Nearly any conversation about Ukraine in recent months has become preoccupied with whether a desperate
might use a tactical nuclear weapon. That possibility, however concerning, should not deter us from staying focused on the higher stakes Mr. Putin put in motion by invading Ukraine.
Across the more than four decades of the Cold War—a struggle between the ideological opposites of Western freedom and Soviet communism—the great fear, other than nuclear war, was of a ground war between Russia and the U.S.-led forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Cold War military doctrine held that this war likely would start with a massive Russian tank invasion through Germany’s Fulda Gap.
The West, led by
Ronald Reagan
and other significant national and religious leaders, won the Cold War. No one seethed more at the Soviet Union’s defeat than Russia’s current leader, Vladimir Putin, serving then as a KGB agent in East Germany.
In February, Mr. Putin restarted his cold war against the Western victors with a tank invasion. Instead of the Fulda Gap, Mr. Putin sent a tank army to capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
No one should delude oneself, however hard some try, into thinking that Mr. Putin’s intentions were merely to reannex Ukraine and go home to live in peace with the world. After conquering Ukraine, Mr. Putin would have established a military presence on Ukraine’s western borders.
He would have begun political, economic and military pressure against countries on NATO’s eastern flank—Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary. His goal over the long term would be de facto reabsorption.
Similar pressure would be applied to the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, plus Sweden and Finland, whose quick decision to join NATO demonstrates that these countries understood immediately the broader implications of the Putin invasion.
Ukraine hasn’t figured much in the U.S. midterm elections, which are properly focused on political accountability for the highest rate of inflation experienced in most Americans’ adult lifetimes and widespread, often unchecked civil disorder. But the midterms will be succeeded quickly by politicians positioning themselves for the 2024 presidential election, and U.S. support for Ukraine is going to be an…
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