Yesterday, I asked some basic questions about what the plan is for Ukraine, or if the idea was that we’re just going to blame the American people for stabbing them in the back. By happenstance, the question was put forcefully to Mitt Romney. I thought his answer was very telling.

First problem is that Mitt Romney mischaracterizes the Budapest memorandum as pledging us “to help defend the people of Ukraine.” It does no such thing, and it cannot be construed that way. It’s not often that Russia is straightforward, but they argue with some justification that the U.S. broke the third commitment in it in 2014 by assisting the Maidan Revolution. Of course, arguably they too had broken it with their hardball forms of coercive energy diplomacy in the run-up to those events. But, again — it does not pledge military aid.

Then he’s confronted with J. D. Vance’s assertion that $60 billion is unlikely to change Ukraine’s battlefield position, a point on which most Ukraine hawks — in their heart of hearts — agree with. Strangely, Romney says, “It just happens to be as accurate as it is irrelevant.” Strangely, because it sounded like a quip against Vance, but then Romney basically conceded that it was accurate and that Ukraine’s battlefield position is irrelevant to his view. Romney admits it may not change their battlefield positions, but it “communicates” that “we honor our commitments. We stand with our friends, and help freedom fighters around the world that are our friends and allies. And that’s a message that’s important to people in Taiwan, to the people in Japan. To the people in India. To the people in Europe. All these people are watching to see can you count on America, or is America so isolationist it doesn’t care what happens to the rest of us.”

This is bonkers. Lending ineffectual help where Ukraine bleeds longer before accepting defeat is not the kind of message we want to send to the people in Taiwan or anywhere else. That’s their nightmare.

And think about the definition of isolationist at work here. If you’re not for pushing NATO weaponry all the way east into Sumy and Horlivka, you’re an isolationist? If you were sleeping well at night knowing that Mark-41 Aegis missile launchers in Romania can reach Moscow in eight minutes rather than six and a half, you’re an isolationist now? We’re basically at the point where if you won’t personally take the security risks to install a Mission Impossible 3-style brain detonator into the skulls of Putin and his dogs, you are an isolationist.

Alright, moving on to better arguments. Jim Geraghty responded to my question and some of the specifics in his column. First, he asks us to consider recent history and whether Russia would try to invade Ukraine again if we relented to the terms and war aims Putin has laid out in the past. Geraghty implies that we cannot trust Russia to do so based on Putin’s evil character. Geraghty is also informed by his view that Putin is really trying to rebuild imperial Russia or the USSR, something that he thinks would be easier to do if Putin succeeds in Ukraine.

This is not how I see it at all. In my view, even without Western help, taking all of Ukraine’s territory is a fool’s errand for Russia. It would be an attempt to swallow a porcupine. He has never sent enough manpower over to pacify the whole of Ukraine. The war aims he described at the beginning of the war, and the terms of the previous peace deal that were leaked, return Ukraine to a pre-2008 status, minus Crimea. That is, a Ukraine Russia can influence sufficiently without resorting to arms. Returning Crimea to its pre-Khrushchev status permanently settles Russian access to Sevastopol. A constitutionally neutral Ukraine without a serious armed force satisfies the Russian red line that Ukraine not be in a military alliance with a rival.

He continues, quoting me:

We are warned, accurately, that “the U.S. is now years behind in restocking its inventory of shells.” Gee, that sounds like a good reason to pass a bill allocating $20 billion to replenish stockpiles of arms sent to Ukraine, “$4.4 billion to replace weapons sent to Israel amid its war against Hamas in Gaza and $1.9 billion to restock arms bound for Taiwan with the aim of deterring an invasion by China.” But that exact bill can’t get passed, because the anti-Ukraine-aid crowd keeps blocking it.

Except the vast majority of this spending will result in the production lines producing more for Ukraine, but still not at the amount Ukraine needs to match Russia. You aren’t committing to rebuild your savings if you are simultaneously pledging an ongoing “as-long-as-it-takes” commitment to back someone at a casino.

He closes:

What’s the plan? Make every inch of Ukrainian territory cost as much as possible in Russian blood and treasure, and make defending that occupied territory turn into Afghanistan, Part Two, for the Russians. What, do you think Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup attempt was a sign that things were going well for Russia? We chose to stop supplying the Ukrainians right as the Russian navy decided it had to pull back its shipsbecause they weren’t safe in Sevastopol’s port. Were the Ukrainians on the verge of a great victory in the counteroffensive? No, that fight is a bloody slog, and it’s hard to retake territory where the landmine coverage is on par with that map of human feces in San Francisco.

The alternative is a restored Russian empire whose problems spill over into NATO territory.

Again, this gets to the fundamental difference I have with Ukraine hawks. I take Russian power seriously, but I have never seen it gathering Hitlerian momentum to blast through all of Ukraine and then challenge NATO. If you don’t want Russian problems spilling over into NATO territory, why are you so anxious to be geographic bunkmates? Stop expanding NATO to encompass all of Russia’s Western borders. I see no Russian empire-building here. A powerful Russia is one that would, by gravitational force of its economy, culture, and history, exert decisive influence over Kyiv the way we do over Canada. But Russia is not that. While it has a formidable military and one that we should expect to defeat Ukraine’s in a war of attrition, I see Russia’s efforts as desperate bloody scramble not to lose vital assets like access to the Black Sea. Even when the Ukrainians can’t use our weapons competently, Russia can’t make major breakthroughs or advances even with large manpower advantages.

Again, I would have gotten off one at any one of the many other earlier ramps. I wouldn’t have assisted the Maidan Revolution. I would have signed a deal that closed NATO’s open door to Ukraine to avoid war. I would have listened to General Milley’s analysis after Ukraine’s first and last successful counteroffensive that this would be the most propitious time to push for talks. But still, instead of sending Romney’s $60 billion smoking-wreckage signals to the Pacific, I would stop investing our money and credibility in a conflict we are unwilling and unable to end decisively in our favor.

I will respond to Jonah Goldberg’s thoughtful interaction on these same questions next week.