Western officials may have genuinely believed these actions posed no threat to Russia and might even benefit Russia over the longer term; the problem was that Russia’s leaders didn’t see it that way. Yet U.S. and Western policymakers naively assumed that Putin wouldn’t react even as the status quo kept shifting in ways that he and his advisors found alarming. The world thought democratic countries were benignly expanding the rules-based order and creating a vast zone of peace, but the result was just the opposite. Putin should be condemned for being paranoid, overconfident, and heartless, but Western policymakers should be faulted for being arrogant, naive, and cavalier.

Third, the war has been a disaster for Ukrainians, but supporters of U.S. liberal hegemony—especially the more hawkish elements of the foreign-policy “Blob”—have gotten some of their mojo back. If Western support enables Ukraine to defeat an invading army and humiliate a dangerous dictator, then the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and the Balkans can be swept into the memory hole and the campaign to expand the U.S-led liberal order will get a new lease on life. No wonder the Blob is so eager to put Ukraine in the victory column.

This same desire to put past failures in the rearview mirror dovetails perfectly with the ongoing effort to marginalize advocates of foreign-policy restraint. Although restrainers remain a tiny minority within Washington, they had been gaining some degree of traction before the war broke out. Given the foreign-policy failures of the past 30 years and the incoherent chaos of the Trump era, this development is hardly surprising. Although prominent restrainers have repeatedly criticized Russia’s actions and endorsed Western support for Ukraine since the war began, they have also warned of the risks of escalation, emphasized the need for more flexible diplomacy, and reminded people that incautious efforts to spread liberal ideals helped cause this tragedy. For die-hard proponents of liberal hegemony, however, such views are anathema and must be discredited, and the active use of U.S. power on a global scale must be rehabilitated and redeemed.

 

Compared to the suffering of Ukrainians (and millions of other people around the world), of course, quarrels among foreign-policy cognoscenti are not that important. Who cares if hard-liners in the United States engage in hyperbolic attacks on those with whom they disagree or if the targets of their ire fire back in their turn? The participants in these exchanges all lead enviably comfortable lives, and one’s egos can surely tolerate a certain amount of abuse. Does any of this inside-baseball stuff really matter?

It does because the Biden administration could find itself in an awkward position in the months or years ahead. On the one hand, it is publicly committed to winning the war and hopes U.S. soldiers aren’t involved in combat, but the entire national security establishment is helping Ukraine in lots of ways. On the other hand, the administration also seems mindful of the risks of escalation, does not want to get into a shooting war with Russia, and some U.S. officials apparently believe that a total Ukrainian victory is unlikely and that eventually there will have to be a deal.

Here’s the rub: What if the war does end in a messy and disappointing compromise instead of the happy Hollywood ending most of the world would like to see? Despite the welcome progress Ukraine has made in recent months, such an unsatisfying outcome may still be the most likely result. If Russia still controls substantial amounts of Ukrainian territory a year from now, Ukraine has suffered additional damage in the interim, Putin still rules in Moscow despite the harm his war has done to Russia, and the United States’ European allies have had to absorb another influx of refugees and endure difficult Ukraine-related economic hardships, then it will be increasingly difficult for the Biden administration to spin this war as a success story. The finger-pointing, blame-casting, and blame-avoidance will then make today’s rancorous debate seem mild by comparison.

Unfortunately, these are the sort of political circumstances that lead presidents to keep distant wars going. Even if there’s no plausible path to victory, the desire to avoid being accused of not having done enough tempts them to escalate in some way or kick the can down the road. (In case you’ve forgotten, that’s pretty much how the United States ended up in Afghanistan for nearly two decades.) U.S. President Joe Biden and his team haven’t given themselves a lot of wiggle room, and their freedom of action is further reduced when any hint of less-than-total support for Kyiv generates a firestorm of hawkish denunciations. If the world is forced to choose the lesser evil from a set of bad choices, a more civil and less accusatory discourse would make it easier for policymakers to consider a wider range of alternatives as well as make it more likely that Ukraine and the coalition that is presently supporting it make the right call.