Why Is Strength a Good Deterrent to Invasion or Attack?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday comes from President George Washington: “To be prepared for war is the most effectual means of preserving the peace.” Part of being prepared for war is having a Commander-in-Chief who will make the tough decisions. When there is a weak President of the United States, other nations take advantage of the weakness. The Ukraine-Russia war is one example of how a weak President in the Oval Office invites aggression.

Victor Davis Hanson shared his opinion as to why Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. 

So, why did Russian President Vladimir Putin invade? Why did he invade Ukraine?

Well, he invaded Ukraine because of two reasons. One, there was no deterrence. He had invaded Ossetia in 2008 during the weakened lame-duck Bush administration and Georgia. In 2014, he felt that President Barck Obama, especially after the hot mic exchange in Seoul, South Korea, in 2012, wouldn’t do anything. And he was right. So, he took Crimea and he took the Donbas.

And then in 2022, on Feb. 24, he invaded again. Why? Because there was still that lack of deterrence. President Joe Biden said his reaction would depend on whether it was a major or minor invasion. He’d been very weak on hacking. He said, if you’re gonna hack, do not hack particular humanitarian sites. So, Putin, again, correctly thought that the United States and the West in general would not attack.

Putin’s invasions are but one type of example of how foreign nations take advantage when Americans elect a weak president. Another illustration of this principle is the Iran Hostage Crisis. Gregory L. Schneider shared the following information. 

On November 4, 1979, militant Islamic fundamentalist Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran and took hostage the 66 Americans inside. For the next 444 days, until January 20, 1981, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president, the hostages’ captivity dominated the news, reminding Americans every day of their nation’s limited ability to do anything to free them. The crisis paralyzed the administration of President Jimmy Carter, who was unable to secure their release. He was already unpopular and perceived as weak because of the inflation that plagued the economy and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The hostages’ plight sealed his political fate and helped ensure the election of Ronald Reagan.

The war in Ukraine and the Iran Hostage Crisis have several things in common: (1) A Democrat was in the Oval Office in both situations. (2) The POTUS was weak and presented a weakened stature to the world. (3) Americans elected a Republican as POTUS to clean up the mess.

Iran released the hostages minutes after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Although Iranians were perfectly content to use the hostages during the Carter years, they were not willing to take chances with Reagan.

Although Putin has still not ended the war with Ukraine, Russia has been weakened in the eyes of the other nations. Sanctions from the United States and other nations are weakening Russia financially. Victor Davis Hanson answered the question as to why Russia continues to fight.

This has been going on for four years. We don’t know what the dead, wounded, and missing – that is, the total casualties – are. It could be over 1.5 million. Russia may have lost a million dead and wounded alone.

So, why is he doing this? He’s doing this because he feels that there is a magical DMZ line somewhere where the battlefront is today that he has to get beyond. Because if he

doesn’t  -- and every dictator doesn’t have sole power, he has to report to certain constituencies, public opinion. But in Putin’s case, the Russian military and the Russian oligarchic class.

And if he says to them, “I lost 1.2, 1.3 million Russians, wounded or dead. I destroyed the reputations of the Russian military, and I crashed the Russian economy. And all I got was 60 or 70 miles westward of where we were before February 24, 2022,” that’s not enough. So, he’s trying to push westward.

Most of the peace negotiations and the outlines are clear. We all know what they are. Putin can tell the Russians, his constituencies, “I institutionalized my theft of Crimea and Donbas. I moved westward somewhat. I ensured that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians would not be in NATO.”

And Zelenskyy is going to say, “I’m a hero. He wanted the whole country. He only got 10% more than he did when he invaded in 2022. We stopped him, and we’re gonna be in the EU. We may not be in NATO, but we stopped him, and he suffered four times the amount of casualties that we did.”

So, they each think they can win.

And what is the dispute left about?

Ukraine’s not gonna be in NATO. Putin knows that. All it is, where is the DMZ? Does Putin get to push areas westward that Ukraine, Ukrainians are currently in and fighting successfully and he can’t dislodge, or not? So, that’s what the dispute is over, and the security guarantees.

If Ukraine is not in NATO, how can it defend the next invasion from Russia? Well, it’s the greatest military in Europe right now. It’s battle-hardened. It’s got a huge army. It’s well supplied. Will that continue? Will the EU or NATO continue to arm it? Will the United States back them up in extremis?

That’s all. That’s the only two issues: security guarantees and where we draw the DMZ line.

President Donald Trump thought that he could negotiate an end to the Ukraine-Russia war on his first day back in office, and he has admitted that the task is more difficult than he expected. However, he has a right to his claim that Russia did not invade while Trump was in the Oval Office.

Like Iran’s release of hostages when Ronald Reagan became POTUS, Putin acts differently with Trump than he did with former President Joe Biden. If any American president can end the war, Trump will be the one. However, Putin is still trying to push further into Ukraine before the DMZ is drawn.

We have a strong Commander-in-Chief leading our military today. His willingness to “pull the trigger” was shown in the way that bombs were dropped on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It is also shown in Trump’s orders to take out all the boats carrying narcotics from Venezuela. He has shown patience in the Ukraine-Russia situation, but he will act when an action is required.