PROPOSITION: THE U.S. SHOULD INCREASE FUNDING FOR THE DEFENSE OF UKRAINE

AFFIRMATIVE: Ukraine's Liberal Democracy Deserves Our Aid

- CATHY YOUNG

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION announced a $2.2 billion aid package for Ukraine in February. It includes, among other things, longer-range bombs than the ones Ukraine has received until now.

In a sense, the question of whether the U.S. should be giving Ukraine more money is moot: Even among Republicans, pushed by circumstance into the more dovish position in this conflict, support for military aid remains strong. But does aid to Ukraine, broadly, make the world more free?

This question goes to a fundamental tension in the liberty movement. There is the impulse to adamantly oppose interventionism (particularly of an overtly military nature) as fundamentally connected to outsized government, and there is the impulse to support liberty not only in the United States but all over the world. The disastrous outcome of the war in Iraq, which initially had some support in the liberty camp, turned out to be a death knell for pro-liberty interventionism.

But Ukraine differs from Iraq in a number of key ways. No U.S. troops are directly involved in fighting. (Their most direct participation is training Ukrainian soldiers.) The indirect U.S. and NATO involvement is in response to foreign aggression against Ukraine. And while the cause of "democracy promotion" in Iraq always rested on dubious speculation about the country's potential to become a model democracy in the Middle East, Ukraine has already paid its dues as a would-be liberal democracy. Unless one buys into Kremlin narratives about the 2014 "U.S.-sponsored coup," which reduce mass protest to puppetry, it is clear Ukrainians have collectively cast their lot with liberty.