Ukraine

I appreciate Michael McKoy’s recent “What Does Pacifism Have to Say About Ukraine?” But I remain unimpressed by the pacifist view.

Pacifism argues that the only means of breaking the cycles of violence is to recognize the short-term and long-term devastation of war, examine the decisions and dynamics that perpetuate these cycles, and make the tough decisions necessary to reject violence and ensure peace.

Should Washington become a party to a peace settlement for the Russia-Ukraine War, it should be prepared to defend Ukraine against inevitable Kremlin pressure to forcibly repatriate Russian prisoners of war.

As the Russia-Ukraine War continues, is World War III inevitable—or has a new kind of world war already begun?

John F. Kennedy never flinched, but he showed his mettle during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was his finest hour. Will this one be ours?

From this moral realism, it is justified to strive for a balance of power to realize a little more justice or a little less injustice.

Xi understands well that if Putin’s regime falls, China will lose an important bulwark.

If order is the attainable and justice the possible, then (re)conciliation is the desirable. Conciliation is future-focused in that it sees former enemies as partners in a shared future.

The West is not responsible for Putin’s war. But Western democracies are responsible for whether they live by the values that set them apart from the values that animate Putin’s imperial fantasy, and for whether they defend those values against attack.