On Monday, the U.S. voted against a U.N. resolution demanding that Russian forces “immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw” from Ukraine.
Even though the resolution called for a “de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities, and a peaceful resolution of the war against Ukraine,” the U.S. voted with 17 other nations, including Russia and North Korea, against it. The General Assembly resolution ultimately passed 93-18, with 65 member states abstaining (including China and Iran).
General Assembly resolutions have no actual power — as opposed to Security Council resolutions, where the U.S. and Russia hold permanent vetoes. Yet the fact that the U.S. sided with Russia against Ukraine in an international vote is still surprising.
Has the United States suddenly taken Russia’s side in its war against Ukraine?
This wasn’t the first action that makes observers wonder. “Last week, President Trump said Ukrainian President [Volodymyr] Zelensky was responsible for the conflict,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “The question we should be asking is, ‘How so?’”
Trump’s comments came in response to Ukraine’s protestations over being excluded from talks between top American diplomats and their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia.
Here it’s worth distinguishing two separate but dynamic diplomatic channels. On Monday, Regent University professor A.J. Nolte on “Washington Watch” made “a distinction here between some of the rhetoric that’s coming out and some of the proposals.” On the one hand, “a lot of the proposals about allowing for [Russian] annexation [of Ukrainian territory] have more to do with the recognition of exhaustion on both the part of the Russians and the Ukrainians than with the idea that this is a just outcome,” he said. “There’s a concern that there’s not realistically enough capacity on the Ukrainian or the Western/Allied side to allow Ukraine to retake that territory.”
“That is a pragmatic kind of realpolitik,” the view that “this is the best we can get,” he said. “Putin wanted to take the entire country, and so survival is some sort of victory. … I don’t necessarily know if I buy it, but I think that’s a reasonable position.”
But the rhetoric employed to reach that compromise is another matter entirely. Nolte expressed skepticism “that, in the course of these negotiations, we need to pretend as though Russia didn’t invade a sovereign neighbor.”
“Putin said … that Ukraine was a historical mistake,” he explained. “Now, if somebody invades your country and says your country is a historical mistake, I would think, as a good nationalist, somebody would say, ‘Well, no, you have a right to defend yourself.’”
Perkins agreed with the folly of pretending that Russia was not the aggressor. “Where the president ends up, I may be completely in agreement with,” he said, but “my concern is, in some of this rhetoric, that words matter; and, when we say certain things, that tyrants and terrorists around the world are listening to these things, and they’re taking their cues off of them.”
Indeed, even rhetoric blaming the war on Ukraine is simply recycled Russian propaganda. “President Trump may have been alluding to a line of argumentation that the Russians, as well as some scholars in academia, have made, which is that essentially the war was provoked by Ukraine taking a more Western orientation, potentially the possibility that they might join NATO, the possibility that they might join the European Union,” Nolte noted. “The argument is that, because Russia views Ukraine as part of its sphere of influence and as a buffer against the West, this was provocative.”
“It’s sort of a bizarre argument,” he judged. “What Russia is saying is, ‘Ukraine is being aggressive because they, as a sovereign country, are considering joining organizations that we, the Russians, find threatening.’”
“That argument makes a couple of assumptions, one of which is that Ukraine is not a sovereign nation,” continued Nolte. “Nationalism, at its core, is the idea that sovereign countries get to make their own decisions. And certainly, we wouldn’t want somebody else — you know, Canada, for example — having a veto on treaties that we as the United States could make.” Nolte added that “a lot of folks in Trump’s orbit” make a point of calling themselves nationalists, but they don’t seem to want to extend those principles to Ukraine.
Ultimately, this Russian propaganda can be traced back to the worldview of Vladimir Putin, who “believes wholeheartedly that the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century,” said Nolte. “So, when he sees this as aggressive, [it’s because] he sees a lot of these countries that are now sovereign, independent countries as Russian territory.”
“It’s been a justification that the Russians have made for many of their aggressive moves against their neighbors, whether it’s Ukraine, whether it’s Georgia, whether it’s making threatening noises toward the Baltics. … Who’s the antagonist in that? It’s the United States,” he continued. “That’s not supported under international law. That’s not something that anybody else believes. But it’s part of Putin's narrative of how the world is supposed to work.”
Unfortunately, Putin is able to impose his personal worldview upon others because he is the dictator of one of the world’s most powerful countries. Contrary to some American voices (who, again, are spouting Russian propaganda), the dictator in the war is Putin, not Zelensky.
“If you want pretty good evidence that Zelensky is not a dictator, look at the fact that he offered to resign this weekend, if [America] guarantees the security of [Ukraine],” Nolte suggested. “That’s not a thing that dictators do. We contrast that with Vladimir Putin, who has essentially either rigged, severely harassed, [or] intimidated any opposition. [He has] rigged elections, done everything that you would expect from a dictator, [and] unilaterally changed the Constitution so he could run for more terms.”
In short, “the guy who’s been in power since 1999 — and has a constitutional remit to stay president until 2036 — is probably the dictator,” declared Nolte.
“What is so frustrating is that, time and time again, American presidents have said, ‘You know, maybe we’re to blame. Maybe we’re the reason that we just can’t have better relationships with Putin.’” Every president of this century has tried to thaw relations with Putin, he said, but “every single time one of those American presidents has done that, Putin has responded with some form of aggression against his neighbors.”
“If given any opportunity to take more [territory], [Putin] has done that in the past. You could look at Georgia in 2008. You could look at Ukraine in 2014,” said Nolte. “It doesn’t seem like he has really had any respect for any past peace agreement,” so he shouldn’t be trusted now.
“In many ways, President Trump is very innovative in terms of foreign policy. He likes to think outside the box. But his rhetoric about Russia and Ukraine is essentially doing the same thing that every administration has tried with Putin in the past and expecting a different result,” Nolte concluded. “The first Trump administration was very good, very tough on Russia in terms of policy. And I would encourage President Trump to look back at the successes vis-a-vis Russia of his first administration and take that posture, and not the failures of Obama and Biden.”
“A tough line with Putin now is probably going to get you a better outcome than a more conciliatory approach, particularly given that, [for] every administration that’s tried conciliation with Putin in the past, it hasn’t worked,” Nolte pointed out. “A good deal would require some sort of guarantees for Ukraine that would protect its national sovereignty and its right to exist as a nation — guarantees that would be provided by the U.S. and our allies. … But ultimately a good deal, right now, I think is going to be very hard to find.”
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared here.
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