NO, THEOCONSERVATIVE:

Three big ideas from the George W. Bush years are worth salvaging. The first is that regime type matters. There is an old so-called realist theory of international relations in which world events are driven by considerations that have little to do with the type of government a country has. Countries are driven by security concerns, by economic interests, by ethnic identity, by historical conceptions of their "sphere of influence." In this realist view, to focus on values such as individual rights and promotion of democracy is a self-indulgent distraction. In place of this foolish idealism, we should pursue a kind of amoral realpolitik that seeks to craft an enduring balance of power that satisfies the competing interests of regimes of all types.

In the current case, that theory has foundered on the fact that Ukraine is not a mere bargaining chip to be traded back and forth in negotiations between larger powers. Ukraine is a country full of people who were busy making their own decisions about what kind of government they wanted to have. Regime type surely matters to them.

The roots of the current conflict go back to 2004, when Ukrainians took to the streets in a successful protest against a Kremlin puppet leader's attempt to rig the presidential election to stay in power. When that same leader later wormed his way back into power in 2014, Ukrainians rose up again to protest his attempt to draw Ukraine into an alliance with Vladimir Putin's Russia and pull it away from the European Union. Putin's subsequent invasion of Crimea and the Donbas, and his buildup to the current, larger invasion, were a response to that rejection.

Everything that led up to this war happened because Ukrainians decided they wanted one model of government, the Western model of liberal democracy, over the Putinist model of authoritarian kleptocracy. More to the point, the nature of Russia's regime also helped push it toward war. Putin viewed Ukraine as a threat precisely because it was a liberal competitor and a haven for dissidents that showed the Russian people an alternative to his corrupt rule. The desire to maintain his kleptocracy gave Putin the motive for attacking Ukraine. His authoritarianism gave him the means, allowing him to quash dissent and outlaw domestic protest against an obviously disastrous war.

Resist Authoritarian Regimes

The second Bush-era idea that we need to reclaim is the need to resist dictatorship early and often, to react to threats when they are seemingly small or remote, rather than emboldening dictators by the repeated inaction of the civilized world. This was the "forward" part of Bush's Forward Strategy of Freedom. [...]

A New Freedom Agenda

That brings us to the last big idea that recent events have vindicated: the universal appeal of freedom. When it became fashionable to dismiss George W. Bush-era foreign policy idealism, the idea that probably came in for the most mockery was Bush's confidence that, as he more recently put it, "The desire for freedom, like the dignity of the person, is universal." I don't know whether the desire for freedom is universal; there are plenty of bootlickers who serve as the willing tools of a strongman. But the need for freedom is universal, and its appeal cuts across every national and ethnic barrier.

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