Yahoo Finance Why Americans should care about a hostile Russia and China
It’s scary and easy to tune out. Russia is leaving a key nuclear weapons treaty and making apocalyptic threats. China may be planning to leave the sidelines and start backing Russia’s war in Ukraine. This comes as US-China relations are deteriorating and China’s militancy is generating a US-led military buildup in Asia.
Opportunistic Republicans detect complexity overload among voters and think they can damage President Biden by promoting isolationism. “Biden puts Ukraine before America,” former President Donald Trump declared in a February 21 fundraising email. Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, a likely 2024 presidential contender, recently quipped that Biden should focus more on U.S. border problems and less on European borders, as if it’s one or the other.
A faction of House Republicans wants to end all U.S. aid to Ukraine, essentially acquiescing to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s imperial desires. Fox News fabulist Tucker Carlson tells his audience Biden’s support for Ukraine is the main reason Russia and China are growing closer.
This is sophistry, and not even good sophistry. Detaching from problems in Europe and Asia and ceding power to the regional hegemons Russia and China would be an epic mistake. It’s understandable that Americans may grow weary of foreign commitments that don’t have an obvious connection to living standards at home. And there should be sober oversight of U.S. taxpayer funds committed abroad. But the alternative to American involvement in foreign messes would be a lot worse than pulling out, including the stakes for ordinary Americans.
Let’s say you’re not interested in the moral argument for limiting the bloodshed in Ukraine, or supporting the democratic aspirations of Ukrainians and Taiwanese who want to live unmolested by neighboring bullies. Is there a purely self-interested case for standing up to Russia and China? Is this good for Americans worried about paying the rent?
It sure as hell is. And the case is a strong one.
Russia and China want to throw their weight around with no interference from the United States or anybody else. The consequences of unchecked Russian aggression are the easiest to understand. If Russian President Vladimir Putin had his way, he would now control Ukraine, giving him a beachhead on the NATO security alliance’s eastern flank. There’s no reason to think that if NATO bailed on Ukraine, Putin would stop there. He’d most likely continue his effort to destabilize the West and build his own power.
The rationale for appeasing Putin, to the extent there is one, is that he’d lay off once he got enough and leave the privileged NATO countries free to luxuriate in prosperity. But Putin’s own behavior belies this gauzy logic. For years, Putin has been waging what security experts call a “hyrbrid war” with the West. His invasion of Ukraine is part of the military component of this war. Putin also tries to destabilize elections in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Russian propaganda helped stoke the fervor for the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, aka Brexit, which weakened the British economy. Russian hackers loot Western fortunes and wreak havoc. Putin’s overall aim is to continually weaken the United States and its allies.
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There’s an economic component to Putin’s hybrid war that affects American consumers more directly. Putin’s biggest sources of leverage are oil and natural gas, which Russia has in abundance. When Putin didn’t get his way in Ukraine, he shut off gas shipments to Europe and threatened to halt oil shipments as well. Before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, US gasoline prices were around $3.60 per gallon. Within months, they soared to $5 per gallon. If Putin had his way, gas prices would soar to $10 or $20 per gallon and bankrupt a lot of drivers, which he would consider apt punishment for anybody opposing his wishes.
If you think it might be worth appeasing Putin to keep energy prices low, you have to answer this question: Where do you think he’ll stop? The ruination of the West is the very thing Putin seeks. His hybrid war is meant to further that goal without any single provocation that would so outrage Western citizens that they demand military retribution. You are the frog. Putin is slowly boiling the water. How hot can you stand it?
China has slightly different aims, and different tactics. China wants to dominate its region in the spirit of communist authoritarianism. It doesn’t actively try to wreck the United States and its allies as much as overcome them. Unlike Russia, China benefits tremendously from trade with the West, which fills China’s coffers with hard currency in exchange for vast amounts of relatively cheap exports to the United States and the West.
An outbreak of hostilities with China, whether it’s over an effort to conquer Taiwan or something else, would be an economic catastrophe. The Rand research organization estimates that a war involving China would slash China’s GDP by 25% and America’s GDP by 5%. For anybody who thinks that wouldn’t be so bad, since China would suffer more, consider that during the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009, U.S. GDP fell by just 2.6%. That vaporized 9 millions jobs and sent stocks down 55%. So double that and you might get a sense of the stakes involving a China war.
Bully nations such as Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China make destabilizing moves when they think they can get away with it. Putin clearly thought he’d get away with invading Ukraine, since the West hollered but did little else when he invaded Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014. China has stolen vast amounts of Western technology, broken trade rules, and devoured American jobs for the same reason: Nobody stopped it.
The way to prevent the American carnage both Russia and China would love to see is by fighting the right fight at the right time. After years of American passivity toward both nations, Ukraine is the right fight. The United States has the same attributes today that led to victory in World War II and the Cold War: Wealth, industrial might, ingenuity and, for now, competent leadership able to rally allied nations to the cause. A win for Ukraine would warn every reckless dictator that provoking America might be ruinous. That’s the best way to control our own future with minimal dependence on those who wish us harm.
Appeasing Russia, or China, or both, would cede American independence under the masquerade of self-interest. There would be more concessions in the future. If you don’t want the United States to spearhead the battle to keep Russia and China in check, then you’re willing to let somebody else call the shots for Americans. That’s putting America last.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman
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