Senator Tom Cotton on Ukraine v. Russia

Arkansas' Junior US Senator and an Afghanistan veteran outlines perfectly the situation and what the US and NATO should do. Where's Richard Nixon when you need him?

It’s been interesting to hear pundits argue various interpretations and strategies about the situation between Ukraine and Russia. For sure, no serious person thinks the US should go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Bolstering the US and NATO presence near Russia’s border (think Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) is another matter, along with helping Ukraine defend itself. Those efforts are underway, albeit belatedly.

On one end, you have former George W. Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio advisor Max Boot. He’s now a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Boot thinks we should supply Ukraine’s army and, when they lose to Russia, support a guerrilla war not unlike “Charlie Wilson’s War” in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.

Don’t underestimate Ukraine’s willingness to fight Russia. After all, they have a long and not very pleasant history with their bad neighbors, starting with the Holodomor, where Soviet dictator Josef Stalin literally starved almost as many millions of Ukrainians from 1932-33 as Hitler exterminated Jews during World War II. And remember that Chernobyl, the worse nuclear disaster in world history thanks to the Soviets is located in northern Ukraine. Memories are long. Maybe Ukraine could offer Russian troops a chance to encamp there for the winter.

NATO bases in Eastern Europe

On the other hand, you have Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who is strictly neutral and practically non-interventionist, a classic libertarian position. He strikes some as sympathetic to Putin, which frankly isn’t fair. After all, Ukraine isn’t part of NATO (or likely to be anytime soon), and the US arguably has no vital interests in the region - just moral issues, like respecting the territorial integrity of a democratic republic. He thinks all our attention on Ukraine is driving Putin into Xi Jinping’s ever-loving Pooh-like hands. He’s been there for a while now.

Where’s Richard Nixon when you need him?

But US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), an Afghan war veteran and national security expert, beautifully if briefly outlined this morning on Hugh Hewitt’s morning radio show and podcast why we’re in this mess and how the US should respond. Hugh’s terrific program provides a helpful transcript of their key interviews. This one is worth your time.

Senator Cotton: Why has Vladimir Putin stationed 135,000 troops on Ukraine’s border? What he’s been saying for the last two months as a pretext, it’s red herrings. He says that he cannot tolerate Ukraine in NATO. Well, Ukraine’s not in NATO. Ukraine doesn’t have a plan to join NATO. No NATO leaders have said they want Ukraine in NATO in any kind of immediate or medium-term fashion. He said he can’t tolerate large scale military exercises in Ukraine. Well, we don’t have large scale military exercises in Ukraine. It’s like what we do in our NATO ally such as Poland. We have a few advisors there from time to time, but we have those in countries around the world. Those are all red herrings, Hugh. The real reason that Vladimir Putin has postured these troops in Ukraine is that he wants to reassemble the greater Russian empire, not just back from the Soviet Russia days, but all the way back to the czarist days. And there cannot be a Russian empire without Ukraine, in Vladimir Putin’s mind. Second, he wants a ring of non-democratic states surrounding Russia as buffers. And third, he does not want anything like democratic or representative governments in Slavic lands like Ukraine or Belarus. The reason for that is he doesn’t want his own people to look towards a democratic government in a place like Belarus or Ukraine and think well, gosh, if it works there for them, it should work for us here in Russia. Those are the main reasons that Vladimir Putin is doing this.

But Hugh, those reasons have been the case forever. Vladimir Putin has always wanted to reassemble greater Russia. He’s always wanted buffer zones. He’s always worried about democratic movements in Russia. So what is it now that is causing him to move? Well, there are some factors that are not related to the United States like the new coalition government in Germany, or the president of France’s reelection campaign coming up. But at root, it’s that Joe Biden has appeased Vladimir Putin for a year. He’s made him think he can get away with it. First thing he did when he came into office was a no-strings-attached extension of a badly one-sided nuclear arms control treaty for Russia – Vladimir Putin’s number one priority, something that Donald Trump refused to do. Then, he waived sanctions on the NordStream2 gas pipeline into Germany, which was Vladimir Putin’s second-highest foreign policy priority. He basically looked the other way when Russia either sanctioned or at least didn’t object to the Colonial Pipeline Act. And then, of course,

Vladimir Putin saw, like the rest of the world, the debacle in Afghanistan in August. So Joe Biden’s weakness and appeasement over the last year is in no small part the reason Vladimir Putin has chosen now, not last year, not five years ago or any other time, to go for the jugular. And I think the lesson from that is we need to be much tougher right now. We need to make sure that the Ukrainian Army has the weapons it needs to defend itself. We should impose sanctions on the NordStream2 pipeline right now. We should be very clear about the kind of sanctions that Russia would face if they invade Ukraine – cutting them off from the international banking system, sanctioning their oil and gas and their minerals and mining industries. These all have to be very clear right now, because the only thing that Vladimir Putin will respond to is strength and toughness. He will not respond to appeasement and conciliation. That’s what actually has gotten us to where we are.

HH: Now Senator, when Donald Trump had rules of engagement in Syria, and little green Russian men came over the hill, they were all killed. And American troops did that, and it did not lead to an international confrontation, because Putin simply, the blade hit steel, and he withdrew. My question is should American forces be involved in any way in responding to a Russian attack, whether it is from sea or by air, or from CIA paramilitaries on the ground? If Putin rolls into [Ukraine], do you rule anything out?

TC: Hugh, we do not have a military alliance with Ukraine the way we do with NATO partners like Poland or the Baltic states. And at this point, I think it’s too late to be deploying troops to Ukraine to try to deter Vladimir Putin. However, we need to ensure that our European partners are doing everything they can to help shore up NATO’s eastern flank just as we need to cooperate with those partners to provide as much weaponry to the Ukrainian Army as we can to help protect their own territory. Now if Vladimir Putin takes steps like trying to close the Black Sea to American naval vessels, or tries to interfere with the free flow of international air travel, that’s a horse of a different color.

HH: Let me stay on Ukraine for a second, though, Senator. Ukraine’s only hope may be asymmetrical response. Have we given them the means of an asymmetrical response, for example, a land to sea cruise missile that will threaten the Russian fleet, because that inflict costs that Vladimir Putin may be unwilling to absorb?

TC: Hugh, I don’t want to speak specifically about the kind of weapons we may have provided. There’s been a lot of public reports about what we have provided and what other NATO nations have provided. I will tell you a story, though, about the time I was in Ukraine. This was in the middle of 2015. John McCain and I went to Dnipropetrovsk, as it was then called. We met with a lot of Ukrainian soldiers, in some cases, volunteer militia men who were just back from the Eastern front fighting the Russian troops in the Donbass region. And we met a burly battalion commander. He’d been a young lieutenant commanding a tank platoon in the last days of the Red Army, and he said to us. Mr. Senators, we do not need 100 Javelin missiles to blow up 100 Russian tanks. We only need 1 Javelin missile to blow up 1 Russian tank, his point being that Vladimir Putin was invading Ukraine then in part because he thought he could get away with it. And when he first took casualties, it would present him with a whole new cost calculus, and it would strike fear into the heart of every one of those other tanks. So the weapons that we provide are not necessarily going to help the Ukrainian Army defeat the Red Army, but it severely alters their cost-benefit calculus, and hopefully will cause Vladimir Putin to back down. I mean, the ultimate result we want here is a peaceable outcome in which concessions are not granted to Russia, but rather American and Western strength deters Vladimir Putin.

HH: Do you know, Senator Cotton, we’ve talked about Putin’s assets and his oligarchs’ assets before. This week, or last week, actually, one of our business accounts got blinked out a significant sum of money. Someone just hacked into the bank and took money. We’ll get it back. I’m not worried about that. But it certainly is a message that you know, take banking very seriously. Should we not be doing the same thing as a deterrent for Putin right now? I mean, now, not after he invades, but right now, going in and blinking out some of his money and his oligarchs’ money?

TC: Yes, Hugh. In fact, I’ve long argued that we should be more aggressive in trying to expose and seize the ill-gotten gains of the class of oligarchs who both benefit from and prop up Vladimir Putin’s rule. We can also take steps to expose the crimes they have committed against the Russian people by looting and pilfering the Russian state.

HH: Okay, my last question, has anything about the Biden response been other than hapless? And that is a very intentional term. They are simply hapless. They do not appear to know what they’re doing, Senator.

TC: It’s hard to think of anything, Hugh. Even when they’re taking the right steps now, those rights steps tend to be half measures, and they’re certainly much too late. You know, the time to deter Vladimir Putin was not when he added 130,000 troops to the border of Ukraine. It was three months ago before he started this buildup. More to the point, it was a year ago when Joe Biden came into office acting like so many other Democrats had for four years, like a latter day Jack Ryan in a Tom Clancy novel beating their chest about standing up to Russia. But as soon as Joe Biden took office, he reverted back to his old dovish, Cold War ways.

You know, isn’t it telling, Hugh, that the last time a Democratic president was in the White House, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. Now, a Democratic president is in the White House, it appears that Vladimir Putin is preparing to invade Ukraine. But for four years, when Donald Trump was in the White House, and the Democrats were screaming Russia, Russia, Russia, surprisingly, Vladimir Putin did not invade Ukraine. That should tell you how you approach Russia and Vladimir Putin – from a position of strength and deterrence. You mentioned the killing of all those Russian paramilitaries in Syria. Remember, too, that Donald Trump killed Qasem Soleimani, somewhat out of the blue. There was not a big buildup. We got a shot and we took it, as we should have. Or when Xi Jinping was eating chocolate cake at dessert at their summit in Mar-A-Lago, and Donald Trump looked at him and said I just ordered air strikes in Syria. That’s just the kind of thing that Ronald Reagan did as well. We have to confront our adversaries from a position of strength to deter their aggression. Any kind of appeasement or conciliation simply rewards them and encourages more aggression.

HH: Senator Cotton, thank you. I know they listen. I hope they heard, and I hope they do it. Senator Tom Cotton, thank you.

For another historical perspective, I recommend futurist George Friedman, founder of Geopolitical Futures, also insightful and helpful. I don’t fully subscribe to his analysis -he suggests there will be no war. I’m not so sure, but he makes a good case. The last two paragraphs provide an interesting summary.

The Eastern European borderland lacks the ability to, as Charles de Gaulle said, at least tear an arm off. Russia cannot live with a U.S.-occupied Ukraine. The U.S. cannot live with Russia that far into Eastern Europe. Russia is not ready for a war, and the U.S. might be ready but doesn’t want it. The Russians will fight for Ukraine if terms are not reached. The Americans may fight but only through air power for the eastern borderland as it will be much cheaper now than later. The Eastern Europeans will fight, too little, too late and too disorganized. The British will be there, but I have no idea what each NATO country will do.

It is clear that there will be no war now. It is equally clear that this is the festering world of Europe. The borderlands will be perpetually contentious, and the balance of forces will shift over time, as they always do. Which way they will shift is, of course, less clear. But the old distrust between the U.S. and Russia remains, and that makes any lasting settlement impossible, because any settlement requires a degree of trust. The formation of the Intermarium alliance, which might include Belarus and Ukraine but which would exclude NATO and Russia, would work but won’t be tried. Everyone is waiting for the great powers, never believing that they might have other things to do with their time.