Zelensky doesn’t need to thank anyone

Author: Mark Dixon, Founder of the Moral Rating Agency

President Trump and his Vice President repetitively demanded thanks from President Zelensky in the Oval Office meeting on Friday.

Trump and Vance have got it the wrong way around. The entire West, America included, should be thanking Zelensky for Ukraine’s fight in support of the freedom of the Free World.  Zelensky is the last person on the planet who needs to thank anyone.  After Trump’s outrageous gratitude-bullying, the only person who should thank him is Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

We have just witnessed a dramatic episode of gratitude geopolitics.  Its dynamics say a lot about the current state of the Free World.

Ukraine’s sacrifice

Any thoughtful Western politician understands the value of freedom and the threat of Putin. They comprehend the existential risk facing Western democracy from Russia and China and appreciate Ukraine’s courage in fighting the Free World’s current Public Enemy Number One.

The trajectory of giving insufficient support to Ukraine, and the domino effect of not stopping Russia, may point to the eventual loss of our freedom under a longer-term Chinese world order.  We are in a battle between the democratic and non-democratic worlds that we cannot wage by half-measure because it is a battle for what we are.

Ukraine has had to fight for its own life, its continued freedom, and even its existence as a sovereign nation, but it has also been fighting a regime that threatens every value that those of us outside Ukraine also cherish and still enjoy. 

We should not forget that it is simply because of the way the cards of history have fallen that the responsibility to fight Putin has befallen Ukraine.

Every drop of Ukrainian blood has been shed for Western gain.  No one in their right mind should expect David to thank us while fighting Goliath for the common good.

Measuring the ‘direction of gratitude’

Against this backdrop, Trump and Vance might want to take a little course in the how to work out the direction of gratitude but, of course, they might have trouble with some of the inputs in the equation, such as the value of democracy and some moral calculations that may be beyond their sensibilities.

When nations help each other, can we judge who should actually be thanking whom? It can be difficult to measure the direction that any gratitude should be flowing if you have financial or military aid on one side and loss of life on another.  This ‘apples and oranges’ issue is inevitable when one nation is helping another rather than fighting side-by-side.  Since no measure should put a value on human life, how can we nonetheless try to quantify relative gratitude?

We can look at how each party benefits from confronting Russia by transforming the financial concept of Return on Investment to ‘Return on Sacrifice’, by adding qualitative or moral dimensions.  We can consider the sacrifice suffered by Ukraine against its necessity or benefit to its own country, and then compare this to the West’s own return on what could be called its ‘Ukrainian investment’.  By this measure, the West has already seen a good ‘democratic return’ or ‘freedom insurance return’ – when compared to the downside of letting Putin roll into Ukraine, perhaps into other nations or up the nuclear ladder – on a very manageable sacrifice or investment.  

Meanwhile, Ukraine has clearly seen a valuable ‘liberty return’ but this has been at a very heavy sacrifice, with a resulting Return on Sacrifice certainly no greater than which the West has enjoyed.

Alternatively, we could just ask who benefitted more in the ‘aid-for-courage’ trade – was Western aid worth more or less than the benefit received?  This points to a similar picture:  Ukraine, by weakening democracy’s enemy, has done at least as much for the West as the West has done for Ukraine.

Finally, an even simpler way of weighing up gratitude is to accept that both sides have been economically impacted but only one has lost hundreds of thousands of lives and has had to fear being subjugated by a foreign power already inside its borders.

Whichever measure you use, the winds of thanks should be blowing to the east.

MAGA’s moral blindspot

Trump’s MAGA view of the world, through the new eyes of what can now be called ‘America Incorporated’, blinds him not just to the interests of other nations but also to those of America in the long-term.  Democracy and world liberty don’t fit into its balance sheet.  It’s instead about bullying the best zero-sum deal out of other nations including democracies.

Trump and Vance demanded Zelensky’s gratitude simply because America Inc.’s foreign policy doesn’t do moral equations.

When the history of the 21st century is written – if it happens to be a story that ends with the survival of a free Homo Sapiens – it will be obvious that the little nation that surprised the world by standing up to Putin had no need to thank anyone at all.

A side question, considering realpolitik, is whether Zelensky should thank Trump if it would lead to American support for his nation.  He would indeed have a moral duty to do so – even to beg if it would make the difference – and he has made his thanks abundantly clear.  If we need the help of an immoral person for a moral cause, we might have to park our rights for a moment.  However, whenever this happens, all decent people should thank him for having to swallow his pride while we roll our eyes in unison at why this was necessary.

Instead of thanking Zelensky, and showing the Russian and Chinese regimes that democracies are standing together, Trump has insulted the heart of courage, spat in the face of democracy, and strengthened the hand of autocracy.

Such that, now, Putin needs to thank Trump.

Mark Dixon founded and runs the Moral Rating Agency, the goal of which is to keep companies out of Russia, to get Russia out of Ukraine, Putin out of Russia, and dictatorships out of the world. Currently, it achieves this by measuring companies’ involvement with Russia under a uniform rating system and then naming and shaming them till they leave.