For most of my life, the anti-war movement — such as it is — has been a primarily left-of-center phenomenon.

When you think of the Vietnam War, images of hippies, Jane Fonda and Eugene McCarthy probably come to mind. The “nuclear freeze” campaign of the 1980s was similarly a lefty occurrence. When President George W. Bush prepared to launch the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it was mostly liberals and leftists who took to the streets in protests — and when Americans got fed up with that misbegotten war, they elected Democrats to put an end to it. (That didn’t work out quite as well as hoped.) Donald Trump may have negotiated the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, but it was Joe Biden who completed it. There have been paleoconservative exceptions to the rule, and the Democratic Party isn’t exactly filled with peaceniks, but the hawks-versus-doves clash in this country has largely been a right-against-left conflict.

Now Russia appears to be on the cusp of invading Ukraine — Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, warned Sunday that war could come within days  — and some of the loudest voices for U.S. restraint are coming from conservatives. It’s kind of weird!

There’s Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), arguing that the U.S. should make clear that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO. There’s Tucker Carlson, delivering nightly screeds against U.S. involvement in the standoff on Fox News. And there’s a vocal group of fresh-faced Trumpist politicians who are following Carlson’s lead, echoing his arguments against intervention as they run for office. A generation of GOP hawks seems uncertain how to handle the moment.

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