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Wall Street Journal columnist and international relations scholar Walter R. Mead on Wednesday accused the United States of hypocrisy in its policy toward Ukraine, saying American leaders have tried and failed to mask indifference toward the country’s war with Russia.

Speaking at a talk hosted by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at the Harvard Faculty Club, Mead said the U.S.’s unwillingness to forcefully intervene against Russian aggression worldwide has allowed Russian president Vladimir Putin to confidently pursue expansion into Ukraine.

“We don’t actually care about Ukraine, but we do care about admitting to ourselves that we don't care about Ukraine. That’s the message from Western policy,” Mead said. “It’s hypocritical and disgusting, but it is also unpragmatic.”

In his talk, Mead made a case for a hawkish stance against Russia, arguing that American and European inaction against Putin’s efforts elsewhere in the world was akin to 20th-century British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany.

Western policymakers, Mead said, have been reluctant to contain Russia’s influence or military excursions — including the activity of Wagner, a Russian mercenary group, in Africa. The trend began with Western powers’ slow response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, which allowed Putin to claim territory from the country and emboldened him to seize land elsewhere, Mead said.

He argued that Western politicians have let Putin understand that they are hesitant to put their own resources and security on the line to fence in Russia, while trying to avoid admitting that reluctance to the public or themselves.

“We’re going to make a showy thing about how much we care about Ukraine, but we aren’t going to cross a certain line,” Mead said. “Our intended audience is less Putin than our own self-images and our own self respect.”

But Russia’s greater willingness to escalate the conflict has put the U.S. in a bind, Mead argued.

Putin “does, in fact, care more about Ukraine than we do,” Mead said.

Mead said that American leaders have correctly understood that providing military aid that would allow Ukraine to fully repel Russia’s invasion and win the war would be risky — especially considering that both the U.S. and Russia are nuclear powers. But, he argued, America’s mistake was allowing Putin to realize that he has leeway to ratchet up the conflict without an equivalent Western response.

Instead of undertaking major escalations in Ukraine, Mead said, Western leaders should take action against Russia in regions where they might have an advantage, including in Africa.

“Every day, drip, drip, drip, Putin should be seeing an asset blowing up — a network of influence destroyed,” Mead said. “He should be seeing every day the price he pays for this Ukraine adventure is growing and growing in ways that deeply, deeply pain him.”

Mead also gave a favorable analysis of U.S. President Donald Trump’s posture toward Europe, saying Trump has pushed European leaders to reflect more on their “completely irresponsible failure” on national security. He has also pushed them to address issues with their own economic inefficiency, Mead said, describing Europe as an economic and technological “backwater.”

“The United States cannot care more about their security than they care themselves,” he said.

Mead also touched on American relations with Israel, saying that presidential policy and messaging on the Israel-Palestine conflict has been strongly affected by the conflict’s potency as a political signal.

“You can make a little tiny statement that doesn’t involve spending one penny or sending one diplomat, even on one airplane, and you get national headlines about what you are or aren’t doing,” Mead said.

Mead made similar arguments in his October 2023 book “The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People,” where he also contended that the U.S.-Israel relationship has been mutually beneficial and attacked claims that American policy was driven by pro-Israel lobbying.

Mead, a University of Florida professor, also reflected that academic theories have a limited ability to guide foreign policy.

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is,” he said.

“If that truth hasn’t sunk into your bones, you are going to make a colossal mess, in any kind of policy, at just the moment you think you finally got it perfectly right,” he added.