This is CBS High on the World. I'm John Batser, Ukraine conflict. I welcome Cliff May,

the founder and president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, asking some

puzzling questions about the war in Ukraine. The chief and major question that comes to

me again and again is something from the Second War. Why we fight? That was not only a

question that President Roosevelt answered again and again, but also Hollywood entered into

the fray to put up pictures, movies. They didn't call them videos then. To the movie theaters

about why we fight. What is it that is attracting everything from the United States when we were

fighting the Depression? Now we turn to defeating who and why and when. That is not here in the 21st

century. It's hard to see because it's not there. Cliff, very good even to you. Why we fight?

You make a very clear statement. Why? So before we ask about the White House, why do we participate

in the Ukraine conflict? Why is NATO thrown its muscle into this? Good evening to you. Good evening

to you. Well, there's a, I would say, a Wilsonian reason and a Jacksonian reason. The Wilsonian

reason is pretty obvious. You have Vladimir Putin who is a tyrant and a thug who is

conducting a genocidal war against a neighbor, trying to wipe them off the map, trying to destroy

the Ukrainian nation. Now, I also understand we can say, well, we're very sympathetic about that,

but that doesn't mean we have to do anything and nobody is arguing that American boots should

be on the ground that Americans should be fighting this war, only that we should help Ukrainians

defend their independence, their freedom, their fledgling democracy, and their country.

But there's another reason and it's a purely, it's a Jacksonian reason. It's a reason

that is very much, very clearly, if we understand it, in the American national interest. In fact,

it's a vital national interest. And this is hard for people to understand because,

you know, as they say, the last thing a fish is likely to be aware of is water. The last thing

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