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Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He is in-house counsel to a number of businesses in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
We won!
I’m not talking about Super Tuesday or the Supreme Court’s unanimous repudiation of state attempts to stop Donald Trump from accessing the ballot. Nor am I talking about my alma mater’s state Class AA girls’ basketball championship.
I’m talking about “Rocky IV.”
For those unfamiliar with this cinematic Cold War masterpiece, it is a traditional underdog story. The plucky, small American boxer — the titular Rocky Balboa — heads to the Soviet Union for an unsanctioned match. This time, it’s personal; the Communist ubermensch Ivan Drago had killed Balboa’s friend Apollo Creed in a Las Vegas exhibition.
With red mood lighting, Drago trains in a 1980s state-of-the-art facility with gadgets, gizmos, and anabolic steroids. Rocky heads to the Russian Urals and lifts logs, moves old farm implements, and runs through the snow.
Balboa looks hopelessly outmatched standing across from Drago. Yet, through sheer determination and will, he lands a punch that makes the Soviet superman bleed. He wins over the once-hostile crowd and ultimately wins the fight in the final round. Even the Politburo begrudgingly applauds the plucky American.
OK, “masterpiece” might be overstating the artistic merit of the movie. But it is still a good one.
Just a couple weeks ago, the USA won again. Ivan Drago himself — actor Dolph Lundgren — became an American citizen. In fairness, Dolph isn’t Drago. The latter was a one-trick Soviet stallion. The former is a Swedish-born chemical engineer with a disdain for socialism.
Yet Lundgren’s decision to become an American should strike a chord as we look at the world today. In the late 1980s, he represented a character diametrically opposed to the American way of life. The story of “Rocky IV” hit you over the head with good-versus-evil motifs. Soviets were the bad guys.
Life is always way more complex than movies. But, as a matter of policy, it was much easier for Americans of all political stripes to agree that Soviet aggression should not be countenanced.
The same should hold true today.
One of the biggest policy-focused debates in Washington today is whether — and how much — the United States should continue to support Ukraine. There are lots of complex arguments and differences of opinion.
In homage to “Rocky IV,” I’ll try to simplify it: Vladimir Putin is a former KGB agent. And the KGB was a bad guy trope for a reason.
Recent polls have indicated that Republicans are less supportive than Democrats when it comes to future support for Ukraine. A majority of GOP voters are still supportive, it is just a question of degree.
A lot of the opposition to American aid seems to be focused on the dollar amounts. That is understandable; under the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, our national debt has grown massively. So more debt-financed spending on foreign nations can certainly seem questionable.
Yet much of American military aid to date has consisted of aged, in-kind materiel. The headline dollars don’t tell the full story.
Beyond that, it is always difficult to measure second- and third-order effects. Supporting Ukraine today has a very real cost. So did defending South Korea after the communist invasion and securing the Axis powers after World War II.
Today, American efforts to defend those nations have more than paid back in spades. South Korea, Germany, and Japan are some of our biggest trading partners. Prosperity is built on a foundation of security.
Immigrants like Dolph Lungren still flock to the United States because our nation serves a unique role in the world today. Part of that role is standing firm against totalitarian regimes hell bent on conquest of their neighbors. Especially if those regimes are led by former KGB agents.
Like the end of “Rocky IV,” America won when someone else fought on her behalf against Soviet aggression. Helping Ukraine fight her own battle against Russian aggression is how we can win in the real world.