The case for arming Ukraine

Perhaps most concerning of all, Dougherty appears to believe that backing Ukraine — a country he chauvinistically refers to as “not a particularly admirable state,” as if battling Russian-backed secessionists to a stalemate and effectively neutering Russia’s attempts at a Eurasian Union weren’t admirable accomplishments — with anti-tank weaponry is simply about “get[ting] Vladimir Putin’s goat,” whatever that may mean. It’s almost as if he views the maintenance of the post-Cold War order as a secondary concern.

Just like the current sanctions regime, which signals a Western unity in the face of Russian revanchism, the delivery of anti-tank weaponry to Kiev would signal America’s commitment to the post-Cold War European order and its international norms, which Moscow continues to threaten. After all, governments in Belarus and Kazakhstan — both, like Ukraine, signees to the Budapest Memorandum, in which they agreed to sacrifice their nuclear arsenals in return for assurances of territorial integrity — continue to eye Russia warily, even as they worry about whether the U.S. will live up to commitments Moscow has chosen to abrogate. Should the U.S. falter, its standing in the post-Soviet space, and elsewhere, will be further diminished.