Abstract
The first part of this essay takes an historical perspective on the Ukrainian war. Beginning with the rise of the notions of Woodrow Wilson as definitive of liberalism, American foreign policy over the last 100 years is surveyed. Since his time, ‘Wilsonianism’ has been an enduring impulse in the international decision- making of the United States. After Wilson, liberalism is the fallback position either held by political scientists or expressed by diplomats, in opposition to a minority of anti-liberal views generically called realistic. The second part of the paper looks at US involvement in the war in Ukraine/The Ukraine, a special case as a proxy war. The analysis has a component of counter-factual reasoning, estimating what would have happened had the United States chosen any number of different paths.
