Ray-Bans, Vince Lombardi, and Ukraine

I met President Joe Biden once. It was after his vice presidency and before his decision to run for president. I told him that, as a Republican, I disagree with most of his political beliefs. But I thanked him for his service to our country and told him how much I respected that service. His expression grew serious. He took his right index finger and jammed it repeatedly into the center of my chest saying, “Good. I’m glad you’re a Republican because we need good people on both sides of the aisle.” I listened to him speak for two hours later that night. I walked away convinced this was a good man.

President Donald Trump is right…President Biden was a terrible president, the war in Ukraine should never have happened, and other nations should pay more toward their, and the common, defense. But the conversation cannot end there.

The collapse of the Soviet Union left thousands of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. In 1994, the United States entered into a trilateral agreement with Ukraine and Russia by which Ukraine received security assurances, including pledges to honor its territorial integrity, in return for giving up what was at the time the third largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. That agreement was violated in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. It was further violated in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.

The idea of promises kept isn’t the only reason the fight in Ukraine is ours. It is ours because unchecked aggression doesn’t usually stop at your neighbor’s door. Eventually it will find yours. In the meantime, it leads to global instability. And the 20th century showed us the costs of waiting too long to address a madman. War leaves destruction and lack of financial opportunities in its wake, which can create a dangerous breeding ground for all sorts of ills including radicalization. War is expensive in both blood and treasure. And in fact, the war in Ukraine is now responsible for over a million casualties, millions of displaced people, and hundreds of billions of wasted dollars. In a time of heightened inflation, havoc was wreaked on the global supply chain and the world food supply. And our sanctions on Russia, though necessary, further drove them into financial and military alliance with our other adversaries. And lastly, who do you think ends up paying to rebuild war-ravaged areas like Ukraine and Gaza? We do. All of these reasons are why we should have used every tool at our disposal to stop the invasion of Ukraine.

But President Biden left two powerful tools on the sidelines in the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine – his ubiquitous Ray-Ban sunglasses and Air Force One. He should have landed Air Force One, the very symbol of American might, on the main runway in Kyiv, emerged from that plane with his Ray-Bans on, done his best octogenarian jog down the aircraft stairs, given a waiting President Zelenskyy a bear hug, and in front of the gaggle of assembled reporters, said, “Mr. Putin, don’t you do it!” And like many Americans were doing in early 2022, perhaps the President should have worked remotely for a time, leaving the symbol of America parked on the main runway as a reminder of our figurative presence. That would have been the Reaganesque brave, risky part. And for the cooling, cautious part, the work of diplomacy, he should also have been very clear behind the scenes, with both our friends in Ukraine and our foe in Russia, that NATO membership for Ukraine was off the table. In that moment, the world needed America’s action. Instead, it got public service announcements from the Biden administration that an invasion was imminent. Not surprising, I suppose, from a man notoriously weak on foreign policy. Remember as Vice President he was the “don’t go” vote on the raid that successfully killed Osama bin Laden. That same timidity was on full display in the three weeks that led up to the Russian invasion.

“And there we are, and now we go on.” These are the wise words I hear in my head whenever I find myself relitigating the past, like I am now, instead of focusing on what we do moving forward. The words belong to retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He said them after a case on which he worked hard to convince his fellow justices, yet still found himself in the minority. It was his way to remind himself there was nothing more he could do and that his focus must shift to the future. So let me heed his words and move from the past to the present.

The United States is in an interesting moment. Our political leaders, rightfully so, are hesitant to ever see US boots on the ground. We have instead opted to use financial tools to affect the actions of malign state actors. We have sanctioned and sanctioned, leaning on the might of our banking and financial systems. And though those sanctions have weakened actors like Russia and Iran, they have also served to further force our adversaries together. After all, if sanctions preclude a nation from selling its goods to certain nations or buying goods from others, it goes where it can…the other nations so sanctioned. As a result, countries like Russia, Iran, and North Korea become even more reliant on one another. And countries like China seek to capitalize upon that.

In an environment where you’re driving your enemies closer together, you better have friends. The United States has great friends, but those friends have increasingly seen an America that concerns them. Our politicians no longer operate on a belief that politics ends at the water’s edge (the idea that both parties should show a united front on foreign policy). Our time horizons, already short at a four-year presidential term, seem to have grown shorter with more dramatic shifts in policy from day to day. The idea of America First has gained huge momentum. And now they find America in a second term of President Trump’s erratic behavior and transactional deal making. Right or wrong, he has pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Human Rights Council. He has frozen foreign aid. The result of all of this can only be more conversations amongst our allies occurring without us in the room.

And now I have the song “The Room Where it Happens” by the brilliant Lin-Manuel Miranda stuck in my head.

Speaking of the room where it happens. This past week saw an unbelievable scene in the oval office. One man campaigning for 2028 and two others losing focus and letting emotion rule the day. The meeting was salvageable until Vice President Vance got involved, poking a war-tired and proud man in Zelenskyy who was already being coerced into signing away some of his countries mineral rights and reminding a man with an out-sized need for praise and flattery in President Trump that he had not yet been thanked. Queue the trainwreck. Queue our allies meeting without us over the weekend. Queue the wasted days and needless more death before the agreements are inevitably signed.

Vince Lombardi, one of football’s greatest coaches, left us with many famous quotes that apply to life and industry just as much as they do to football. And one, “Praise in public; criticize in private,” can even apply to foreign policy, or at least it should. We should praise our allies in public and leave speaking hard truths to them for private. Oh what may have happened Friday had those three men in the oval seen the virtue in that Lombardi line. In front of those cameras Zelenskyy should have been effusive in his thanks to the American people for their support and the President for his invitation. He should never have challenged Vance or relitigated the start of the war. President Trump should have been effusive in his talk of Ukrainian courage. And he never should have demanded a friend further supplicate himself in front of cameras.

I would also argue that the opposite of Lombardi’s approach is needed when dealing with adversaries. We should criticize our adversaries publicly – “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” – and praise or appease them privately when the softening stroke of diplomacy is needed. The United States got it backwards this week. President Trump, egged on by Vice President Vance, eviscerated an ally in public and commiserated with an enemy, saying Putin was unfairly dragged into the Russia hoax. He treated the invaded as a party to be toyed with and the invader as a party who had equally suffered. What does it say about a nation, our nation, when our current leader says more flattering things about the leaders of Russia and North Korea than he does about our friends? What does it say about us when our neighbor’s house is on fire and we condition our help?

America First is President Trump’s mantra. And there is indeed virtue in ensuring we are strong, safe, and prosperous before all else. America First doesn’t worry me. America alone does, because no nation, not even the greatest nation on earth, can flourish alone. In this moment, the success of our financial warfare has brought our enemies closer together. We are only a few years removed from the world watching as we withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving those that helped us to suffer the consequences. And now our friends see our behavior as erratic, conditioned, and less fervent. It’s a bad recipe.

Anyway, in foreign policy as in life, the keys to success are showing up, keeping your promises, and knowing when to wear a good pair of Ray-Bans.