Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has made clear that it is taking an “America First” approach to the way it conducts foreign policy. That means ending the years of unlimited economic and military largess to wealthy allies that do not always support U.S. interests. The new America First-based U.S. foreign policy is neither ideologically expansionist or isolationist but will evaluate which policies are truly beneficial to the United States using many factors. Foreign territorial disputes based on historic border grievances and ethnic makeups will be avoided unless the U.S. has a long-standing treaty obligation or if the success of one of the parties would significantly threaten America’s national interests.

Having Russia reoccupy Crimea and some Eastern Ukrainian provinces on a permanent basis would not affect U.S. or Western European security. The West showed limited concern following the initial breakup of the Soviet Union when Russia maintained its large strategic military base in Crimea. The West also reacted mildly in 2014 to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Russia’s support of separatist forces after the new Ukrainian government threatened to abrogate the Crimean lease agreement and aggressively moved forward with joining NATO.

Critics of Trump’s Ukraine policy should realize that Ukraine’s decision in 2019 to constitutionalize its commitment to join NATO was alarming to Russia. While it is difficult to create a comparable analogy for a hypothetical situation in the United States, consider how U.S. policy makers would feel if Native Hawaiians, with Chinese help, got control of the state government, declared independence, and allied Hawaii with China—forcing everyone to speak Hawaiian—and, most importantly, tried to kick the Americans out of the Pearl Harbor naval base. The U.S. would probably feel compelled to take military action. While Russia’s unilateral invasion of Ukraine is not identical to that scenario, broke international norms, and should not be condoned, it is important also to recognize the legitimate security interests of both sides if we want to develop a lasting settlement that is beneficial to the United States.

Yet the war in Ukraine happens to be one of the only issues that foreign policy specialists within the bureaucracy, the progressive left, and neocons on the right have been able to rally around together and say, “Here we have a true American elite consensus.” The reasoning deployed by each group is somewhat different, but they all converge around the concept of U.S.-supported globalism. 

Soviet Russian specialists in the foreign policy, defense, intelligence, and academic communities—people who had suffered the loss of a formidable adversary around whom their entire careers revolved with the collapse of the Soviet bloc—have an interest in this position. Budgets, funding policy strategies, and weapons systems that were designed to focus on countering the Soviet expansion globally suddenly dried up or were shifted to other pursuits, like the war on terror. The psychological letdown of not fighting the “Soviet Russian Bear” anymore is hard to comprehend by people on the outside. Experts who had dedicated their entire lives to something that all of a sudden was no longer very important suffered blows not only to their self-esteem but to their livelihoods.

Transitioning their skill sets to fight Islamic extremists or countering the rise of China was difficult. Putin’s efforts at reconstituting some of the remnants of the dismantled Soviet Union into an authoritarian Russian state with a growing economy and revitalized military provided an opportunity for the old Soviet experts to play a more active role in diplomatic and defense policies. The return of Russia as a strong adversary provides a new purpose and funding for establishment Russia experts, causing them to support the Ukrainian war effort.

The progressive left, on the other hand, has embraced this war in order to further their globalist agenda. Putin’s success of creating a strong authoritarian regime based on traditional cultural and religious values represents a successful roll back of the ideology of progressive leftism.  The progressive left fears Russia’s continued existence along authoritarian lines might become an attractive right-wing model for other European states. The left is very disturbed by the multiple re-elections of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s traditionalist right-wing government in Hungary. Also, the rise of right-wing populist democratic leaders in Italy, France, Germany, and other European countries represent a major challenge to their globalist aspiration of creating a unified secular world order run by global elites and led by a progressive United States.

Ukraine under Zelensky provided the left with an opportunity to implement their dream policies in a large Eastern European country that is totally dependent on U.S. assistance. It doesn’t matter that Zelensky’s government is just as corrupt as Putin’s and is also authoritarian. Ukraine’s dependence on the U.S. would make it an ideal laboratory for progressive leftist nation-building after Russia’s defeat.

Most anti-Russian neocon experts within the U.S. policy establishment share a globalist agenda like that of the progressive left, but tend to mix it with a more capitalistic and libertarian ideology. They are enamored of the idea that a Ukrainian defeat of Russia would so cripple Russia that it would cease to be a great power. They believe a Russian expulsion from the Crimean Peninsula and the denial of access to the industrial and mineral-rich areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions would be devastating to Russia’s economic and military power and enable American business interests and cultural values to expand throughout the Russian Federation.

What many neocons don’t realize is that no Russian nationalist leader would allow this to happen without first triggering a direct war with the United States and Europe, which could involve nuclear weapons. Even Russia’s most famous opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who died in prison, supported the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s support of pro-Russian separatists. Navalny only changed his stance on Ukraine shortly before he died in prison due to pressure from Western human rights groups that were trying to orchestrate his release. Most Russians, however, likely share Navalny’s original views about Ukraine even if they do not fully support Putin.

An authoritarian non-Communist Russia, while distasteful to U.S. values, is not a direct security threat to Western Europe. It is, however, viewed as an obstacle to the vision of a new globalist world order shared by both the progressive left and the neocons.  Republican critics of Trump’s policy need to remember that NATO was created to prevent the Soviet Red Army from forcefully spreading communism throughout Western Europe. Russia is no longer a communist country, and unlike China, it does not have a globalist ideology. It is difficult to image Russian Orthodox cultural cadres spreading out into Belgium, France, and Italy to take control of these countries.

President’s Trump strategy of tying Ukraine to the U.S. through a beneficial economic agreement and refraining from verbally demonizing Russia is a realistic American First approach to achieving peace. Significant U.S. economic interests within Ukraine would help “guarantee” Ukraine’s post-war security by making Russia think twice about resuming aggression or threatening direct American interests. Ukraine will probably need to make some territorial concessions and renounce its desire to join NATO to achieve a lasting settlement, but this doesn’t mean the U.S. is aligning with Russia.

A quick end to the war will stop tremendous losses of life and help separate Russia from its historical adversary, China. Russia would prefer to resume its former economic ties with the West and that would enable Russia to cooperate on issues of mutual interest, such as nuclear nonproliferation and defeating Islamist extremists. As President Trump clearly articulated in his contentious White House meeting with Zelensky, “I’m not aligned with Putin … I’m aligned with the United States of America and for the good of the world.”