Niall Ferguson attacked President Trump’s recent posts hitting Ukrainian President Zelensky overnight, questioning why a Republican president has stopped standing against aggression.
Here’s what he wrote:
“This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.”–George H.W. Bush on August 5, 1990. Full quote from Jon Meacham’s biography. Future history students will be asked why this stopped being the reaction of a Republican president to the invasion of a sovereign state by a dictator.
This morning JD Vance took to X to respond to this and explained exactly why President Trump is right about Ukraine and ending this war. And he did it in some detail:
This is moralistic garbage, which is unfortunately the rhetorical currency of the globalists because they have nothing else to say.
For three years, President Trump and I have made two simple arguments: first, the war wouldn’t have started if President Trump was in office; second, that neither Europe, nor the Biden administration, nor the Ukrainians had any pathway to victory. This was true three years ago, it was true two years ago, it was true last year, and it is true today.
And for three years, the concerns of people who were obviously right were ignored. What is Niall’s actual plan for Ukraine? Another aid package? Is he aware of the reality on the ground, of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans or their even more depleted industrial base?
Instead, he quotes from a book about George HW Bush from a different historical period and a different conflict. That’s another currency of these people: reliance on irrelevant history.
President Trump is dealing with reality, which means dealing with facts. And here are some facts:
Number one, while our Western European allies’ security has benefitted greatly from the generosity of the United States, they pursue domestic policies (on migration and censorship) that offend the sensibilities of most Americans and defense policies that assume continued over-reliance.
Number two, Russians have a massive numerical advantage in manpower and weapons in Ukraine, and that advantage will persist regardless of further Western aid packages. Again, the aid is *currently* flowing.
Number three, the United States retains substantial leverage over both parties to the conflict.
Number four, ending the conflict requires talking to the people involved in starting it and maintaining it.
Number five, the conflict has placed–and continues to place–stress on tools of American statecraft, from military stockpiles to sanctions (and so much else). We believe the continued conflict is bad for Russia, bad for Ukraine, and bad for Europe. But most importantly, it is bad for the United States.
Given the above facts, we must pursue peace, and we must pursue it now. President Trump ran on this, he won on this, and he is right about this. It is lazy, ahistorical nonsense to attack as “appeasement” every acknowledgment that America’s interest must account for the realities of the conflict.
That interest–not moralisms or historical illiteracy–will guide President Trump’s policy in the weeks to come.
And thank God for that.
This conflict between Russia and Ukraine has become very messy over the last three years. It certainly began when Russia invaded Ukraine, but since then it has become a proxy war to defeat Russia, with multiple countries using Ukraine to try and accomplish this. All the while, neither of these countries has been fully committed to defeating Russia in any way, other than to just send money and weapons.
In other words, this war has spiralled out of control and it needs to end. It is no longer benefitting anyone really, especially Ukraine. And, like it or not, Russia began this war and they can end this war. If Russia dropped their weapons today there would be no war. Which is why President Trump has focused on getting Russia to the negotiating table, more so than Ukraine.