The specter of a domineering Russia once again looms over Eastern Europe. Ukraine has been tossed into political turmoil with the ousting of its president Viktor Yanukovych, and its pro-Western factions are now grappling to keep the country from falling into the influence of Russia. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent armed troops into Crimea-a former Soviet territory-which is now turning toward his influence. This crisis has set the stage for an international diplomatic conflict between NATO and Russia that harkens back to memories of the Cold War.

It is clear that Putin has ambitions to restore Russia to its old role as a major geopolitical force in Europe and Asia. Though he gained political capital from the Sochi Olympics, he seemed eager to spend it on an opportunity to expand Russia's international reach and his own influence. On the sidelines of this crisis, many Americans are alarmed. Putin appears to be yet another narcissistic autocrat with a consuming lust for power. Prominent politicians are already comparing Putin to Hitler. Concerned citizens everywhere have begun to ask the perennial question in a time of crisis overseas: "What should we do about it? 

Americans have been asking this for many decades. What should we do about Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, the Soviets in Afghanistan, Libya twice, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan again, Iraq again, Libya again, Syria and now Ukraine? The answer usually varies, but the sentiment is the same: We should always do something about it. 

This repeatedly spurs America to intervene in conflicts, but the results usually fall short of expectations. In fact, the results are often outright horrifying mistakes that make matters worse than before we intervened. Yet, despite recurrent disasters, we continue to intervene-why?

Why is it that a country can repeatedly follow the principle of intervention to failure, but only criticize the method by which each intervention was carried out, rather than the principle itself?
The answer lies in philosophy, specifically in ethics-it is a moral premise. A moral premise motivates people to carry out an action for its own sake, even if the end result is not always immediately desirable. The notion that it is America's obligation to intervene in crises like these relies on such a moral premise. The particular premise involved in this case is the dominant moral code of our society-the code of altruism.

The essence of altruism is self-sacrifice. On the individual level, this means that a moral act entails sacrificing one's own interests for the interests of others, specifically others in need. Politically, this necessitates the sacrifice of the individual to the state, and in international politics, altruism would dictate that a government sacrifices the interests of its people for the needs of those in another country. The government, whose only method is force, compels its citizens to assist, either materially through taxation sent as aid, or, if there is a draft, by sending them to fight and die in a war.

This is precisely the pattern of every so-called 'humanitarian' intervention. Since there is a group of people in need in some country, in this case Ukraine, altruism dictates that Americans, who are living comfortably, are obligated to assist in some way. Altruism implies that Ukrainians, or anyone in need, hold a moral claim over the lives of anyone who is capable of helping them. It means that as long as there is a person in need in the world, those who are not needy are morally chained to them. 

Every human life ought to be regarded as a moral end in itself, not as a means to the end of someone else's life, or worse, the fictional "collective" that treats humanity as some sort of a hive-mind organism. 

Humans are animals with free will. Each of us individually chooses our own values and picks our own path in life. All individuals own themselves and the decisions that they make, as well as the consequences that result from them. If morality governs choices, and the individual makes choices, then surely the beneficiary of morality should be each individual.
Every person should be able to pursue his or her own goals for their own sake, but this is impossible under altruism, which places the individual's goals behind others' needs. If a person's property is claimed through taxation by the government to fund a war to help another person, his or her goals are being interfered with-in essence, his or her life is being interfered with. It is an act that initiates force against an innocent person-it is aggression. When people are forced like this to act in ways that they might not choose, and this is perpetrated under the guise of morality, it is the moral code that should be brought into question.

Under a proper morality of rational egoism, no person is morally bound to help anyone in need; people are only obligated to pursue their own goals and happiness, on the sole condition that they do not commit an act of aggression against others. That is not to say that a person should not help those in need. If a person genuinely values helping people, as most people do, then a person would be betraying his or her own values by not helping.

To force people who might not value helping others, by contrast, is an immoral act of the same kind as Putin's aggression in Crimea, or any despot's acts of conquest, only much smaller in scale. Aggression-even when performed with good intentions-is always immoral. As a result, to say that Americans have a moral obligation to assist those in need overseas, when this would entail aggression against them, is a corruption of morality.

Since Crimeans are being aggressed against by Russia, however, anyone, regardless of nationality, has the right to defend Crimea, or provide material assistance in said defense. But people are not morally obligated to defend Crimea, so the government ought not to force anyone to do so. The policy prescription is clear: the American government must not intervene at all in the Ukrainian crisis, but should morally condemn the Russians for their act of aggression.
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