A Reagan Doctrine for today

The world is aflame. Malefactors in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia simultaneously threaten free nations and core American interests. The United States—weakened, demoralized, and internally divided—struggles with how to respond.

Now, a democracy and close partner of the United States faces a sadistic assault by an outside aggressor committed to its destruction. Horrific images have emerged of innocent civilians butchered, women raped, children killed or kidnapped. Rockets and missiles have terrified its cities with wanton destruction, as invading forces staged a multi-domain intrusion from air, sea, and land.

The nation’s Jewish leader—domestically embattled and unpopular before the attack, in part from accusations of corruption—rallies his people to unite and fight for their country’s survival. He warns that a long, grinding ground war lies ahead. He knows that the fighting will be complicated by Iran’s support for the attackers, as Ayatollah Khamenei’s terrorist regime provides crucial weapons to the invading forces. Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping also quietly backs the aggressors. Many observers worry, not without reason, that the conflict could escalate throughout the region and possibly even draw in the United States.

The leader appeals to the United States for urgent support in weapons, ammunition, and economic aid. He asks not for any American troops, but only for the tools for his people to fight and defend their country. Most Americans respond favorably. Yet a few Americans oddly blame the invaded nation for provoking its own peril, and some voices on cable news and college campuses even voice sympathy for the attackers.

Astute readers will see that this passage describes both Ukraine and Israel. The former was invaded last year by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the latter assaulted earlier this month by the terrorist group Hamas.

These two invasions have clarified the new geopolitical challenge of our generation. Together Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing have formed a belt of tyranny spanning the 11 time zones of the Eurasian heartland. They partner in their collective aggression, and have sworn hostility against the United States and our friends.

Fortunately, a previous U.S. president developed a strategy to counter such challenges. President Ronald Reagan devised the “Reagan Doctrine” to aid other forces fighting for their own freedom. Taking office less than six years after the United States had abandoned South Vietnam to communist takeover, Reagan knew that the recent traumas of the Vietnam War precluded deploying American combat troops in another large-scale “endless war.” But Reagan also did not want to abandon America’s friends to communist oppression and Kremlin invasions. Instead, he developed a third way of providing weapons and economic support to people fighting to defend their countries—without risking American troops.

President Reagan’s words in 1985 still apply today:

We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that's not innocent; nor can we be passive when freedom is under siege. Without resources, diplomacy cannot succeed. Our security assistance programs help friendly governments defend themselves and give them confidence to work for peace. And I hope that you in the Congress will understand that, dollar for dollar, security assistance contributes as much to global security as our own defense budget.

We must stand by all our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.

This is part of what Reagan meant by “peace through strength.” Providing arms to our friends projects American power abroad, imposes costs on our adversaries, and increases American influence with our partners. Equipping our allies to use force to defend themselves also strengthens diplomacy, and makes favorable peace settlements more likely.

Congress is now considering a new $105 billion aid package to provide arms to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, and also to increase U.S. border security. It is a substantial amount of money, especially considering America’s escalating national debt. Yet in strategic perspective, it is a prudent price to pay to protect America’s security, impose substantial costs on our adversaries, and keep faith with our fellow free nations fighting for their survival.

Some opponents of the aid package seek to disaggregate it, and only support Israel but not Ukraine. It is illusory to think that surrendering Ukraine to Russian conquest would somehow benefit Israel and Taiwan. It would do the opposite. Abandoning Ukraine would signal weakness to other aggressors like China and Iran, putting Taiwan and Israel in further peril. In particular it would free up Tehran to provide even more drones and rockets to Hamas and Hezbollah, and perhaps even embolden Iran to attack Israel itself.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned last week, “Our adversaries know the challenges they pose to us are linked. The belief that we can abandon allies in one part of the world and not hurt allies elsewhere … is naïve and dangerous.” Consider the recent example of Afghanistan. As former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo points out, Biden’s catastrophic retreat in 2021 helped entice Putin to invade Ukraine.

Put another way, the costs of supporting Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan are great. The costs of abandoning any of them to defeat would be unfathomably greater.