Kindred Spirits

Ukraine in 2022 and the newly formed United States of 1776 both had pivotal roles to play in the fight for freedom around the world

BY LAWRENCE B.A. HATTER

Ayear ago this week, on Feb. 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Few international observers imagined that Ukraine stood a chance. Russia, we were told, had the second most powerful military in the world. It was just a matter of time before Ukraine was beaten and Putin installed a puppet regime in Kyiv.

It didn’t turn out that way.

Ukraine was not defeated. President Volodymyr Zelensky did not flee the capital to establish a government in exile. Instead, the Internet was filled with videos of Ukrainian farmers towing the carcasses of destroyed Russian tanks behind their tractors. A year later, Ukraine has succeeded in pushing back the invaders, but Russia is still far from defeated.

Ukraine is fighting a war of independence against Russian neocolonialism. Putin never came to terms with the chaotic end of the Soviet Union; he denies the existence of Ukraine as a nation. As a student of perverted history, he sees it as his divine mission to re-establish control over Russia’s former imperial possessions as a 21st century Peter the Great.

Though separated by more than 250 years, Ukraine’s fight for independence from Russia embodies the same spirit as America’s own War of Independence. Zelensky has come to personify the Ukrainian cause in a similar way that George Washington and his Continental Army emerged as a powerful symbol of patriot unity during the Revolutionary War. Putin plays the role of King George III. The British monarch insisted on taking a hard line against the rebellious colonies, and he was largely responsible for ensuring that his country fought a losing war for far too long.

The historical analogy of the Ukraine war and the American War of Independence is not just celebratory; it also offers an important lesson about the crucial role that foreign military aid will play in Ukrainian victory. The United States could not have won the Revolutionary War alone. The survival of the Continental Army depended on financing and supplies from abroad.

There is a persistent myth in the popular imagination that America won its independence from a global superpower through the grit and determination of a homespun army. It is easy to imagine a band of ragtag soldiers, grabbing their muskets from above the fireplace before heading out to ambush guileless British regulars. While guerrilla fighting took place, General Washington recognized the importance of fielding a professional, Europeanstyle army.

This wasn’t cheap. And it wasn’t easy. Eighteenth-century warfare was expensive. And Congress did not have the power of taxation. The fledgling United States lacked a military manufacturing base. The states could not supply the arms, ammunition and supplies necessary to fight a protracted war. The United States needed more than a little help from its friends to win its independence. The majority of the gunpowder used by the Continental Army during the war came from Caribbean colonies, including places like Jamaica, which remained loyal to the British Empire. Loans from countries like France and the Netherlands allowed Congress to buy arms to fight. Without this support, there is no way that the United States would have won the war.

The Revolutionary War also offers a cautionary tale of the danger of escalation. While NATO and other countries providing military aid to Ukraine have underlined their opposition to a general war with Russia, America’s allies during the War of Independence joined with the expressed intention of widening the conflict. France was an absolutist monarchy. King Louis XVI in no way shared the patriot’s democratic ideals. But he was eager to restore France’s military prestige, damaged by its defeat during the Seven Years’ War, by humiliating its traditional British foe. The FrancoAmerican alliance of 1778 transformed the War of Independence into a global conflict as France and Britain attempted to capture one another’s colonies in the Caribbean and beyond.

The danger of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is incomparable to the showdown between Britain and France in the 1770s and 1780s. A nuclear escalation would risk the annihilation of humankind. But NATO lacks the territorial motivation that animated France during the Revolutionary War. Despite the false rhetoric emanating from the Kremlin, NATO is not an imperial enterprise. If NATO’s “territory” has expanded, it is because states have asked to join to defend themselves against Russia’s neocolonial ambitions in central and eastern Europe. NATO’s shared commitment to democracy and a rules-based international system helps to provide a barrier to direct military intervention by the Western powers today.

The recent decision by the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and others to provide Ukraine with battle tanks is an important step in arming Ukraine with the tools it needs to defeat Russia and defend democracy. Though General Washington could never have imagined anything like an M1 Abrams at Yorktown, he would understand better than anyone the importance of foreign military aid to the cause of freedom.

If we want to see an end to Putin’s monstrous war of aggression before another anniversary of his illegal invasion rolls around, the United States and its allies must stay the course in providing military aid to Ukraine. n

Lawrence B.A. Hatter is an award-winning author and associate professor of early American history at Washington State University. These views are his own and do not reflect those of WSU.