Cutting Oil Imports Will Help: But There is Far More to do to Help Ukraine
Americans will soon be paying astronomical prices at gas pumps, and for heating oil. And complaining. The Democratic Party may suffer badly at the polls in November in consequence. But higher charges for petroleum products constitute a minor burden compared to the immense human and infrastructural losses that Ukraine is enduring on our behalf. President Biden should articulate that case to the American people. Europe has accepted millions of refugees. If only our sacrifice could spare lives and pain.
This is our existential battle as well as Europe’s. Our national security is harmed when bullies overturn accepted international norms and willy-nilly conquer a weaker neighbor. By refusing to engage Russia in the air or cooperate with Europe in halting Russian advances on the ground, we avoid the possibility of a wider nuclear war for at least some months, but make it likely that Putin will escalate his ambitions and embroil us in a broader combat later. Lasting peace will only come by forcefully resisting Putin’s aggrandizements.
Attempting to limit Russian income from oil and gas sales is the very least the West can do. Fortunately, despite those higher prices at the pump, North Americans can do so with ease, especially compared to the European countries that collectively rely on Russian oil and natural gas for 40 percent of their energy resources. Higher spring natural temperatures will reduce natural gas demand in Europe, but doing with less refined petroleum will make driving both more expensive and scarce. Furthermore, for electric power German will have to keep its nuclear reactors running (instead of phasing then out as planned this year) and will have to continue burning lignite and other polluting and carbon rich fossil fuels. Wind and solar power cannot do enough now.
Standards of living will fall. European life will become markedly less comfortable. Factories may have to shut because of power shortages. These and many other sacrifices will have to be made so long as fears of a nuclear holocaust prevent President Biden from countering might with right. Just last night, alarmed that sending Polish MIG-29 fighter jets into combat in Ukraine from an American base in Germany would widen the war dangerously, the U. S. refused to let the Poles transfer the aircraft to valiant Ukraine, which desperately needs them.
This holding back will lead to greater destruction and death in Ukraine. It also lets Putin operate his war with too much freedom. It lets him dictate the nature of the war. Sanctions will eventually humble Russia, as will cutting off profits from oil and gas. But by the time sanctions are working fully, and by the time the loss of Starbucks, Macdonalds, Coca Cola, and Ikea are fully apparent, Putin will have captured or at least wrecked Ukraine.
We must raise the costs to Putin personally. That means finding several ways to help Ukraine from succumbing. Hence the MIG-29s and other war materiel that are needed. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s so called lend-lease equipment and supply transfers kept Europe from swiftly losing to Hitler. We should warn Putin about reverting to nuclear arms and ready ourselves for effective responses. Until now, except for the unexpectedly vigorous Ukrainian defense of their motherland, and sanctions, Putin has had to bear too little pain and his generals too little danger.
Many may view the destruction and mayhem that Russia’s Putin has unleashed as “over there,” and not immediately relevant to the fate of these United States and all Americans. In fact, by standing up so well to the despotic depredations of Putin’s attacks, the Ukrainians are helping to protect freedom in Europe and the world. With too limited backing from NATO, Europe, the United States, and other democratic countries, Ukraine almost alone is protecting the immense gains in global security and the sanctity of order in world affairs that were made by the United States and its allies after defeating Hitler’s Germany in 1945.
Putin now wants to collapse the concord that was achieved after the defeat of Hitler. Russia is only the eleventh largest economy in the world and growing weaker as its people age and shrink in relative number. Putin refuses to recognize his vast nation’s diminished importance and reduced significance in the planetary pecking order. Shorn of the Soviet Union’s significance and cognizant of Russia’s resulting reduced stature, Putin has chosen militarily to reassert himself and Russia before it is too late. Narcissistic injury obviously motivates. But so does a callous calculation that a weakened United States (thanks to Trumpian fallout and polarizing mischief) will not stand strong. It let Putin assert Russia in Georgia in 2008 and in Crimea and the eastern Ukraine in 2014. We failed then to hold him to account, and refuse to draw a red line now.
Let’s stand up to Putin. More sanctions, more separation of oligarchs from their assets (yachts, aircraft, bank accounts in Cyprus, mansions in London), and more pursuit of Russian corruption everywhere. But let’s put aircraft in the air, too, and call Putin’s bluff.