What Would Randolph Do?

 The shambling figure of the early twentieth century critic, radical, and social prophet Randolph Bourne must forever be one of those ghosts that haunt the American left-liberal conscience in times of war; and now that we are nearly eighteen months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with no end in sight, it's worth taking stock of how the liberal intelligentsia has responded to the conflict. 

Bourne, recall, was one of the few writers of the progressive generation who consistently and unbendingly opposed U.S. involvement in the First World War, and he castigated his fellow intellectuals searingly for their willingness to dupe themselves into backing the President's position. All too many became convinced that the instrument of war could be used for ideal social ends. Bourne, in expressing skepticism toward this proposition, stands out with the benefit of hindsight as uniquely prescient among his contemporaries.

Since the U.S. is now involved in another major European war, a century later—if less directly so—it's worth asking what Bourne would say of our current foreign policy. As skeptical as Bourne was of U.S. involvement in European conflicts, it's hard to believe a contemporary Bourne would be devoid of sympathy for the Ukrainian cause or of outrage over the brutality of Putin's invasion. I therefore can't picture Bourne, if he were alive today, joining forces with the sort of ersatz leftists and MAGA apologists à la Glenn Greenwald who simply parrot the Russian line. Bourne would surely not be a Putin stooge—and if he were, then shame on him. 

But it's also impossible to imagine Bourne being satisfied with the kind of lock-step uniformity of opinion on this issue that has made it impossible for ordinary liberals to even hear—let alone take seriously—a criticism of the current U.S. policy toward Ukraine, or a suggestion that a different approach is possible. 

A case in point was the recent interview that ran in the New Yorker with the ever-wacky Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Here, the long-shot presidential candidate and wayward scion of a powerful political dynasty floated—as he usually does—a bunch of baseless conspiracy theories—such as that school shootings are caused by antidepressants—for which he confessed he had no supporting evidence. But mixed in with these usual crackpot broadsides were a few tame observations on the Russia-Ukraine war which, in a sane and open political climate, would be seen as perfectly reasonable theses for discussion—if not already-accepted conventional wisdom.  

These included comments like: "the war will have to end in a negotiated peace," and "Minsk II provides a reasonable framework for negotiations." I don't disagree with either assertion! Yet, the New Yorker—embodying in this regard the prevailing climate of left-liberal opinion, treated these assertions as no less preposterous and unhinged than Kennedy's fact-free fulminations about vaccines and pharmaceuticals. 

Kennedy's remarks on the war, unlike his comments on medicine and public health, are not misstatements of empirical fact. They are a rival interpretation of a shared picture of reality. Therefore, they—unlike his other conspiracy theories—are worth engaging. Yet, the New Yorker responds to his comments on this topic merely with an ad hominem, saying his views derive from a right-wing internet pundit whom Liz Cheney has characterized as a representative of the "Putin wing of the GOP." Fine, then—the source is tainted. But does that alone make the argument wrong? 

In an intellectual and moral atmosphere more consonant with Bourne's spirit, I would think that most liberals would find Kennedy's two comments on this topic perfectly unexceptionable. No one, of course, should imply that Putin's brutal February 2022 invasion was justified (and, admittedly, Kennedy and his blogger source may independently believe that, and to the extent they do, shame on them, but my point is just that that's not what Kennedy said in this particular interview and therefore not what the New Yorker should have responded to). 

But, acknowledging Putin's actions to be vile—a breach of universal morality and international law—is not to answer the question of what to do about them now that would yield the least possible amount of further bloodshed. 

It seems to me now, as it has throughout the war, that the only way out of the conflict without more needless butchery is for the U.S. to publicly commit to backing the Ukrainian defense cause only up to the point of restoring the status quo ante as of February 2022. It should make it a matter of transparent official policy that it is in the fight and will continue supplying Ukrainian forces for the sole purpose of expelling the invasion that began in that month—put not of recapturing territory that was seized earlier. In short, the terms of the peace should respect the conditions of the earlier-negotiated Minsk II accord, with guarantees for Ukrainian independence and self-defense coupled with assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO. 

This, again, is not to draw a moral equivalency between Ukrainian and Russian claims, or to downgrade the conflict to the level of a mere "territorial dispute" between rival belligerents. The possibility of Ukraine jointing NATO, even if it had been a live one at the time of the invasion, would still not have justified Putin's incursion into the sovereign territory of a neighbor—and those who think it would should reflect on the fact that it is precisely Putin's propensity to invade and brutalize his neighbors that makes countries like Ukraine want to join NATO in the first place. If Ukraine has been wishing to join a defensive pact, the event (Putin's invasion) surely helps explain their position. 

But a war—even a just and defensive one—cannot be resolved through total victory for one side over the other—or, rather, it can, but only at the cost of utterly exhausting and demoralizing one of the foes and imposing a "Carthaginian peace," in Keynes's term, on its innocent civilian populace. If there is any chance for a war to end before it reaches this point, even at the cost of moral compromise, the parties to the conflict should take it. 

Now, some people may say that this is all well and good, but it is not our decision to make. It is for the Ukrainians to decide for themselves what compromises they are willing to tolerate to accelerate a peaceful resolution. And this may be true in turn—but that's not what we're discussing. We're trying to figure out what the U.S. policy toward the war should be. And since it is U.S. materiel and financial support at issue, it is manifestly the right of U.S. citizens and policymakers to have an opinion on what war aims they are willing to endorse and support with U.S. funds and arms. 

Moreover, it is worth considering the possibility that the U.S.'s lack of a definite bottom-line proposal for a negotiated peace that it would accept is actually prolonging the conflict and fueling the parties' intransigence. 

This is, let us recall, exactly what Randolph Bourne thought U.S. intervention in World War I was accomplishing. In a 1917 essay on "The Collapse of American Strategy," Bourne described how the U.S. president ostensibly pledged to enter the war solely as a means to bring the conflict to a more speedy and humane conclusion. By that year, after all, the fighting had reached a horrendous stalemate, and Wilson proposed that U.S. support for the Allies would break this impasse militarily while motivating both sides to enter into peace talks and reach a negotiated settlement. 

Crucial to this strategy's success, however, was the idea that the U.S. would articulate clear war aims that included a vision for a negotiated truce—one with terms favorable to both sets of belligerents. It would say, in effect: we are here to support the Allies up to the point of securing this settlement—but nothing further. Laying out such a clear program for the peace would therefore incentivize both sides to come to the negotiating table—Britain and France would moderate their own war aims and demands, because they knew the U.S. would not aid them in pursuing the most maximalist version of the peace; meanwhile Germany would see a way out of the war other than total defeat, and a means to secure at least some of their original aims, and therefore would have some option that allowed them to save face apart from just fighting to the last man. 

The problem was that the U.S. never articulated these war aims, and instead agreed to back the Allies in an open-ended way. Thus, the Allies were encouraged to seek nothing short of the total and abject defeat of Germany. Far from moderating their demands, they were motivated to increase them, because they now had millions more mobilized soldiers fighting on their side. And Wilson himself, despite his vaunted idealism, gave the imprimatur to this strategy—in Bourne's telling—by declaring that "The day has come when we must conquer or submit." By so saying, writes Bourne, "the President has clearly swung from a strategy of 'peace without victory' to a strategy of 'war to exhaustion for the sake of a military decision.'"

My fear is that, if Bourne were alive today, this is precisely what he would accuse today's liberals of doing all over again. By backing Ukraine's demands in an open-ended way—by saying it is for Ukraine to decide the extent of their war aims, and we will support them as far as they want to go—we are essentially pledging unlimited support and therefore encouraging our allies to be as maximalist in their demands as possible. There is all the less reason for Ukraine to ever compromise the more U.S. tanks and missiles are pledged to their defense. 

Of course, there is also less reason for Putin to compromise the less U.S. military aid for Ukraine continues to pour in—so I'm not suggesting a remotely tolerable peace would issue from the U.S. turning off the spigot of aid. The possible future in which the U.S. halts its aid and simply watches as Putin's war machine steamrolls over a prostrate Ukraine is not one we should even contemplate. But, we can keep up the flow of aid while simultaneously setting clear limits of what we are willing to support—and those limits, in my view, would most reasonably be set at the place that prior negotiations on this subject already reached—something like the terms of the Minsk agreements. 

Of course, people will squirm and balk at the idea of Putin getting anything at this end of this conflict. Why should he be rewarded for bad behavior and aggression? And the answer to that question comes to us from Bourne's ghost: because the war-machine is evil, and no good can come of the "war-technique," and therefore the best we can ever hope for in an armed conflict is a choice between lesser evils. And, to my mind, a peace with moral compromise is infinitely to be preferred to a war for total justice that is waged to the point of mutual exhaustion—if not annihilation.