Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a defining moment for the Republican Party

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is creating a defining moment for democracies around the world, and for the Republican Party here in the United States.

The Democrats’ path is clear: support the response of Democratic President Joe Biden. But for Republicans, who lack a single leader in Washington, it’s more complicated.

Will the Republican Party stand for the same principles that provided the philosophical bedrock for America’s victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War— or will we wander in dazed confusion and small debates over whether Russia’s Vladimir Putin is really a bad guy after all?

My parents emigrated from Germany during the height of the Cold War in the 1960s, drawn by the opportunities and promise of America. While my mother never cared much for politics, my father joined the Republican Party as soon as he became a citizen. He joined the GOP because he believed it to be the best protector of the opportunities that brought him to America in the first place. Equally important, he saw the GOP of Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon stand firmly and unequivocally for freedom from an expansive Soviet Union that was determined to spread Communist dictatorships everywhere. 

The Russians, then known as the Soviets, had a harder time selling the world on socialism and communism because they had to compete against the post-World War II architecture created by the United States and the United Kingdom. Tired of being drawn into successive European world wars, the United States, under Democratic and Republican administrations, sought to replace the pre-WWII world order of spheres of influence and great powers with a rules-based world.

The United States, as the only large-industrialized country to emerge from the war with its economy intact, led the way with the creation of a collective security alliance (NATO), structures for promoting trade (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT), a system for currency stabilization, mechanisms for the reconstruction of war-torn countries (the Marshall Plan and World Bank), and a United Nations with a charter requiring respect for international boundaries. While none of these institutions were designed to perfection, without question the post-war era saw the greatest expansion of wealth, economic opportunity and democracy in world history.

Meanwhile, the Russians were offering economic mismanagement, dictatorship and dominance from Moscow.

The world chose freedom, and the Soviet Union eventually crumbled under the weight of its twisted economic and political systems when met with unrelenting pressure from the United States and its Western, democratic allies.

While the world recognized the collapse of the Soviet Union as the victory for freedom which it was, Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks of it as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century. To Putin, the end of the repressive Soviet regime was apparently a bigger cataclysm than the millions killed in World Wars I or II, or by the Holocaust.

Today, Putin’s troops are rolling through Ukraine because it is the easiest target for his goal of reconstructing the Russian empire. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to turn over its Soviet-era nuclear weapons to Russia. In turn, Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s then-internationally recognized boundaries. The agreement is known as the Budapest Memo.

There is nothing conservative about excusing away Putin’s aggression against its sovereign neighbor in violation of agreements signed in good faith. Allowing a hostile, aggressive power to run over its weaker neighbors certainly doesn’t put America or her principles first. It puts Russia first.

There is plenty to criticize the last few administrations about when it comes to dealing with the Putin regime, including the Biden administration, which should have taken the advice of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and blocked completion of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. Instead, Biden’s administration, seeking an easy way to rebuild the U.S.-German relationship following the strains of the Trump years, gave the green light in 2021 to completing the pipeline that puts Germany in the position of even greater dependence on Russian natural gas exports.

Nonetheless, voices on the right looking for ways to blame Biden for the outbreak of war in Europe, while rationalizing Putin’s fever dreams of re-conquering Russia’s “near abroad,” have it exactly wrong. 

The Republican Party has always stood for freedom and self-determination against aggression from Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Baghdad or anywhere else. This commitment to freedom contributed to ultimate victory over communism and drew millions to the ranks of the Grand Old Party.

Now is not the time to, as Margaret Thatcher once warned against, go sideways. Now is the time for rediscovering just why Ronald Reagan was on the right side of history in checking Moscow’s penchant for aggression.

Ron Nehring served as chairman of the California Republican Party, Republican nominee for Lt. Governor of California, and was the presidential campaign spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz in 2016.