In an essay published October 1, Paweł Markiewicz and Maciej Olchawa argue that those who desire to see an end to American military aid to Ukraine and a push for negotiations risk making the mistakes at Yalta in 1944, when the Western Allies consigned Eastern Europe to the Soviet sphere of influence.

　　Given their connection to Poland, it is understandable why Markiewicz and Olchawa, would be concerned about an end to US support for Ukraine and Russian foreign policy in general, but they fail to even argue, let alone argue convincingly, that there are any American national interests at stake in the situation.

　　The Yalta agreement was a disaster for the Eastern European countries that had to endure the communist boot for decades. But it would be fanciful to believe that, by cooperating with the governments in exile of the region a better arrangement could have been reached. The Red Army would have hundreds of divisions in Eastern Europe and the only way they would be leaving was if the Western Allies forcibly dislodged them, no matter what any words on paper had said.

　　Aside from the lack of desire to participate in the genocidal apocalyptic warfare of the Eastern Front, (which post-Hitler Nazi German leadership attempted to persuade the Western Allies to do), the USSR was also essential in bringing a conclusion to the Pacific War when it launched a blitzkrieg assault into Manchuria and Sakhalin/Karafuto and was poised to invade Hokkaido. There is good reason to believe that this surprise offensive played a much larger role in Japan’s surrender than the use of atomic weapons by the United States, as Japanese leadership sought to avoid being carved up and occupied by the Soviet Union and facing the same fate as Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe. 

　　Other than complaining about a “bad deal,” it is unclear what alternative course Markiewicz and Olchawa would have had the West take. The West was not fighting a holy crusade to right the wrongs of Poland being invaded; the war was fought to stymie Germany’s second run at securing regional hegemony in the twentieth century. Given that the result of the war was replacing a great power in Central Europe with a great power that stretched from the Elbe to the Pacific, one can certainly question just how well that objective was met. But it certainly would not have been in America’s interest to continue the war against the Soviet Union then (which would have necessarily required reviving and remilitarizing the just-vanquished Germans and Japanese). 

　　The authors’ arguments do not get any better when they attempt to connect Yalta to the situation in Ukraine today.

　　We are told that “accession to NATO—perceived as self-atonement for Yalta—provided an invaluable security umbrella.” It is not clear what “self-atonement for Yalta” means. Self-atonement for not attacking the USSR? Self-atonement for thinking that American lives should only be expended on behalf of vital American interests and not those of foreign countries? And to whom did this destabilizing NATO expansion provide “an invaluable security umbrella”? It certainly was not the US. We are safe and secure in the Western Hemisphere whether or not Poland is in NATO, or NATO exists at all.

　　The United States should allow Eastern European countries to settle disputes with Russia on their own and concern ourselves with our fraying society here at home.

　　The United States is safe and secure because for 200 years we have maintained the Monroe Doctrine, which established the entire Western Hemisphere as our hegemony and told everyone else to stay out of our sphere of influence. As John Mearsheimer is fond of saying: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Yet, the idea of sphere of influence politics, as happened at Yalta, is derided as imperialism and anachronistic when it comes to Russia, with the authors going so far as to apparently criticize the Concert of Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars that kept Europe more or less at peace for decades.

　　Markiewicz and Olchawa warn us that Russia cannot be trusted to keep its agreements, notably pointing to the Minsk Accords as merely delaying tactics for Russia to build up its strength to attack. This is quite a claim given the fact that Angela Merkel admitted in 2022 that the Minsk agreements were a farce that she only pursued to give Ukraine time to build up its strength. 

　　Moreover, mistrust is part of the very nature of international politics. Just as the West has good reason to distrust Russia, so too does Russia have good reason to distrust us. Putin has already made it clear that his trust was broken over the Minsk Accords and he has openly speculated that perhaps Russia should have invaded earlier. One might also recall events in “ancient” history like regime change in Libya and the Iraq War that similarly violated Russian trust. 

　　Finally, Markiewicz and Olchawa argue that the invasion of Ukraine was merely the beginning of Russia’s grand plans of aggression against other states in Eastern and Central Europe and that this is why the US must stand firm in support of Ukraine. Why would more NATO involvement in Ukraine deter Russia, if it is apparently planning to invade NATO countries anyway? And if Putin is seriously considering a continental war with Europe, shouldn’t we take seriously the prospect of nuclear use, and not pooh-pooh it as “saber-rattling”?

　　Ultimately, the arguments that Markiewicz and Olchawa make are perfectly sensible from a Polish perspective. Poland, like Ukraine, finds itself in a very bad geostrategic position, which is why both places have repeatedly faced invasion, partition, and genocide over the centuries. This is tragic, but in and of itself, it is not an argument for why the fate of Eastern Europe is of vital national interest to the United States or why Americans should risk nuclear war over them.

　　States have no friends, only interests. America’s supposed European allies are all too aware of this, as even in the face of supposedly untrammeled Russian aggression they continue to free-ride on American defense and expect Americans to spend our money, and ultimately our lives for their benefit. If Markiewicz and Olchawa want “nothing about them without them” we should give that to them and the other Eastern European countries and allow them to settle these disputes with Russia on their own and concern ourselves with our fraying society here at home.