George Packer on the "Restrainers"

In the Atlantic, George Packer takes on the "restrainers" who think the most important thing in the world is for the US to stop fighting wars:

Beneath the restrainers’ views lies a shared hostility to what they often call “liberal elites”—the policy makers and plugged-in experts and pundits who never listened, and whom they despise for continuing to see America as a benevolent power. How could anyone still believe that fairy tale? For restrainers on the right, liberal zeal threatens national sovereignty and traditional values around the world and at home. For those on the left, democracy is the pretty lie that hides the brutality of capitalism and imperialism. These views are at bottom antithetical: The right wants more national power without international rules, and the left wants the nation-state to disappear. But the two sides have made a temporary marriage at what they see as liberalism’s sickbed.

With the withdrawal last year of the final troops from Kabul, restraint appeared to have won an uncontested victory. It lasted six months.

Because Russia invaded Ukraine. This has led some people to change their minds and begin supporting Ukraine, and NATO aid for its defense. But many have not budged, and still maintain that US aggression is the world's biggest danger. Some of these folks seem to think both that the war in Ukraine is America's fault and that the best thing for everyone would be for Ukraine to lose gracefully:

This restraint is not a hard-won prudence in the face of tragic facts. It’s a doctrinaire refusal, by people living in the safety and comfort of the West, to believe in liberal values that depend on American support. The restrainers can’t accept that politics leaves no one clean, and that the most probable alternative to U.S. hegemony is not international peace and justice but worse hegemons. They can’t face the reality that force never disappears from the world; it simply changes hands.

Meanwhile, the war has reduced their position to rubble. U.S. intelligence turned out to be accurate. Putin has rejected any serious negotiations, both before invading and since. His purpose is not to neutralize or “liberate” Ukraine, but to annihilate it for the dream of Greater Russia. Occupying troops have committed atrocities on an unimagined scale. NATO weapons have allowed Ukrainians to defend themselves and eventually regain lost territory in a conflict they understand to be a fight for survival. European support has not disintegrated under Russian blackmail. American leadership has proved decisive in holding the West together in defense of collective security and democratic values. The war is about freedom. Russia is likely to lose. . . .

Russia’s war has demonstrated that a decent world isn’t possible without liberalism, and liberalism can’t thrive without U.S. engagement. Ukraine shows one way for America to use its power on behalf of freedom: Instead of sending troops to fight and die for democratic illusions in inhospitable countries, send arms to help an actual democracy repel a foreign invader. No U.S. troops, no meddling in civil wars, no nation building, no going it alone. Collaborate closely with allies and take measures to avoid catastrophe. Call it the Biden doctrine—it’s been remarkably successful.

I am not much on general principles, or doctrines. I supported US withdrawal from Afghanistan, thinking we had tried to fight that war for far too long. But I support US assistance to Ukraine, because the stakes seem so clear and vital.

As to these people who seem to think that all cases are the same, so the root of the problem is always the same, and the solution is always the same, what is one to do with them?