Vital Interest

February 23rd 2025

Over the past week or so the President has made a number of comments that, when distilled, produce a number of basic questions, the most significant being, I think, how important is Ukraine to the US? In national security jargon, the question can be asked: Is Ukraine a vital national interest to the US?

To answer that we need to first answer the question: how do you define vital interest? The term is used regularly in policy papers (such and such is “in our vital national interest”), but definitions are difficult to come by and there is no official State Department or DOD definition.

But there’s one simple way to tell the difference: Are we, as a nation, willing to place our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines - and Spacemen - at risk? Is this - whatever it is - an issue concerning which we must not give ground, no matter the cost? Or are we willing to bend a little? Consider:

We want peace and justice and stability in the Congo; after all, more than 5 million people have been killed there in the last 30 years in a seemingly never ending series of civil wars and insurrections that all seem to blend together, one into the other.

But the fact is, we’ve no intention of sending a single soldier to assist in that war. Said differently, the Congo is an issue of interest, but it is not in our vital national interest, irrespective of the fact that there’ve been millions of deaths.

We have had US forces of one type or another in Syria for more than decade (Operation Inherent Resolve). So far, 76 US military personnel have been killed. Political stability and who rules Syria IS in our vital national interest.

There are always a host of things that are “in our interest” but are not “vital” though they run the spectrum from the horrible - the Congo, or the Rohingya in Burna on one end, to simply curios - fair sporting events when our national teams compete, though we aren’t going to send an aircraft carrier to steam off Canada if referees routinely call a bad hockey game. We aren’t even going to raise a tariff or stop trading oil. The Ambassador might mention it over coffee with the Foreign Minister, or he might not. 

But returning to a vital national interest, the defining characteristic is that we feel that we must fight for it, that we must not give ground on the issue, and that there’s a clear majority of Americans in favor. A 50 - 50 or 51 - 49 split hardly makes for a convincing argument to go to war.

There is also a corollary: if an issue IS in our national interest, the accepted position is that it isn’t wise to leave the issue to someone else. Why would any other country care about one of our vital national interests? If we leave it to someone else and they get it wrong, then our vital national interest is damaged or perhaps even lost. So, don't ask someone else to do something that we believe must be done and done properly.

Said differently, if “X” is viewed by the US as a vital national interest, we should be willing to support an ally who is defending X. If our ally is able to address the issue, all well and good. But, if our ally (formal or informal) is unable to defend the issue, because it is a vital national interest, and we must must have X our way - that is the obvious point of a vital national interest, then we must step in when they are about to fail and take care of the problem ourselves. And if we can say, “oh, too hard, never mind,” then it was not in our "Vital National Interest.” 

Which leads to Ukraine. And Poland. And NATO

First, the issue of Poland. Why Poland? Because it illustrates the problem. World War II in Europe (never mind Asia) kicked off because the British guaranteed they would fight with the Polish if Germany attacked Poland. Germany attacked and the Brits went to war. After Pearl Harbor was attacked Hitler declared war on the US and we got involved. And then we all fought until we had liberated Poland! Well, no, not really. Poland was liberated in 1989, when the Warsaw Pact collapsed. (Or arguably in 1991, when the USSR broke up.) 

World War II ended with the defeat of NAZI Germany, but it left all of Eastern Europe occupied by another equally dictatorial power. For many of the people of Eastern Europe there was little real practical difference between living under the NAZIs and living under the Soviets, except that there were even fewer personal freedoms under Moscow than Berlin. The Soviet Union also killed more of its own people than did NAZI Germany, they were just less maniacal than the NAZIs. Beijing carries on the tradition. And continues to occupy Tibet.

But the US didn’t get involved over Poland; US concern was Great Britain and Western Europe in general, Polish independence wasn’t a vital national interest to the US.

Today we consider NATO as a whole as a vital national interest. We created NATO to defend Western Europe from Marxism and the Soviet Union and really, to defend Western Civilization. If we woke up tomorrow and found that Western Europe had suddenly converted to Islam and all the great cathedrals of Europe were being converted into Mosques, and all the great universities began to purge themselves of any trappings of Western Civilization, what would be our interest in sustaining NATO? Arguably, there would be none We might have bilateral arrangements with individual countries, we might even develop a regional alliance, similar to NATO, for this new Europe, but it would not be the same NATO.

But where does that leave us with Ukraine? Is a free and independent Ukraine a vital national interest? If so, we should be putting troops into Ukraine, ground forces, aviation forces, air defense assets, etc., to stop the Russian advance and regain control of presently occupied Ukraine.

No one is suggesting that. Even President Macron of France has not said France will fight for Ukrainian independence; if French troops are sent, they would not deploy to the front lines, French forces would consist of instructors and special capability assets to provide assistance and “demonstrate solidarity” with Ukraine.

This is hardly a statement signaling a vital French interest.

And it’s important to remember that “vital national interests” exist on the other side as well. When two countries have conflicting vital national interests they can quickly find themselves at war. And, because a vital national interest is, by definition one that a nation feels is an issue about which they mustn’t yield, wars fought over conflicting vital national interests are usually fought to exhaustion or surrender or collapse. 

Meanwhile, if you search for a poll that asks Americans whether we should be sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, you won’t find much. I could not find anyplace where the question had been asked in the last year. Is Ukraine a vital national interest of the US? In as much as only 29% of Americans thought that Ukraine ought to be allowed to use US weapons to strike deep into Russia, it’s fair to say very few Americans think the US should actually be fighting in Ukraine; only 12% of Americans, as of December 2024, think the US should be providing more assistance (in 2023, 31% of Americans supported the idea of US troops in Ukraine). None of this would seem to meet the criteria of a vital national interest.

Which leaves us where?

To begin, Ukraine, as much as we might want them to be independent and free, is not someplace where the US population is willing to go to war. And of course, going to war would mean the two largest nuclear powers (Russian and US) squared off against each other, which is something to be avoided.

But it’s clear that some countries in NATO do see Ukraine as a vital national interest, such as Poland, the Baltic States, and Finland. Perhaps Romania, perhaps  Moldova. That should be left to them: their national interests, vital or not, so their decisions. But, outside NATO.

Finally, to declare that a whole, free, and independent Ukraine is a vital national interest to the US and that therefore we should continue the war until Russia has been driven from eastern Ukraine and the Crimea, it would be necessary to explain why for the duration of the 20th century Ukraine was firmly under Russian and then Soviet and then Russian shadow, but was not a vital US interest, and now things have changed and it is a vital national interest. And then perhaps 60% of the US population would need to agree. 

Failing that, it’s time for a ceasefire and an end to the war.