The Conservative View of Ukraine

SBINSIDER NEWS\OPINION| March 2nd, 2025

Many conservatives are confused as to what action President Trump should take towards the war in Ukraine. Most conservatives are torn between being wary of foreign entanglements, following George Washington’s admonition in his farewell address and more recently with the fiasco that ensued under President Bush in Iraq.

A bit of context may sort this out. The Kiev area was invaded via the Dnieper River by Vikings around 870 AD. At that time the dominate tribe was Kievan Rus. In time, the tribe grew until being invaded and destroyed by the Mongols. Over the many centuries, the Russians revanche occurred.  KGB agent Putin still regards Kiev and the Ukraine area as the heart of Mother Russia, so the breakup of the Soviet Union to him was a major catastrophe to be repaired. Ukraine become a totally separate country in 1994 and handed over its nuclear stockpile in return for security guarantees by the West to Russia-the US, Britain will not move NATO further East if you allow Germany to be reunited. Gorbachev agreed.

Putin comes to power in 1999 as Prime Minister then elected is President.  He has effectively consolidated his position to become a dictator from the mid 2000’s.

Once Putin was firmly in control, he launched his plans to recapture the western border countries lost in 1989, thus his taking of Crimea (2014) under Obama and now the full invasion of the Donbas area of Ukraine. If allowed to continue, his scheme involves the taking of the Baltic counties, Eastern Poland and areas near Turkey-possible land invasion routes. But the fierce resistance by the Ukrainians with Western help (we had a multitude of CIA stations there before the invasion) proved to everyone that the Russian army was ineffective against determined and well funded resistance. President Biden’s policy was an open checkbook and pledged to stay in “as long as it takes”. Had Harris been elected, that policy would have continued.

The video is RFK’s short take on the pretext for the Russian invasion:

President Trump has taken the stance that the US has financial problems of its own and as evidenced by a a reluctant GOP Congress to vote for more funding and has now put a peace agreement on that table for our support to continue. The meeting this week with Zelensky, which amazingly become reality TV, may not be all that it seems-it is possible the event was staged to make Putin think he has an opening.

So, the question for conservatives and the American citizens is: Does anyone believe that Ukraine can drive the Russians out of the Donbas and Crimea with the current forces? Secondly, is the US Military going to be sent to Ukraine to tip the balance against Russia? Of course not. Russia has lost 500K to casualties but could continue to grind out a WW I style, trench to trench ground attack for years. Ukraine cannot match the ground forces.

Conservative foreign policy since WW II has to been to contain communism emanating from Russia and China in small wars (Korea, Vietnam, Central America) without escalating to a nuclear exchange. (General McCarthy was in favor of using nukes on North Korea and China.) Today, Vietnam is not a vassal of China or Russia, but North Korea remains hostile to the US. So, Ukraine is unique. It is driven by Putin’s pre-1989 fantasy worldview and the ancient ethnic tribal divisions brought into our modern age.

Accepting that Ukraine will likely remained divided, conservatives should leverage Ukraine (as Trump is doing) into a peace deal with current borders and immediately began assisting in rebuilding efforts.  The Trump proposed mineral rights deal would help the US pay for the rebuilding and put many Americans on the ground, deterring Putin from continued land attacks.

We predict that Zelensky will come to the same conclusion and very reluctantly, sign the mineral deal. Putin will agree to stay put-for now. No matter what Putin does he is ruling a dying country with an imploding population that has a dictator at top and many nuclear weapons.

Let’s bide our time and not give him a reason to use them.