I cringe a little when I read articles that we should not be supporting Ukraine because their soldiers have also committed war crimes on Russian soldiers or have killed some civilians.  Let's get real.  Violent war waged on a sovereign country is the major crime, and it should be considered to be an unacceptable ultimate war crime in and of itself.  Intentionally killing in self-defense is almost the only kind of killing that can be ethically justified.

The United Nations Charter even tries to state that the sovereignty of every nation is to be respected and a military invasion to be condemned.  Unfortunately, the United Nations is toothless and won't be able to enforce this rule as long as tyrannies like Russia and China are on the United Nations Security Council, where they can veto any proposed military action to defend a sovereign nation.

Think of this absurdity.  A war can be waged and justified as long as you don't commit war crimes, which largely means avoiding torturing captive soldiers and avoiding civilian deaths.  Maybe that is the way that Western countries prefer to wage war so that they can claim to be the just good guys in a war.  It is a slight psychological advantage to ethically justify defensive and offensive military actions that obey Geneva Convention rules of war, which try to minimize civilian suffering and death.  However, tyrants like Putin don't give a damn about civilian lives, and he believes that anything is fair in war, including the threat and use of nuclear weapons.  Further, Putin sees nothing wrong with using his own untrained civilian soldiers as cannon fodder in a seemingly unwinnable Ukraine war.

Need I remind you of the over-an-hour speech that Putin gave before he attacked Ukraine?  In the speech, he not only laid claim to sovereign Ukraine, but laid claim to the Soviet Union's prior possessions such as Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, etc.  Europe was rightly shocked by the speech but unfortunately little prepared militarily for the invasion of Ukraine.  Sweden and Finland quickly considered membership in NATO, and Germany raised its promised but unfulfilled contribution to NATO to 2% of its GDP, which it had not done for many years.

In the short run, Russia is not an immediate threat to the United States, but with tyrannical political control, in the long run, Russia can become a threat again, especially if it rises from economic calamity and gains a temporary end to the war in peace negotiations for partial Ukraine territory.  I personally hope that Putin will not be rewarded for his Ukraine invasion with Ukrainian land, but due to economic necessity and a possible lack of continuing support from the West, it is a distinct possibility.  However the war ends, Russia will not be a serious or realistic military threat to Europe and the United States as long as Putin is alive.

Yes, Putin may try to go nuclear, but need I remind you that if the United States is one of his targets, then it is mutual assured destruction, and no sane, desperate human tyrant wants to commit suicide?  Yes, I too can envision Putin trying to escape a nuclear war with the United States by going to a non-aligned nation and trying to live in anonymity, but I sincerely doubt that those in control of the nuclear buttons in Russia would follow Putin's insane order to nuke the United States.

That said, there are lessons to be learned from the Ukraine war.  Don't make economic deals with an untrustworthy tyrant who may use military force or economic extortion to achieve nefarious ends.  This especially applies to China today.  Realize that old-fashioned and new bulky million- and billion-dollar military equipment can be taken out by relatively cheap and sophisticated precision rockets, torpedoes, and drones.

A monopoly military establishment is corrupted by big-money allocations without much accountability.  The Russian, Chinese, and even United States militaries are corrupt to a large extent.  There is little argument against the fact that the military industrial complex is out of control, not only in the United States, but around the world.  Yes, the United States is still arguably the most powerful military, but it was not smart enough to predict a Ukraine-like war.  The United States doesn't have enough of a reserve of manufacturing ability to adequately supply necessary military hardware for the long war in Ukraine, especially if it lasts for another year or so.  Also, the complexity of the hardware can't be too great for the relatively untrained Ukraine soldiers, since it requires lengthy training and expensive and complicated maintenance during combat.

Ukraine is a modern testing ground for modern military hardware that we should be learning a lot from as the war lingers.  Ukraine is just emphasizing how important proper military preparedness is for a relatively weak country bordering on a powerful, tyrannical, militaristic country.

However the war ends in Ukraine, the United States will benefit from the war in the long run.  Some European companies are already relocating to the United States; the Taiwanese are building an advanced chip plant in the United States, and China will be a little more skittish about invading its neighbors militarily.

I admire the bravery and spirit of the Ukrainian people, who may be living under a corrupt government but want to be free of an even more repressive, corrupt, tyrannical Russian rule.  Supporting Ukraine with military and economic aid from the United States may hurt us deficit-wise in the short run, but in the long run, we will emerge a little bit stronger and richer as a nation.  The world will be a more peaceful place without any foreseeable major military conflicts.  We will be able to focus more on internal problems and the economic, ideological, and cyber threats from China.

That is why Ukraine matters.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.