Why Oklahomans should care about Ukraine crisis
I am crying for my people and my family in Ukraine. My uncle, his family, my cousins are all now in Kyiv. The president is there too and just made a farewell speech in case he dies tonight.
These were the words we read on Friday morning after checking in on some Ukrainian international students at the University of Oklahoma. They encapsulate the first of three reasons why the violent Russian invasion of a free and democratic country should matter to Oklahomans: It is unleashing human suffering on an immense scale — and it is the suffering of innocents. Ukrainians are a hard-working and freedom-loving people, just like us here in middle America, who threaten no one and want to live in peace. What is happening to them is a historic injustice.
A second reason why Ukraine matters is that this injustice will touch all of us, directly and indirectly.
Remember the Cold War? It ended with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union over 30 years ago. Throwing fuel on the fire of an already fraught relationship, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s renewed invasion of Ukraine could launch America into a New Cold War with Russia. Our NATO alliance with Canada and Europe is already responding to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by reinforcing security for our allied countries that are in close proximity to Russia. Thousands of American troops, some of whom are Oklahomans, are now deploying to help defend freedom and democracy at the edge of a New Iron Curtain.
What does this have to do with us? The Russian invasion threatens the rule-based international order that, for all its imperfections, has brought unprecedented prosperity and freedoms to much of the world for decades. As a leading democratic and economically advanced country, the U.S. has been a prime beneficiary of this order. International stability underpinned by strong alliances of states with common values and institutions has facilitated both our economy and our freedoms. We can no longer afford to take our democratic values and institutions for granted, faced as they are by a plethora of internal and external threats — especially by power-hungry, expansionist and patently anti-democratic leaders such as Putin.
We should care, finally, because we have a duty to act. Not to become directly involved in the fighting; the threat of World War III is too great for that. But there is much we can do, particularly if we stand strongly and patiently alongside allied nations to counter this aggression and ensure it extracts a cost on Putin’s regime. Where this results in some domestic economic pain, as well, it is something we should steadfastly endure.
I think I can still handle my work and study. We Ukrainians are very tough people. So concluded one student’s email. This is a time to stand with her, her family and her country — for Ukraine’s sake, and for ours.