“We will never accept Russia's occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea,” Rex Tillerson said recently in Vienna. “Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns full control of the peninsula to Ukraine.” His statement came just one day after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and pledged to move our embassy there.
How did Israel gain title to East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Golan Heights? Invasion, occupation, colonization, annexation — spoils of victory from Israel's 1967 Six-Day War. Is Israel being severely sanctioned like Russia? Not quite. Her yearly U.S. stipend is almost $4 billion, as she builds settlements on occupied land despite America's feeble protests. What Bibi Netanyahu just demonstrated is that, when dealing with the Americans and defending what is vital to Israel, perseverance pays off. Given time, the Americans will accept the new reality.
Like Bibi, Vladimir Putin is a nationalist. For him, recapturing Crimea, home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet for two centuries and critical to her security, was the achievement of his presidency. Putin is not going to return Crimea to Kiev, and eventually, we will accept this new reality as well.
This month, just days after North Korea tested a new ICBM, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster declared that Trump “is committed to the total denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” That is a goal we almost surely are not going to achieve. For, short of a war that could go nuclear, Kim Jong Un is not going to yield to our demands. He knows Saddam Hussein was hanged after the Americans attacked. He knows the grisly fate of Moammar Gadhafi. And Kim knows that if he surrenders his nuclear weapons, he has nothing to deter the Americans. North Korea may enter talks, but Kim will never surrender the missiles and nukes that guarantee his survival. Look for the Americans to find a way to accommodate him.
Consider, too, China's proclaimed ownership of the South China Sea and building of artificial islands there for air, missile and naval bases. Hawkish voices say this is intolerable and U.S. air and naval power must be used if necessary to force a rollback. Why is this not going to happen? This area is vital to China, but not to us. And we are claimants to none of these islets. Given the steady rise of Chinese military power and the islets' proximity, China will likely become the controlling power in the South China Sea, as we came to be predominant in the Western Hemisphere.
What we are witnessing in Crimea, the Middle East and the South China Sea, and on the Korean peninsula, are nations more willing than we to sacrifice and take risks, because their interests there are far greater than ours. America needs a new national consensus on what is vital to us and what is not, what we are willing to fight to defend and what we are not. For this generation of Americans is not going to risk war, indefinitely, to sustain some Beltway elite's idea of a “rules-based new world order.” After the Cold War, we entered a new world — and we need new red lines to replace the old.
Pat Buchanan is the author of “Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
