NATO, Ukraine, and the War Hawksâ Pixie Dust Playbook

Julian Zelizer : Never-Ending War crowd wants you to believe NATO expansion deters aggression and won't provoke retaliation.

Zelizer says Putin has never complied with any agreement, yet U.S. troops must be a necessary component of any agreement.

He says the foreign policy establishment is pushing a suicidal contradiction: They believe Putin must be stopped at all costs.

Zelizers: If they have their way, American soldiers will die in Ukraine , not because it is vital to our national interest.

The war hawks claim to revere history, but if Churchill , Truman , Eisenhower , or Marshall were here today and saw their strategy, they would ask: Are you insane? They seek to make Ukraine an extension of NATO while pretending it won’t drag the alliance into direct war.

The very thing they claim is necessary to "protect" Ukraine is what helped provoke the conflict in the first place.