Indiana governor: I visited Ukraine. Their partnership will be vital.

Early on Thursday morning, I became the first sitting governor of a U.S. state to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in 2022. Many Americans – especially my fellow Republicans – may wonder what possessed me to do this when overseas engagement appears to be a political lightning rod.
My practical purpose was to sign Indiana’s new memorandum of understanding with Zhytomyr Oblast in Ukraine, focused on academic, cultural and economic ties. Indiana’s high profile in agriculture, higher education and manufacturing has much in common with Zhytomyr, and we expect years of beneficial collaboration. I also had the privilege of meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior officials.
My bigger purpose, however, is community-building – economic and otherwise – in the shared interests of Indiana, America and Ukraine. This should not be hard to understand, even in an election season.  
Yes, the United States and many of its allies have given Ukraine financial and material support. But the Ukrainian people turned a seemingly unwinnable war against a much larger invader into the prospect of victory. It took astonishing ingenuity.
For example, dozens of Ukrainian startup companies and hundreds of hackers have joined forces to build drone swarms and program them for military purposes. Thousands of Ukrainian citizens learned remote piloting, and the resulting drone-strike units substantially closed off Russia’s path to an early victory.
Ukraine showswe’re capable of winning after largest invasion of Russia since World War II
Fighting for their nation’s life, Ukrainian entrepreneurs, engineers and academic experts have learned more in a short time about today’s rising industries – including artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, encryption tools and portable clean-energy generation – than any people on the planet.
When the war is won, Indiana hopes that our engagement today puts us first in line among the 50 states where investment, talent flows and trade with these tech-savvy Ukrainian partners are concerned.
Indiana appears to understand the benefits of showing up overseas better than our peers. According to the Truman Center for National Policy, no state has logged more international engagements than Indiana in the past eight years. The results can be measured in the number of Memorandum of Understandings, but the real payoff takes the form of investments and job creation.
Last year alone, $20 billion of committed capital investment in Indiana – more than 70% of our total – came from outside the United States, resulting in thousands of new jobs. Isolationism is economic malpractice.
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Overseas community-building goes well beyond economic self-interest, however.
Count me among those who want to include the can-do Ukrainians in America’s community of shared democratic values, standing together against authoritarian adversaries. The larger that community – and the clearer its military-technological superiority – the less likely it is that we will fight more wars.  
Once again, states such as Indiana play bigger roles than most Americans realize. The Indiana National Guard and the Slovak Republic’s armed forces have been formal partners for 30 years, for example, during which they deployed together four times in Afghanistan. Hoosier pilots now support Slovakia’s integration of U.S.-made F-16s into its arsenal, backfilling older fighters that Slovakia gave to, yes, Ukraine – another reason why President Zelenskyy and his successors will not forget Indiana.
One of the most counterproductive habits of America’s state and local leaders is to pretend that we have no interests or obligations abroad and to downplay official foreign travel. Governors can reap great benefits for their states in places such as Ukraine while serving as 50 extensions of our nation’s essential efforts to extend peace and prosperity.
Eric J. Holcomb, a Republican, is the governor of Indiana. This column originally appeared in The Indianapolis Star.