Should a pacifist support arming Ukraine?

Trump’s shameful press conference with Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a national embarrassment. But it begs questions for peacemaking Christians on how we support victims of conquest.

AP Photo/Mystyslav Chernoc (AP)

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance reveled in embarrassing Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a meeting the White House had with Ukraine’s president. If their goal was to assert the United States' power and humiliate Ukraine, it worked. Trump pointedly told Zelenskyy, whom he mocked for not wearing a suit, that he was beholden to U.S. support, while Vance rebuked him for not thanking the president of America’s ongoing support of Ukraine (of course, it was Joe Biden’s administration that supported Ukraine—which Trump, in the same meeting, mocked as stupid).

Witnessing this bizarre and unprecedented conference with an American ally was shocking, but it brought questions to me that challenged my own pacifism. I’ve written before about American hypocrisy when it came to supporting Ukraine's defense of itself against Russia, when the same Americans supported the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq. I’ve also written about the fact that U.S. intervention in Ukraine is about power, not morality. But despite these objections, I am faced with the actual dangers that the entire world faces because of Trump’s posture toward Ukraine.

Trump's ceasefire is one that is apparently without security measures for Ukraine, nor any accountability for Russian aggression. (It’s not unlike the ceasefire deal that he is intent on destroying between Hamas and Israel, as well.) Trump seems dead set on buddying up to wicked despots like Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin without regard for their most immediate victims or any geopolitical consequences. Trump, indeed, full of ego and arrogance, has no regard for the consequences of his actions beyond how they personally benefit him. He’s so self-centered, he can’t even anticipate that his own actions and policies will very likely harm him, let alone the United States.

In fact, when Zelenskyy warned him his lack of support for Ukraine would have consequences America will feel, Trump shouted him down for telling him what he might feel.

The hawkish argument for funding Ukraine revolves around Putin’s plans to conquer the rest of Europe, viewing Ukraine as a sort of barrier or dam that protects the rest of the continent. I am not sure that more munitions to Ukraine will solve the issue, and may prolong the war and devastation. But that very support, if it's successful, will position the U.S. as the superpower that it wants to continue to be.

In that scenario, Christian pacifists have to face a grim reality: as much as we oppose war and the proxy war happening in Ukraine and Russia (a residual Cold War conflict), the U.S. funding and supporting Ukraine may be the best way to stave off even worse destruction. I am sad to say that is the case, both as a nonviolent individual, and as someone who is deeply suspicious of growing Western power (which, again, I believe was the motive of intervening with Ukraine).

Further complicating it for me, as I mentioned above, is the hypocrisy of proponents of supporting Ukraine vis-à-vis Gaza. Say what you will about Trump’s meeting with the president of Ukraine, there is not even a measure of that offered to Palestinians in the White House. Zelenskyy was invited and insulted; Palestinians and their plight are completely ignored or completely dehumanized.

So we’re faced with arming Ukraine and prolonging a war, American hypocrisy when it comes to other people groups in the same position as Ukraine, as well as growing American power as a solution to Russian aggression. This is a really hard position to be in as a pacifist. The issue here is that all of those circumstances compromise our convictions, but they are also seemingly unchanging in the immediate. The age-old pacifist “gotcha” is before us: harm is being caused immediately to your love ones–do you use violence?

So how should a Christian pacifist then engage the conflict in Ukraine? I would not suggest it is through Trumpist isolationism that invites despots to conquer sovereign territory and harm innocent people. Christian pacifism is not an anti-interventionist or isolationist position. The reason we are pacifists and nonviolent is not to keep our hands clean, but rather that we think there are diplomatic and nonviolent measures we can take that alleviate suffering without bloodshed.

I think we need to come to terms with the danger that Russian aggression is to Ukraine and to the world, and similarly that Chinese aggression is to the Uighurs and Taiwan, and Israeli aggression toward Palestine, Lebanon, and the rest of the Middle East. We live in a world where powerful forces harm vulnerable people for personal gain. In the face of seeming to use force, it should be both judicious and measured, and not greater than the one you are facing. In this particular arrangement, the U.S. is not a moral or noble actor, but just the least worst option.

The U.S. has certainly engaged very similarly to Russia in its recent history. We can see the destruction that the U.S. brought into both Latin and South America and the Middle East—it gets even worse when you go further back in history. The U.S. has categorically engaged in similarly imperialistic and colonialistic behavior. I am open to being corrected here, but despite that history and that record, stopping Russian aggression—just like stopping Israeli or Chinese aggression—seems to be the most moral position to option among the paltry choices we have before us.

But more than this, Christian pacifists must also be committed to reimagining the forgone conclusions of our geopolitical arrangement that makes war seem inevitable. You will hear it time and again – war is the only answer, a ceasefire is impossible, Putin won’t respect it. I understand that notion and, as Bibi is showing the world, militaristic despots are not likely to respect ceasefires and diplomacy. But we need to try to imagine a new way of being in the world. We must protest for it and act for it. Most importantly, we must imagine it. Don’t let the war machine turn you into a person that thinks that war and violence are the only choice before us. They are not and they never will be. Even if it is temporarily the best option, we cannot rest on our laurels.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine happened in a context that the U.S. helped create when it decided to pursue its own power and interest above the world’s. Russia is engaged in the same nationalistic endeavor. The same is true for many other nations. It doesn’t have to be this way. The world can be different. It will require prophetic imagination and influence. Unfortunately for us, we don’t have that in Washington. We are beholden to a militaristic Democratic party and a reckless and dangerous Republican one. Given that, we can make reasonable choices, but we cannot let those limited choices blind us to what we can imagine for the future. So even as it seems like the best option is to both support Ukrainians in their self-defense (and I might add, what we should also be doing in Palestine), Christian pacifists can offer a new imagination for what is possible: a world where we care for one another, share things in common, and don’t have to engage in power struggles to stop injustice from happening.