From Korea to Ukraine: The American Beacon of Democracy

• Post by: Marcelo Pena
• May 21, 2024
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Liam Kang, Winner, Stanford Model UN Conference Essay Contest

The Stanford Journal of International Affairs is pleased to present the winner of the 2023 Stanford Model UN Conference (SMUNC) Essay Contest, a partnership between our Journal and SMUNC, a conference for high school students at Stanford. This piece was selected from twenty-five submissions responding to a prompt asking students to choose a modern-day major conflict and assess current U.S. foreign policy regarding the conflict. Submissions were judged on the basis of argument strength, coherence, and originality.

The lands we inhabit and the borders of our nations have frequently been threatened by

imperialistic, despotic leaders ever since the dawn of civilization—and war—in the Fertile Crescent nearly five thousand years ago.¹ Niccolo Machiavelli famously wrote in The Prince, “A ruler who wishes to maintain his power must be prepared to act immorally when this becomes necessary… [he] should have no other objective… except war and its methods and practices.” ²

One of the most historically resonant modern examples of this Machiavellian warmongering is that of the Korean peninsula, which, split and fraught with war after enduring the onslaught of Japanese imperialism in the early 20th century, was caught between the aggressive ambitions of differing motivations and ideologies motivated by the political appetites and thirst for power of dictators like Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Kim Il Sung. The tragic fracture from this war persists to this day.³ Back then, the United States and its foreign policy were instrumental in preserving the tenets of democracy and capitalism for the southern half of the country. Although unable to prevent the fracturing of the nation, the U.S. was successful in at least buttressing the foundation of a thriving and free society, South Korea.

Today, the nation of Ukraine is similarly threatened by the “immoral” Machiavellian ambitions of Vladimir Putin and his Russian state, which encroach upon the freedom of Ukrainian democracy and its people. The U.S., as it was with Korea and many other nations in the past, is crucial in functioning as the world’s bastion of political, economic, and social freedom by supporting Ukraine against Russia. This policy not only strategically benefits the U.S. itself while ensuring Ukraine can continue to exist as a free and complete nation, but also is critically important in fortifying the stability of global democracy as a whole.

On February 24, 2022, Putin commenced the invasion of Ukraine, a military campaign predicated on deeply steeped nationalist, imperialist, and decades-old motivations of the tyrannical ruler, who both refuses to acknowledge Ukraine as a sovereign nation and pursues an unshakable, self-indulgent desire to restore the “Russian World.”⁴ This has culminated in the “most disruptive conflict that Europe has seen since 1945.” ⁵ As a result, there have been nearly 200,000 Ukrainian casualties, with millions displaced from their homes and billions of dollars of damage to the nation’s infrastructure.⁶ Each one of these numbers represents one individual whose life has been tragically derailed, one family’s future that has been extinguished. Throughout this ongoing conflict, the United States has supported Ukraine steadfastly, as it did South Korea, albeit without engaging in the war itself. The U.S. has approved over $113 billion in assistance packages to Ukraine, with $47 billion committed to security and military assistance, and the rest targeted at humanitarian efforts towards disaster prevention, refugee welfare, and related items.⁷ Importantly, this lofty number only accounts for less than 1% of America’s federal spending, a negligible slice of the budget worth trimming for the sake of the humanity of our allies.⁸ Simultaneously, the U.S. has imposed an economic stranglehold upon Russia, ending or stifling export agreements, financially alienating the nation from the international banking system, and supporting the evacuation of American business from the country.⁹

Many Americans might argue that this effort is a waste of our national budget and taxpayers’ money—that we should be focusing on our own country and not be hooked into the wars of other nations. They would be wrong. The U.S.’s support of Ukraine not only strengthens both nations, but our global democracy as a whole. By financially and diplomatically upholding Ukraine, the U.S. is making an investment for its future, both economically and politically. Not only will the financial costs be offset by ensuring the health of a valuable member of the global economy and trade partner in Ukraine, but the resolve and stability of Europe and NATO will also be more reassured for the future.¹⁰ Speculatively, this support is also an investment preventing the future possibility of a global war, potentially triggered by the unchecked, tyrannical ambitions of Putin; symbolically, this support props the U.S.’ standing as the beacon of democratic light in the world that shines in order to prevent such a war.¹¹ This light can thus shine both as an inspiring encouragement to developing nations in their infancy of free democracy, and equally as a warning to nations like China, which tiptoe the line between freedom and oppression, and which are a massive, potentially threatening, geopolitical presence. Most importantly, though, America’s aid to Ukraine is necessary because we are not simply American or Korean or Ukrainian citizens—we are global citizens, who all deserve peace and freedom.

When the United States began its involvement in the Korean War, within one year there was widespread opposition across the nation, lamenting the loss of American soldiers’ lives.¹² Yet, if the U.S. had not supported South Korea, we can imagine how different and worse our world would be now. The geopolitics of Asia would be unrecognizable, with Japan potentially as the only democratic stronghold of the Pacific. More crucially, a nation of 52 million free people would not exist today, instead being absorbed into North Korea and likely becoming a Chinese satellite state. The foreign policy of the United States granted those south of the divide to have a prosperous, thriving, and free existence.

Winston Churchill once said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But also, perhaps, are those that fail to learn from history—our positive history—doomed to neglect it? The war that split the Korean peninsula was messy, costly, and deadly, but we must not fail to learn from our history that the support of democracy resulted in a thriving democratic nation. We must not neglect the parallel of Ukraine to South Korea and other historical examples of support for free nations under siege from tyrants. We must, in the shadow of the Russo-Ukrainian War, shine bright as beacons of freedom and democracy.

1. Joshua J. Mark. “Mesopotamian Warfare.” World History Encyclopedia, February 16, 2023, www.worldhistory.org/Mesopotamian_Warfare/. ↩︎
2. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, 1542 via Matthew Slaboch, “Putin and Political Theory: A Machiavellian and Pan-Slav Mindset,” Europe Now Journal, 2022, www.europenowjournal.org/2022/02/24/putin-and-political-theory-a-machiavellian-and-pa n-slav-mindset/. ↩︎
3. Anthony Rinna, “Neither Repeats nor Rhymes: The Limits of ‘Korean War’ Parallels in Ukraine,” Sino, 13 Feb. 2023, sinonk.com/2023/02/12/neither-repeats-nor-rhymes-the-limits-of-korean-war-parallels-in-ukraine/. ↩︎
4. Jonathan Masters, “Ukraine: Conflict at the Crossroads of Europe and Russia,” Council on Foreign Relations, Accessed Nov. 2023, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-crossroads-europe-and-russia; Joseph S. Nye et al. “What Caused the Ukraine War?” Project Syndicate, October 7, 2022, www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/what-caused-russia-ukraine-war-by-joseph-s-nye- 2022-10. ↩︎
5. Nye et al., “What Caused the Ukraine War?” ↩︎
6. Helene Cooper et al, “Ukraine War Casualties near Half a Million, U.S. Officials Say,” New York Times, August 18, 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html; Matthew Mpoke Bigg, “How Russia’s War in Ukraine Has Unfolded, Month by Month.” The New York Times, September 12, 2022, www.nytimes.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-timeline.html. ↩︎
7. Elizabeth Hoffman et al, “The Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Assistance to Ukraine: A Deep Dive into the Data,” CSIS, September 26, 2023, https://www.csis.org/analysis/past-present-and-future-us-assistance-ukraine-deep-dive-data; Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine,” updated February 15, 2024, crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040. ↩︎
8. Sam Hananel et al.,“5 Reasons Why Congress Must Approve Aid to Ukraine Right Away.” Center for American Progress, November 2, 2023, www.americanprogress.org/article/5-reasons-why-congress-must-approve-aid-to-ukraine-right-away/. ↩︎
9. Anthony H. Cordesman, “United States Aid to Ukraine: An Investment Whose Benefits Greatly Exceed Its Cost,” CSIS, November 21, 2022, www.csis.org/analysis/united-states-aid-ukraine-investment-whose-benefits-greatly-exceed -its-cost; The White House, “Fact Sheet: United States Takes Further Actions to Counter Sanctions Evasion by Russia,” June 2, 2022, www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/02/fact-sheet-united-state s-takes-further-actions-to-counter-sanctions-evasion-by-russia/. ↩︎
10. Hananel et al., “5 Reasons Why Congress Must Approve Aid to Ukraine Right Away”; Cordesman, “United States Aid to Ukraine.” ↩︎
11. Vitaliy Syzov, “Four Reasons Why Supporting Ukraine Is a Good Investment,” Wilson Center, January 11, 2023, www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/four-reasons-why-supporting-ukraine-good-investment. ↩︎
12. Steve Crabtree, “The Gallup Brain: Americans and the Korean War.” Gallup, September 19, 2023, news.gallup.com/poll/7741/gallup-brain-americans-korean-war.aspx. ↩︎