Why Ukraine Matters

In the last few days as the Russian battle groups and battleships deployed, the most oft-asked question has been: why should we care? We should care because we’re Americans.

What Putin, the former KBG colonel, has just executed is the invasion of an independent nation; not, as the administration has so limp-wristedly relabeled it, an “uncontested arrival” of forces. 

I’m an immigrant to this great nation. My family escaped Hungary during the anti-Communist revolution in 1956, a fight for freedom and independence that, like so many others, was crushed by Russian tanks. Those tanks may well have been driven by the fathers and grandfathers of the balaclava-wearing troops that have just invaded the Ukraine. 

I moved to America and became an American because of what this nation stands for: the values that led to the Revolutionary War. For me and many of the Americans that weren’t born here, the Founding Fathers weren’t “exploitative white men” who represented the 1%. They were freedom fighters who risked everything to abolish tyranny in a fight for liberty. 

Their dream of freedom is shared by many people in the world who are not as blessed as we are here in America. This includes the people of the Ukraine who have suffered so long at the hands of their easterly neighbor. 

We should care about Crimea and the fate of the Ukraine because if we don’t 1776 means nothing.

Sebastian Gorka PhD is Associate Dean and Associate Professor of War and Conflict Studies at National Defense University, Washington, and an Associate Fellow of SOCOM’s Joint Special Operations University.