moscow's pursuit of hegemonic influence over Europe).
Yet, as the joint history of Russia and NATO shows, this quest for geopolitical influence within Europe has always been something of a balancing act. NATO's engagement with the former Soviet bloc states is in many ways analogous to Bismarck's system of interlocking treaties, through which he gave Europe a longer period of peace between wide continental conflicts than it had enjoyed previously--and which has been surpassed only by the duration of the NATO alliance.
So while NATO expansion and policy arguably create legitimate security and geopolitical concerns for Russia, in no way shape or form can that expansion and policy be deemed in 2022 to constitute an existential threat to Russia that could only be mitigated by conquering Ukraine.
Not for nothing did Sweden and Finland do the math on a militaristic Russian foreign policy as evidence by the invasion of Ukraine and seek the embrace of NATO. By invading Ukraine, Putin in an instant validated all of NATO's logic and rhetoric about a resurgent Russia and the ramifications for Europe.