We’ve all heard about the anti-war movement that washed over America in the 60s and 70s. The fiercest opponents of the Vietnam War were generally left-wing, usually motivated by either a belief in pacifism or by a disinterest in fighting in the name of capitalism. Others also argued that political change in Asia was simply not America’s business, and that we lacked a deep enough understanding of the region to justify military involvement. Overall, it was the exact opposite of what we’re seeing today with the discourse on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here, it is not the left but the right who slander the other side as “pro-war.” They claim that Ukraine’s war has been worsened and prolonged by its supposed supporters, as equipping Ukrainians with the means to resist more effectively has drawn out and escalated the conflict. Of course, they also argue that the recent events on Russia’s border are none of our business. While only a handful of conservatives have dared to go so far as overtly endorsing the Russians, many have made excuses to turn a blind eye, predominantly by undermining the notion that Ukraine deserves support.
In short, the current political situation is strangely misaligned from what you might expect based on events of the past. Accordingly, I want to explore whether it’s reasonable to call support for Ukraine “pro-war,” and why the politics of this conflict have become so different from those of the Vietnam War.
First, today’s application of the “pro-war” label feels strange because this war would still have happened if the US had not committed to arming Ukraine. Siding with the Ukrainians is not an alternative to peace, but rather an alternative to rewarding the Russians, who are objectively the aggressors. If we go down the rabbit hole of which factors led to the war, some would argue that the expansion of NATO indirectly forced Putin’s hand (therefore making Western aggression to blame), but regardless of why, Russia decided to fire the first shot, not Ukraine. Surely a group that truly wanted war would be the side initiating it.
Further, Ukraine has uniquely defensive goals — unlike Russia, it seeks to defend its borders, not expand them. Even in the effectively unimaginable scenario where the war ends with Ukrainian control of currently Russian-occupied Crimea, this would be to reclaim illegally annexed territory, rather than to satisfy a desire for conquest against their neighbor. This distinction in the two nations’ ambitions emphasizes whose choices have led to the current situation. If the Russian military had retreated on the first day, these counties would have coexisted as they had before. If the Ukrainian military had retreated, their entire nation would have been swallowed by an authoritarian empire. Russia is the only voluntary participant in this war — Ukraine simply has no other option.
The next reason why the term “pro-war” is inappropriate for Ukraine is the issue that current circumstances make the luxury of remaining neutral an impossibility. Three aspects of the conflict make true neutrality unachievable for the US: the war will happen regardless of whether the US provides aid; we are a superpower with the means to influence the outcome of the war; there would be an undeniable imbalance of power between the two actors without third-party involvement. If our policy toward Ukraine could have prevented the invasion in the first place, or if we weren’t strong enough to stop Russia, or if Ukraine had a realistic chance of defending its territory without foreign support, then neutrality would be on the table. But that isn’t the world we live in. Unfortunately, in our case, inaction is just as influential as intervention — refusing to get involved is not the same as refusing to pick a side.
If someone was assaulted in front of you and you did nothing, your failure to act would have directly contributed to the victim’s suffering. Even though you didn’t actively assist the criminal, and maybe even hoped that the victim would end up alright, you would still be partially responsible. Silently watching a crime occur when you have the means to act is not neutrality, it’s complicity with the perpetrator. When it comes to aid for Ukraine, so-called neutrality (the supposedly “anti-war” option) would be no different from allowing the Russians to take over. Siding with Putin is not limited to actively supporting his invasion, it also includes a lack of effort to oppose it. The US only has two options, not three: stand by Ukraine, or abandon it.
This brings us to the differences in the politics of the war in Ukraine and the Vietnam War. The same problem with neutrality was also true in the 1960s and 1970s, in that without pushback from the West, Warsaw Pact forces would conquer non-communist countries that lacked the protection of NATO membership. Additionally, the side against US involvement in Vietnam described those who disagreed as “pro-war.” This raises the question of whether isolationism aligns with anti-war beliefs today as much as it did during Vietnam. The right and left seemingly flipping their appetites for overseas intervention should be an indication that there is a crucial contextual difference between these two wars: the US has only made material and economic sacrifices for the Ukrainian cause. Unlike Vietnam, no American soldiers have died on the battlefield (let alone after being drafted).
The activists who protested the Vietnam War argued that it was wrong for the US to fight on behalf of other nations, which is not what’s happening in Eastern Europe – we’re answering the pleas of a country by enabling it to defend itself at the cost of its own soldiers. Further, when critics of support for Ukraine say that our policies increase the number of Ukrainian lives lost to the conflict, these claims differ from the argument that the number of innocent deaths caused by the Vietnam War warranted withdrawal because Kiev has agency. Ukraine has the final word on whether to send more troops to the frontline, and they should be the ones making that decision because it’s their homeland at stake. They believe that it’s still worth it, so they’re choosing to continue the fight. This is in stark contrast to the US independently concluding that it should take the situation in Vietnam into its own hands.
Then come the other excuses from opponents of Ukraine. A prominent display of these narratives comes from the extraordinarily famous news anchor who’s done more to serve Putin’s imperialist ambitions than any other American public figure, and even went so far as to interview him in February: Tucker Carlson. Recall January 20th of 2022, when the Russian invasion loomed, and Tucker had not yet been fired from Fox for pushing a voter-fraud conspiracy that lost the company millions in lawsuits. He began his segment with a misleading effort to downplay the relevance of Ukraine: “Ukraine is a pretty small country, really… it’s got a population about the size of the state of California. So is it huge and significant? Not really.” Less-informed viewers might have overlooked that he was describing the second largest nation on the European continent, and that he was equating its population size to the single most populated state in the US.
Tucker went on to say that intervening against Russian aggression “serves no American interests whatsoever,” asking why the US would “even consider risking American lives or spending billions of dollars to stop it.” This represents textbook rhetoric for isolationism, which is a euphemism for doing nothing while the rest of the world falls apart, as long as the problems aren’t within our borders. Proponents of isolationism seem to believe that there is no pragmatic argument justifying support for Ukraine, that this entire movement is just thoughtless parroting of what detached elites have told us to believe. This conclusion is complete nonsense.
The first way that the US benefits from sending aid is the signal that it sends to the international stage. The extent to which we support Ukraine is being carefully watched by other enemies of the US with desires to invade their neighbors, particularly the Chinese government. Indirect involvement today could help save American lives from direct involvement against China (or Serbia, Venezuela, or Iran) later. Next, Ukraine’s status as the third-largest grain producer on Earth, and its control of the most significant ports in the Black Sea, make the nation economically and strategically important. Finally, arming the Ukrainians has allowed us to brutally degrade the Russian military and deplete its resources. Properly depicting the irreparable damage that Putin has dealt to his country deserves an entire article, as the scale is almost unimaginable. If it isn’t obvious what the US intrinsically gains from this, allow me to remind you why Russia is not our friend.
Since Putin entered office, he’s not only used Russia’s power against our interests, but also to cause shocking human rights violations in the Global South. The Russians unraveled our progress working with the Kurds in Syria. They allowed the Saudis to continue a campaign in Yemen after it grew so bloody that we tried to pull the plug. They’ve intentionally worsened instability across Africa through Wagner mercenaries and arms sales, partially to cause a migrant crisis into Western Europe and partially to extract resources. Every soldier, vehicle, and artillery shell that Russia loses on the Ukrainian battlefield is one less that Putin’s imperialist regime can use against American goals elsewhere in the world. We should continue supporting the Ukrainians, not because doing so is “pro-war,” but because opposing Russia is an extension of supporting the US.
Alex Lee ‘25 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at alex.b.lee@wustl.edu.