For America’s national security hawks, old habits die hard.
Washington Post columnist Max Boot is probably best known these days as a Never-Trump conservative, a figure who spent much of his career making common cause with Republicans and then later repented of it all. Before that, though, he was for years a leading cheerleader for America’s war in Iraq — a disaster that in recent years he has acknowledged was “all a big mistake.”
One might think such big mistakes (and an admirable willingness to acknowledge error) would lend themselves to humility regarding subsequent matters of war and peace. But with a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine looming, Boot is once again rooting for actions that make war more likely.
In his latest column, Boot urges American leaders to clamp down on Russia’s Vladimir Putin before Putin uses threats and military force to resurrect the old Soviet empire. As part of those efforts, Boot proposes an aggressive expansion of the NATO alliance. The organization “needs to bolster its military presence in Eastern Europe,” Boot writes, “and renew efforts to bring Sweden and Finland into the alliance to make clear that Putin’s efforts to cripple NATO will backfire.”
That’s a terrible idea.
