[Goose]

I wonder what role is most important in our national interest? Money, Arms or Boots on the Ground, or all 3?  Have we ever clearly defined what our National Interests are?  They change, but they do not change much. Since 1963, how many ill fated adventures have gotten involved in only to look back at failure?

I was actually quite surprised these questions did not generate much more discussion. It may be that at this point in the Ukraine conflict it is almost a postulate on this board that preventing Russia from absorbing Ukraine is in the US national interest. However, IMO it is important to recognize that the first Bush administration considered that the preferred outcome. The Clinton administration was agnostic enough on that subject that the security "assurances" contained in the Trilateral Agreement contained no assurances that the US would actively oppose such an outcome. The second Bush administration responded to the election of a pro-western government in Ukraine by publicly advocating Ukraine's admission to NATO. Both Germany and France were a very "hard no" at that time. The Bush administration therefore backed away from that position, Ukraine having said that was "ok". During the Obama administration Russia invaded Crimea and the southern Ukraine. At that point the administration did not declare it in the national interest of the US to prevent Russia absorbing that part of Ukraine. During the first Trump administration there was no declaration that the US considered Ukraine's future existence a national interest of the United States. IMO the US had always considered Ukraine as "too hard to do" in terms of defending it from Russia. Defending Ukraine's rights as a nation by military action is not and was not a "national priority".
 
There is another set of US interests that are involved in the Ukraine war. The US has pushed for the rule of law to persist among nations. One nation can't simply decide to take over another. This preference by the US is not absolute. There are instances in Africa, the middle east, south Asia etc. where the US deplores such actions but isn't going to do anything about them. In many cases both nations are operating outside the law and neither is innocent. In other cases the risk of failure is high enough that said failure would do more harm than good. In these cases we do nothing. Some obsolete examples of this approach would be Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The point to be made here is that the US often weighs the benefits of "enforcing" the rule of law regarding aggression vs the cost of doing so. That cost can be the cost of success (in lives and dollars) and the cost of failure (in lives, dollars, and diplomatic clout). It has been assumed after the formation of NATO that the US would not allow European wars to break out. The conflicts in the Balkans is an example of the US intervening to prevent such an action. It also demonstrated the idea that non-NATO states had to follow the rules too :-).
 
IMO it was the latter policy that caused the US to involve itself in Ukraine. It wasn't Ukraine itself that was the critical national interest. It was the principal that territorial disputes in Europe could not be decided by a war. This has been a pillar of US policy since the end of WW II. The administration felt that protecting this principle was in the US national interest. That is why we are "involved". However, the US had a choice. One approach would have been to declare this conflict "not a European one" and stay out of it. That would quite possibly have been considered a weak and disingenuous response  (which it would indeed have been). However, the damage that response could do to the principle needed to be weighed against the damage that will be done by attempting to enforce the principle and failing.  If you don't have a plan that is pretty much guaranteed to work, it is probably better to stay out of it. It appears we had no real "plan" other than reacting to events as they happened. That is why we are now where we are. Good intentions but no reasonable plan often leads to that result. Subsequent bad decisions may well have increased the damage failing to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty will have on world peace in general and  US foreign policy in particular, but from day one, it appears we had no plan to "win". Thus we are not winning :-).

[Goose]

I wonder what role is most important in our national interest? Money, Arms or Boots on the Ground, or all 3?  Have we ever clearly defined what our National Interests are?  They change, but they do not change much. Since 1963, how many ill fated adventures have gotten involved in only to look back at failure?

I was actually quite surprised these questions did not generate much more discussion. It may be that at this point in the Ukraine conflict it is almost a postulate on this board that preventing Russia from absorbing Ukraine is in the US national interest. However, IMO it is important to recognize that the first Bush administration considered that the preferred outcome. The Clinton administration was agnostic enough on that subject that the security "assurances" contained in the Trilateral Agreement contained no assurances that the US would actively oppose such an outcome. The second Bush administration responded to the election of a pro-western government in Ukraine by publicly advocating Ukraine's admission to NATO. Both Germany and France were a very "hard no" at that time. The Bush administration therefore backed away from that position, Ukraine having said that was "ok". During the Obama administration Russia invaded Crimea and the southern Ukraine. At that point the administration did not declare it in the national interest of the US to prevent Russia absorbing that part of Ukraine. During the first Trump administration there was no declaration that the US considered Ukraine's future existence a national interest of the United States. IMO the US had always considered Ukraine as "too hard to do" in terms of defending it from Russia. Defending Ukraine's rights as a nation by military action is not and was not a "national priority".
 
There is another set of US interests that are involved in the Ukraine war. The US has pushed for the rule of law to persist among nations. One nation can't simply decide to take over another. This preference by the US is not absolute. There are instances in Africa, the middle east, south Asia etc. where the US deplores such actions but isn't going to do anything about them. In many cases both nations are operating outside the law and neither is innocent. In other cases the risk of failure is high enough that said failure would do more harm than good. In these cases we do nothing. Some obsolete examples of this approach would be Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The point to be made here is that the US often weighs the benefits of "enforcing" the rule of law regarding aggression vs the cost of doing so. That cost can be the cost of success (in lives and dollars) and the cost of failure (in lives, dollars, and diplomatic clout). It has been assumed after the formation of NATO that the US would not allow European wars to break out. The conflicts in the Balkans is an example of the US intervening to prevent such an action. It also demonstrated the idea that non-NATO states had to follow the rules too :-).
 
IMO it was the latter policy that caused the US to involve itself in Ukraine. It wasn't Ukraine itself that was the critical national interest. It was the principal that territorial disputes in Europe could not be decided by a war. This has been a pillar of US policy since the end of WW II. The administration felt that protecting this principle was in the US national interest. That is why we are "involved". However, the US had a choice. One approach would have been to declare this conflict "not a European one" and stay out of it. That would quite possibly have been considered a weak and disingenuous response  (which it would indeed have been). However, the damage that response could do to the principle needed to be weighed against the damage that will be done by attempting to enforce the principle and failing.  If you don't have a plan that is pretty much guaranteed to work, it is probably better to stay out of it. It appears we had no real "plan" other than reacting to events as they happened. That is why we are now where we are. Good intentions but no reasonable plan often leads to that result. Subsequent bad decisions may well have increased the damage failing to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty will have on world peace in general and  US foreign policy in particular, but from day one, it appears we had no plan to "win". Thus we are not winning :-).