Will someone please shoot that SOB?

Or at least show Vladimir Putin that a man's got to know his limitations.

On the eve of the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I'm hearing talk from (some) conservatives and isolationists about eliminating, or at least imposing strict limits on, our support for Ukraine in it's war against unwarranted Russian aggression. Why aren't we as concerned, the line goes, with our southern border? Why aren't we as worried about the plight of Palestine, Ohio, in the wake of a massive chemical spill? What about lowering our own national debt?

Those are completely valid questions and no one is wrong for asking them. I'm as disgusted as many conservatives about the situation on our southern border (and increasingly, our northern border). I think that the train derailment and chemical spill in Palestine has been grossly mishandled. I'd add to this short list my dissatisfaction with the way that the current administration has handled the economy, the aftermath of Covid, Chinese aggression, wokeness and a host of other issues that I think they've botched.

If you are among those expressing these concerns, I understand your misgivings about our national priorities. That I am no fan of the current administration and their priorities is an almost ludicrous understatement. I think that Joe Biden is easily the worst president of this century, behind even George Bush.

But I do give the Biden administration credit for the manner in which they've handled Ukraine. I think that the President's recent trip to Kiev, on the eve of the first anniversary of the war, was a solid move. I applaud the assistance in weapons and intelligence that the Biden administration has provided Ukraine. My dispute is that the aid has not been enough and that it's taking too long to get the Ukrainians what they need to prevail, rather than merely survive another day.

I'd like to make the case to anyone harboring concerns about our aid to Ukraine that we here in the United States can walk and chew gum at the same time. I'm going to make the case, in fact, that we must.

I understand concerns over the allegations of a “blank check” being issued to Ukraine. I'm not for cutting blank checks for anything. But I also don't think that's quite the case here. The amount of aid we've provided to Ukraine is a minuscule part of just the defense portion of our national budget. It's a large amount of money, to be sure, but we can afford it. And it's way better use of taxpayer money than other other current schemes like forgiving student loans or allowing Covid relief funds to to be used for reparations.

Should we be spending more to secure our own borders, to repair our own infrastructure, to keep our own citizens safe in their homes and communities? Unequivocally, yes. But we can do both. Furthermore, we should do both. And it’s very likely far cheaper for us in the long run if we do.

Ukraine is providing the United States and our NATO allies the opportunity to reduce Russia's military prowess to third-world status at a bargain price. I noted in a recent column that Ukraine holds the distinction of being the only country in the modern world to win a naval battle (decisively, I might add) without a navy, by sinking the flagship of the Russian fleet. Ukraine, to date, has recaptured over half of the territory that it initially lost during last year's invasion by an alleged military superpower.

Given sufficient resources, Ukraine is probably capable of taking back not only everything that it lost during the invasion, plus Crimea, but territory all the way to Moscow. If that's not enough evidence that we're backing a winner, I don't know what is.

I know that some believe Ukraine’s fight to be none of our business. That’s not, in my opinion, an invalid concern even though I disagree. I understand the additional misgivings about corruption, which was one of the principle reasons that Ukraine was not seriously considered for inclusion in NATO before now. But on that front, there's little evidence that the current regime is anything other than vigilant in rooting out corruption. Zelensky, in particular, won election because he was widely viewed as someone who would fight corruption.

The fact that he's also a strong war time president is a bonus.

I also agree with those who are critical about our decades of recently concluded adventures in Afghanistan. But our lack of success there, despite billions of dollars spent, has almost nothing to do with our military and almost everything to do with our politicians. Four administrations, two Democratic and two Republican, botched Afghanistan. Biden, coming in at the end of the debacle, was largely the schmuck left holding a flaming bag of poo three other administrations dropped on his doorstep.

Ukraine and Afghanistan, while both regrettable entanglements, are nonetheless entirely discernable as foreign policy objectives. Ukraine provides us with a relatively low-risk opportunity to square up unfinished business with our chief geopolitical adversaries of the past seven decades, Russia and China. The stakes may be high, but the odds of a good outcome are solidly in our favor.

We don't have to send any troops to Europe right now because the Ukrainians have shown themselves to be ferocious, capable and ingenious adversaries of the Russian military. If Ukraine prevails, and I think that they only thing that's even slowing them down is battlefield hardware, Russian military aggression will be reduced to rhetoric and rubble. I think it's also likely that a clear Ukrainian victory sobers up Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, who have very similar aspirations with regard to Taiwan.

Now let's consider the scenario where Russia prevails in the current conflict. The first and most serious outcome is that Russia would have troops in a wartime posture on the doorstep of NATO allies - having learned little in the way of any good lesson about the perils of unwarranted aggression. China, who you may rest assured is following all of this closely, would very likely be emboldened to make an immediate move on Taiwan.

This unfortunate scenario requires us to spend many multiples of what we are spending now in Ukraine in terms of both blood and treasure. And a good outcome for us is far less certain.

Make no mistake, China and Russia are not our friends. We've spent decades listening to the idea that it was in our best economic interests to make nice with the Russians and to allow China to make off with much of our crucial manufacturing infrastructure. It was all nonsense, but as there was a lot of money to be made convincing Americans (among others) that it was true, the notion prevailed. Now it’s all coming home to roost. That being the case, we can deal with our miscalculations now, through a potent proxy, or we can deal with them when they land on our doorstep. The former, in my opinion, is better than the latter.

Putin's frequent declarations to the effect that the United States risks escalating the Ukrainian conflict by supporting Zelensky and his forces is an empty threat. If he were going to do anything so foolish as unleash a battlefield nuke, or wage immediate war on NATO, he'd have done so before he had to start emptying Russian prisons for cannon fodder. Now that his armed forces have been exposed for their incompetence, the last thing that Putin wants to do is use a nuke, a veritable confession of military impotence, or provoke NATO, an assurance of defeat.

Besides, I don't know about you, but I'd just as soon not let pinheads like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping dictate U.S. foreign policy. Both of these men are choice examples of the maxim that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The world would be better off without both of these two. But in the absence of that, we can sure stand up to their bullshit.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth