Let us begin with a point of agreement: sending more money to Ukraine is not exactly a popular proposition among conservatives today. How could it be? The United States, it is rightly observed, seems never to have enough for its own people. We cannot secure our own borders, provide affordable healthcare, or reasonably priced college tuitions, we have a homeless problem in every major city, we can’t prosecute crimes with nearly the vigor we should due to lack of resources, and we sure can’t deliver the elusive “small government” so often promised. And yet, when a foreign crisis arises, a veritable geyser of funds magically materializes, like manna from heaven. Now along comes the heretofore unknown Volodymyr Zelensky, clad not in the dignity of statesmanship but in combat fatigues and hoodie chic, rattling his proverbial tin cup and demanding tribute as if America were his personal ATM. There is much in this tableau to offend even the casual observer, and one can scarcely fault the instinctive skepticism, to say nothing of foreign aid fatigue, of the American taxpayer.
But to allow this skepticism to govern us entirely would be shortsighted, even dangerous. Conservatives should support Ukraine’s defense for reasons that are neither sentimental nor idealistic, but firmly rooted in realism, responsibility, and enlightened self-interest.
First, there is the matter of honor. In 1994, Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal — it had inherited the third largest such arsenal in the world when the Soviet Union collapsed — on the strength of promises made in the Budapest Memorandum. The United States, alongside Britain and Russia, assured Ukraine of its territorial integrity. Those nuclear weapons were Ukraine’s ultimate insurance policy against invasion, and their forfeiture was a profound act of trust. When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and launched its full-scale war in 2022, it was not merely testing Ukraine’s resolve—it was testing ours. If we fail to honor our commitments, how can any nation ever trust America again? Promises made but not kept are worse than promises never made at all.
Second, we must confront a fallacy that has crept into the conservative mind: the notion that the United States can simply withdraw from the world stage without consequence. “Let Europe solve Europe’s problems,” goes the refrain. Such a sentiment may be comforting but is utterly delusional. Power abhors a vacuum. If America does not shape global affairs, someone else will, and that someone is unlikely to share our values. The Chinese Communist Party, for example, has made no secret of its ambitions to supplant the United States as the world’s preeminent power, and Russia dreams of the glory days of the Soviet Empire, when the world trembled at their every whim. This is not a theoretical risk but an observable trajectory.
What happens when America recedes from the throne of global dominance? We recede quickly from the standard of living to which we’ve become accustomed. The benefits of American primacy are as vast as they are consequential. As the arbiter of global finance, with the dollar enthroned as the world’s reserve currency, the United States enjoys an economic leverage unmatched in history, its markets the axis of global trade and its industries dictating the tempo of innovation. Militarily, it wields the unique ability to project power anywhere on Earth, ensuring not just its own security but the fragile balance of alliances and peace across regions prone to chaos. American culture, that protean juggernaut, permeates borders with its seductive promises of freedom, creativity, and progress, shaping global aspirations in its own image. Diplomatically, Washington commands a gravitas that few can rival, orchestrating international agendas and anchoring the lofty ideals of liberty and human rights within the frameworks of institutions it often helped create, and to our own benefit. But should this supremacy falter — and falter it will if that’s what we choose — the consequences would be dire. The dollar could lose its crown, plunging America into economic uncertainty and ceding the financial stage to rising autocracies. The vacuum of power left behind would invite less scrupulous contenders, with Beijing’s cold authoritarianism and Moscow’s kleptomania ready to impose darker paradigms. The alliances painstakingly built over decades could unravel, leaving the world to flirt with chaos and the United States to reckon with a diminished voice in the concert of nations. To relinquish the mantle of superpower is not simply to step aside; it is to invite instability, embolden adversaries, and risk the erosion of those values that — while imperfectly upheld —have still proven to be the most universally admired.
If we are truly conservatives, we should want to conserve all that has made us the greatest nation on the planet and all that has provided us, and not relinquish it so insouciantly. We cannot simply be one of many and hope to preserve all we have fought for. To be the best and to have the most means we have to do the most or we will falter.
Conservatives often deride the left for its naïve faith in “global brotherhood,” believing nations act out of mutual affection, when, in fact, nations act out of realpolitik, self-interest. That’s as true for our allies as enemies. But conservatives, too, fall prey to our own brand of naïveté: the belief that America’s supremacy is an immutable fact of nature, rather than a mutable status that needs to be conserved with vigilance, sacrifice, and, yes, strategic investment; and that abandoning it would have no material effect on our lives. Greatness is not an entitlement; it is a responsibility. If we relinquish that responsibility, we will discover that it was better to dominate than be dominated.
Supporting Ukraine’s defense is not an act of charity; it is an investment in our own national interest. What conservative would deny the obvious national interest in preventing the resurrection of the Soviet Union, an ambition that is fairly plain to see? The Ukrainians are fighting not just for themselves, they’re fighting for us too, and they not asking us to send American troops to fight with them. All they ask of us is the means to do so effectively. Compared to the fiascoes of Vietnam and Iraq, this is a rare and refreshing alignment: a nation willing to defend itself against an aggressor whose ambitions directly threaten global stability and, indirectly, our own way of life, perhaps not now, but soon enough.
The stakes are not confined to the borders of Ukraine. Allowing Russia to succeed would embolden foes everywhere. If Putin succeeds in carving up Ukraine, Xi Jinping will be watching—and taking notes. The invasion of Taiwan would no longer be a question of if, but when. What then? Would we again retreat into isolationism, leaving our allies to fend for themselves, while our enemies, who have vowed to knock us off our pedestal, become more powerful as we stand idly by? Or would we awaken too late, scrambling to counter a newly emboldened Sino-Russian axis whose power rivals, or even exceeds our own?
To abandon Ukraine is to abandon ourselves. It is to abdicate the hard-earned privileges of leadership and the benefits that come along with it, to shrink from the responsibilities that come with our status as a superpower, and to gamble with the future prosperity and security of the United States. I happen to like a world where we are the only superpower, and recoil at the thought of our preeminence challenged and exceeded.
I do not suggest that we should place Ukranian priorities above our own. Rather, I suggest that the defense of Ukraine is a defense of those priorities. By supporting Ukraine, we are not only helping a free people resist tyranny but also safeguarding the global order that underpins our own prosperity. Yes, it is costly. But the cost of inaction — of surrendering the stage to authoritarian powers — will be far greater.
Let us not, in our desire to avoid foreign entanglements and prioritize a domestic agenda, entangle ourselves in a future of diminished influence, compromised security, and national decline. Conservatives, of all people, should understand the wisdom of preserving what we have built. And if that means writing another check to Kyiv, then so be it.
