Too Educated to Be Outraged

Truly, I'm sorry that Putin hasn't invaded that notional state of Utopialand so that graduate students in foreign affairs can't agonize over whether it is morally right to side with Ukraine in the current war.

I've had to use technical terms a lot lately, it seems. But this is "stupid." The author argues that Ukraine doesn't really deserve to be defended.

Ukraine is far from perfect and I've written that corruption has to be tackled for it to become truly part of the West (and to afford a military that can hope to resist Russia).

A member state of the United Nations is under attack by another member, which has already annexed Crimea and which is pushing to do the same in Donbas--and has claimed far more.

This doesn't deserve world support?

The Russians indignantly deny even being involved in the aggression, including their role in shooting down a Malaysian airliner over secessionist territory.

This doesn't deserve the world's anger?

Russia has attacked--and denied their very right to exist--a founding member of the United Nations that gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for Russian guarantees for their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

This assault on solemn obligations and nuclear disarmament incentives doesn't deserve our resistance?

Russia itself is becoming a new aggressive autocracy that even Belarus--itself a small autocracy sometimes called the last communist state in Europe--is getting nervous about?

This doesn't deserve our worry?

The notion that Ukraine as it is doesn't deserve to be defended against Russia under Putin is nonsense. Nonsense with ample footnotes, but nonsense nonetheless.

If I was a betting man, I'd guess the author also believes that Saddam was justly defending his kite-flying paradise against American aggression in 2003. But I'm cynical that way.

So often, it seems that graduate students have learned so many things, yet know nothing.