Johnson must allow a vote to provide aid
The Senate on Wednesday rejected a painstakingly negotiated bipartisan immigration deal, as Republicans, in effect, chose to preserve what they describe as a crisis along the southern border so they can blame it on President Biden. Luckily, 16 Senate Republicans avoided fully committing to nihilism by voting on Thursday to open debate on a national security supplemental package that lacks the border provisions but provides $60 billion in long-delayed aid to Ukraine along with $14.1 billion for Israel. Assuming it passes, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will soon face a fateful choice: allow a vote on the bill in his chamber or accelerate the GOP’s turn into a party of bad faith and surrender.
In the country’s two-party system, the consequence of such a reorientation would be — and, to an extent, already has been — the transformation of the United States from a trustworthy friend to the free world into a mercurial delinquent unable to keep its word.
Biden pledged last summer that the U.S. commitment to Ukraine “will not weaken … for as long as it takes.” At the time, the president had good reason to believe his promise would be credible. Americans were overwhelmingly supportive of helping an embattled country seeking to preserve its independence — as well its right to political and economic alignment with the United States and European Union. Even if some Republicans harbored reservations, they should have been overridden when the president of the United States gave his word to a foreign friend. Preserving U.S. credibility itself became a factor.
Now, seven months later, Ukraine is suffering artillery shell shortages; troops are exhausted and stretched thin; its parliament is debating a bill to mobilize half a million additional fighters. Russian President Vladimir Putin appears committed to a war of attrition, despite an already immense loss of life. Having failed to take all of Ukraine, Putin will settle for a “frozen” conflict in which he keeps some territory, with Ukraine endlessly pinned down, drained, and vulnerable to subversion and intimidation. If Ukraine loses U.S. support now, it will be even more susceptible to Putin’s bullying. This outcome might not seem bad to former president Donald Trump, the voice driving the GOP’s surrender caucus; he has long admired Putin and has sought to supplicate the Russian dictator. But it should horrify everyone else.
These internal U.S. divisions come at an especially inopportune moment for Ukraine. The optimistic mood that prevailed in Kyiv after its forces mounted a successful counteroffensive in mid-2022 has dissipated amid harsh new realities. In 2023, Ukraine failed to extend its territorial gains as another counteroffensive — mounted with the help of Western arms and training — fizzled. Now, Putin, having found workarounds to economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the E.U., has stabilized his battered army. Russian troops are massing to attempt a breakthrough of their own. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in the midst of executing a sweeping — and risky — wartime shake-up of his military hierarchy. Eventually, Ukraine might have no choice but to negotiate with the Kremlin. Yet all of these are reasons U.S. aid is crucial, not futile. Without Western assistance, Ukraine will lack the leverage needed to drive its best possible bargain — and to emerge from the war as a liberal democracy, bringing its vast resources and people into the Western fold.
Continued U.S. support would also send a message that resonated beyond Ukraine’s borders. If Putin succeeds in wearing down Western resolve, his next target could be a NATO country, which could spark a wider war directly involving the United States. On the other hand, if Ukraine shows that brute force cannot be permitted to extinguish a real democracy, Putin will be checked — and leaders such as Chinese President Xi Jinping will perhaps think twice about trying to invade places such as Taiwan.
Today, a huge swath of Central Europe is no longer captive, as it was during the days of the Soviet empire, the fall of which a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, aided — but Putin bitterly laments. One hundred million people who live there enjoy relative freedom and national self-determination. They do not want to go back to the years of Russian domination, and their friendship with the United States and the E.U. promises to pay dividends for decades to come.
If Johnson allows a vote on the Ukraine aid bill, it will almost certainly pass. The question is whether he wants to be the Republican leader who stands with Russia’s brutal war machine, on behalf of Trump — or one who upholds the party’s best traditions of defending America’s moral and practical self-interest.