Ambassador John Herbst knows a thing or two about the ongoing war in Ukraine. He was ambassador to that country from 2000 to 2003, during the volatile years of the Orange Revolution, has served as director of the center for complex operations at National Defense University,and now as senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Last Friday, at the invitation of former Congressman Bob Schaffer, House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese and Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, he stopped by the State Capitol to give a briefing to House and Senate Republicans on the current situation in Ukraine and America’s response.

The report, as you can imagine, was rather grim.

Ambassador Herbst touched on the horrors of the Russian occupation, including the mass and organized kidnap of Ukrainian children by the Russians, a crime so horrid as to immunize even the International Criminal Court from its reflexive equivalence nonsense, and lead it to unilaterally label Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal. He also spoke of the revelations of mass graves and torture chambers — including torture chambers specifically for children — discovered in towns liberated by the Ukrainians and the ongoing and brutal repression of Christians by the occupying Russians. Essentially, anybody who does not identify with the Russian state church — the ghost of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is now headed by a general in the Russian FSB (the successor to the Soviet KGB) — is ripe for arrest and torture, including Ukrainian Orthodox, Roman Catholics and evangelical protestants.

Stay up to speed: Sign up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

The atrocities of the Russian occupation are not too much of a secret, and man’s inhumanity to man is not especially uncommon, even in this enlightened age; what makes this of so great concern to American and western powers is the exportation of that inhumanity. As Ambassador Herbst — and others — have pointed out, the fallout from this war will not be contained in the Ukraine. Putin’s near-term goal of full political control of Ukraine is not his final aim; Ukraine is merely a stepping off point for his next objective, which is control of the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — all of which are NATO allies. And of course his ultimate goal is a realignment of the global political order away from the West. This is a goal shared by the People’s Republic of China, which is watching the developments in Ukraine with much interest, as they prepare for their own aggressive enterprise in the western Pacific, beginning with Taiwan.

Concerning U.S. response to the crisis, Ambassador Herbst characterized the Biden administration’s policy as “feckless, but adequate.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. He noted though the administration has, eventually, sent arms to the beleaguered Ukrainians, it has done so in a piecemeal, laggard fashion, often well after they are needed. The Biden response, unsurprisingly, has been reactive, not proactive, driven, he suggests, by two things: a fear of Russian nuclear retaliation — a much over-hyped fear, inasmuch as Putin may be evil, but he’s not insane; he knows the retribution that would follow from even the use of a single tactical nuclear weapon, and the fact that the Chinese, who’s own strategic goals are so tied to ultimate Russian success in Ukraine, would be absolutely livid if Putin tossed away all of his advantage in so reckless a manner — and even more by their fear of actually winning. The worry, Herbst explains, is of the destabilization of Russia in the event of a clear defeat. Though that may be a concern, it is a far lesser concern than a unified, strong Russia intent on upending the international order that has kept the relative peace since the end of World War II.

But Herbst’s strongest condemnations were reserved for the myopic proto-populist Republicans flirting with isolationism. Some of the stuff coming out of the mouths of the likes of J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene is indistinguishable from the nonsensical pablum spewed by Sen. “Red Ted” Kennedy a generation or two ago about the dangers of the “military-industrial complex.” You know, what we conservatives used to call “the arsenal of Democracy.”

The fact of the matter is Ukrainian victory will not just be a moral win for the West, but a strategic and economic one. Russia only wins in Ukraine if the U.S. lets them — if America proves its will is too weak to prevent that outcome. If that happens, the West will be facing a war in the Baltics, one in which the U.S. will be obligated to be involved directly. A victory in Ukraine means far lower costs to the U.S. both in terms of dollars and lives.

Fortunately, not all Republicans have drifted left on foreign policy like Taylor Greene and her ilk, as the assemblage of state GOP elected officials that congregated to hear Ambassador Herbst proves. The myopically isolationist wing of the Republican Party remains a minority, and as long as it does so, the GOP can continue to be trusted to deliver on John Quincy Adams’s famous promise: to be both friends of liberty everywhere and guardians of our own.    

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.