Will Your Sons and Daughters Fight in Central Europe?

Who bears the responsibility for the war in Ukraine? According to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, members of U.S. Congress, and even U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, it is the American people.

Recently, Secretary Austin told America that if Congress fails to pass another$60 billion in aid to Ukraine, it will “most likely” result in American troops fighting in Europe. The additional aid to Ukraine has been stalled by members of Congress who want assurances that our own U.S. southern border will be protected first. According to the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. has already provided Ukraine with our largest foreign assistance package in Europe since the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II.

Congress is right (and long overdue) to fight to secure our own border, yet Zelensky had the audacity to warn the American people that our “unresolved issues on Capitol Hill” inspire Putin to continue the war. How dare he? The U.S. is by far the largest donor of money and weapons to his country, and much like U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, counseling Zelensky in the wisdom of “gratitude,” told him – we are not Zelensky’s  “Amazon delivery service.”

Why should America be the main bearer of this war? As often as Mike Pence, Niki Haley, and other war hawks in D.C. ambiguously claim that Putin’s next move is to take over NATO countries, don’t believe it. Putin cannot consolidate a victory in four eastern Ukrainian provinces – how could he possibly launch an armored assault through the fabled Fulda Gap? It is preposterous.

In addition, Putin does not want to turn 31 (NATO) countries against him. One could reasonably argue his invasion of Ukraine was provoked by the threat of the expansion of NATO along his own borders. Imagine if Russian troops performed military exercises along the U.S. southern border the way NATO does along the Russian border – it would be seen as a threat to U.S. national security.

And which is it? Are Russian troops strong enough to take on all 31 countries of NATO, or has Russia been severely weakened by the Ukrainian soldiers? One cannot have it both ways. If, as I have, you’ve watched the (non-U.S.) news from Central Europe this year, you’ll see the real story – not the leftist propaganda seen in America and Western Europe. Over 400,000 Ukrainians have been killed, necessary infrastructure has been devastated, and the counteroffensive is not working. Russia spent months building a layered “defense-in-depth” system against the counteroffensive, and the large number of minefields in this system resulted in “horrific casualties” for the Ukrainians.

Last year, I spent time in the Ukrainian refugee center in Hungary and was saddened by the plight of almost six million refugees who have fled the war and devastation of their country. And this is one of the main points: We are enabling a war that will not stop until more devastation has happened and more Ukrainians are killed. Russia will not stop; it is relentless (think of the decade of destruction in Chechnya). Even now, with the death of thousands of military-age men and those who fled instead of fighting, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier is 43. In addition, western sanctions have benefited Russian coffers and China’s energy reserves, and strengthened Putin’s ties with China.

And what about Americans? The average citizen has had to pay $7,000 to $10,000 more this year to maintain the same standard of living. For many, this is the difference between having enough food, paying the light bill, and paying the monthly mortgage. Yet, Zelensky, the White House, and congressional war hawks continue to ask for unlimited funding, with no end in sight, without giving clear strategies and objectives as to what we are trying to achieve. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has made it clear we will also rebuild Ukraine after the war. The cost of that project is currently at $411 billion.

We must ask – what pushes the Biden administration’s seeming obsession to appropriate more and more billions of American taxpayer dollars, to threaten us with U.S. troops on the ground, and to enable an ongoing war with absolutely no talk of peace negations or ceasefire? Representative Paul Gosar says he has a “firm belief that the bribes paid to Joe Biden by Ukraine are the reason the United States is now engaged in a proxy war with Russia at great financial cost to Americans (over $100 billion and counting) and at great cost in lives lost of young men.”

Is that why Zelensky, who recently fired all his top defense officials for skimming money off troop ration funds (among other corruptions), whose government ranks the second most corrupt in Europe, who has nationalized the media and outlawed political opponents, is spoken of and treated like former Prime Minister Winston Churchill by the Biden administration? Zelensky, the leader of a corrupt government, is the same man who told the world he is “fighting for global democracy.” In spite of all the propaganda, Ukraine is not ready for NATO or European Union (EU) membership.

We can stand with the people of Ukraine fighting for their sovereignty. We can give money and select weapons within reason. We can offer humanitarian assistance. But the burden of this war is not America’s, and it will not be America’s burden in the future. We must secure our own national interests, first and foremost.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.