Will Republicans Stab Ukraine in the Back?
The MAGA party vows to kill vital American military and humanitarian aid.
For almost two years, the Ukrainian armed forces have faced East. That is where the threat has been. For almost two years, Vladimir Putin has sent hundreds of thousands of Russian troops to rape, torture, maim, kill and deport Ukrainians. The United States and the NATO alliance have had their backs, sending them the military and economic aid they needed to resist the Russian assaults.
Suddenly, shockingly, that may soon end. “At least a dozen Republicans walked out of a classified briefing led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other Biden officials on the status of Ukraine’s war effort Tuesday afternoon,” The Washington Post reported December 6, “shrugging off a presentation that was meant to pressure them to back the aid.”
Increasingly the formerly more sensible GOP Senators are following the line taking by the MAGA Republicans in the House: No aid for Ukraine without a dramatic change on the southern border policy. “The extremists are calling the tune,” former congressman and governor John Kasich told MSNBC on Wednesday.
“I just don’t think there’s any question that we are about to abandon Ukraine,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the key negotiators on the aid. “When Vladimir Putin marches into Kyiv and into Europe, Republicans will have to live with the fact that our sons and daughters will be over fighting when Vladimir Putin marches into a NATO country.”
Officials warn that money to fund ammunition and weapons for Ukraine will run out by the end of the year. That’s three weeks from now.
It couldn’t come at a worse time. The Ukrainian counter-offensive has stalled. Although Ukraine has won back over half of the territory that Russia seized in its February 2022 invasion, progress in the past few months has been slow and at a heavy cost.
“Cutting off the flow of U.S. weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories,” Shalanda Young, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote to Congress on December 4, adding: “This isn’t a next year problem. The time to help a democratic Ukraine fight against Russian aggression is right now.”
President Joe Biden is stepping up his efforts to get the funding. He made an unscheduled trip to the White House podium on Wednesday, on the cusp of the Senate vote. “We can’t let Putin win. It’s in our overwhelming national interest, in the international interest of all our friends,” he said. Hours later all the GOP Senators voted against the Democratic motion to begin work on the aid bill, denying it the 60 votes it needed to proceed.
As recently as last month, funding for Ukraine looked all but certain. Today, it hanging by a thread. For most serious analysts, this is stunning. “It is hard to think of any U.S. foreign policy initiative since the end of the Cold War that has been more successful or more important than U.S. aid to Ukraine,” wrote columnist Max Boot in October.
“Unlike some other wars, there can be no confusion about right and wrong in this conflict. Those in Congress who cherish international law, human rights, and democratic values should not find it hard to pick a side.” wrote former Ambassador Michael McFaul in an urgent article this November entitled “The Case for Supporting Ukraine is Crystal Clear.”
The greatest threat to Ukraine now comes from the West. With American aid, the Ukrainians can resist and defeat the Russians. But if the pro-Putin MAGA movement succeeds, it is not clear how long Ukraine can continue its resistance. Putin will win in the halls of Congress what he cannot achieve on the battlefield.
If Ukraine aid fails, it will turn one of the shining success of the Biden administration into one of its most consequential failures. While for Americans the long-term political and strategic consequences will be dire, for Ukrainians, it is literally a matter of life and death. The stakes could not be higher.
Recommended Podcast: Ukraine: The Latest. Journalists from the British newspaper, The Telegraph, summarize and analyze the very latest news on the war. “The team consider military strategy, history, economics, the refugee crisis, Ukrainian culture, and daily life in Vladimir Putin's autocratic Russia and Volodymyr Zelensky's democratic Ukraine.”
The border they should be worried about is the Russia-Ukraine border. While the southern border of the US is a great political stunt, there is no threat to democracy there. I live in AZ; I can tell you from first hand observation, our way of life is not threatened by poor Venezuelans or Hondurans coming to the US to find a safe, decent place to live. A fortiori, the entire SW has been built with cheap immigrant labor. There isn't a single Hispanic panhandler on the streets of Phoenix (at least I've never met one). They are industrious, hard working and family oriented.
To conflate supporting Ukraine with closing our border can only be justified in the minds of conspiracy theorists. I think the Senators know that the dysfunction caucus in the House needs some cover for their expected tantrum before they shut government down.
It's incredible to me that these people are so self-serving that they cannot grasp not only the long term strategic implications of such decisions but fail to grasp the human aspects. 10's of thousands of people just like them, with families just like theirs, living in cities and towns just like theirs have already suffered and will continue to suffer under the Russian invasion. How do they rationalize this? Shame.