#AIS: Antonio Garcia Martinez & Glenn Greenwald debate Ukraine, moderated by David Sacks

García Martínez explicitly called U.S. involvement a “proxy war” with Russia, while David Sacks supported arming Ukraine but rejected broader U.S. objectives. Sacks cited Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to argue Washington was drifting from helping Ukraine toward weakening Russia, regime change and potentially dangerous escalation.

García Martínez said visiting western Ukraine convinced him American debate had underestimated Ukrainian resolve. He described millions fleeing west while men, weapons and supplies moved east, with civilians and workers repeating “we will win”; that near-total mobilization made Russian control of a country Ukraine’s size look implausible to him.

García Martínez wanted the war’s endpoint determined by Ukrainians themselves and opposed an American-led peace push unless Kyiv wanted one. Sacks challenged that position by noting Washington controls crucial weapons flows and warning that maximal objectives around Crimea and Sevastopol could create nuclear-escalation risks.

Greenwald grounded his case for restraint in earlier Washington assessments rather than denying Russian aggression. He cited Barack Obama’s 2016 view that Ukraine was a core Russian rather than American interest and William Burns’s 2008 warning that Ukrainian NATO membership crossed a major Russian “red line.”

Greenwald argued the central question was not whether Ukrainians were suffering, but whether Washington’s motives matched its humanitarian rhetoric. He invoked Iraq, Vietnam, Yemen and U.S. support for authoritarian allies to argue that Ukraine could be defended for Ukrainians—or sacrificed to the separate goal of weakening Russia.

Greenwald challenged the idea of worldwide consensus behind Washington by pointing to UN voting on Russia’s Human Rights Council suspension. He said 15 of the 20 most populous countries abstained or opposed the measure, using India, Brazil and other large states to distinguish Western unity from global agreement.

Greenwald countered that García Martínez’s western-Ukraine experience could illuminate the war without establishing what the entire country believed. He compared it to sampling Kurdish Iraq before 2003: a region with unusually strong views can provide genuine firsthand evidence while still misrepresenting national political diversity.

The NATO dispute reduced to opposite causal stories: García Martínez argued Russian aggression drives neighboring states toward the alliance, citing Finland and Sweden’s moves toward membership. Greenwald replied that smaller countries naturally want a U.S. security guarantee, so enlargement alone cannot establish whether NATO deters Russian aggression or contributes to Moscow’s threat perceptions.