MEMORANDUM TO: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. National Interest

Dear Mr. President:

We the undersigned are veteran intelligence, military, and law enforcement officers. Taken together, our years of service to our country total nearly 200 years. Unlike many experts and advisers who base their arguments on abstract notions about the international scene, our insights are drawn from a depth of hands-on experience inside the U.S .government — here and abroad.

Given this background, we share a profound understanding of the great responsibility that accompanies great power. We feel an obligation to lay our views on Ukraine before you — the more so, inasmuch as the airwaves, TV, and newspapers are giving a great deal of space to the same pundits and academics who got Iraq so wrong just over a decade ago.