Republicans, once a noble party, fall to ignoble acts on Ukraine aid
In its 170 years, the Republican Party has had occasions of nobility. In its infancy, it redefined the Union while preserving it. Ten decades later, larger percentages of House and Senate Republicans than of House and Senate Democrats voted for the nationtransforming 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Today, however, substantial numbers of insubstantial congressional Republicans are contemplating an ignoble act whose imprudence exceeds even its pettiness. These Republicans could, by denying Ukraine the material means of resistance, hand Russian President Vladimir Putin a victory that might be just the beginning of Putin’s war for the restoration of “Greater Russia.”
Putin, who has made two wagers, quickly lost the first when he failed to quickly overrun Ukraine. He might, however, win his second wager: that the United States will live down to his disdain for what he considers its decadence. Surely his contempt is partly a response to former president Donald Trump’s political durability, which Putin understands is evidence of America’s retreat from seriousness.
Just 22 Republican senators – 45% of their party’s caucus – helped pass the bill that would provide, inter alia, aid to Ukraine. In the House, however, Speaker Mike Johnson’s opaque thinking and uncertain skill might leave the bill at the mercy of the isolationist faction within Johnson’s caucus.
It is actually charitable to ascribe to cynical opportunism these legislators’ pandering to their most Trumpian constituents. The alternative is to convict the legislators of believing two preposterous things: that our nation cannot afford to aid Ukraine and cannot manage to address the southern border crisis while aiding Ukraine.
In 1862, the annus horribilis of Shiloh, Antietam and Fredericksburg, Congress, while funding and supervising resistance to secession, passed the Homestead Act (accelerating settlement of the Great Plains), the Morrill Act (creating land-grant colleges) and the Pacific Railway Act (speeding completion of the transcontinental railroad). Time was, Congress could do several things simultaneously. Today’s legislators cannot even budget: In the past decade, the government has operated under continuing resolutions 36% of the time.
Since February 2022, all U.S. assistance to Ukraine, military and other, has totaled $75.4 billion, much of it spent here replenishing U.S. war materiel. Even adding the $60 billion in the Senate bill, the total U.S. cost so far would be less than the cost of servicing the national debt for three months. And less than the $200 billion (a low estimate) of Medicare and Medicaid fraud since the war began two years ago next week.
If Putin swallows
Ukraine, he will have a combat-seasoned military and a revived military industrial base to serve his undiminished revanchism. The Institute for the Study of War says this would require deploying to Eastern Europe a sizable portion of U.S. ground forces, and the stationing in Europe a large number of stealth aircraft, forcing “a terrible choice” between defending Taiwan and other Asian allies, and deterring or defeating a Russian attack on a NATO member.
Sweden’s prime minister has warned Swedes (in the Financial Times’ words) “to prepare mentally for war.” Last week, Denmark’s defense minister said: “It cannot be ruled out that within a three- to five-year period, Russia will test Article 5 and NATO solidarity.” Article 5 commits NATO to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all. It is what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) calls “the commitment that has underpinned the longest drought of great-power conflict in human history.”
Ukraine’s survival, as well as perhaps the prevention of wars in the Baltic states and the Taiwan Strait, depends on Johnson’s desire and ability to prevent House Republicans from compelling Ukraine’s capitulation. Johnson was made speaker to temporarily halt renewable Republican chaos. He can be toppled by a small faction of the large portion of his caucus that likes being on a leash held by Trump.
Rallying a reluctant nation to persevere in even inexpensive foreign undertakings requires persistent presidential rhetoric of the sort President Franklin D. Roosevelt used to coax a largely isolationist public to enable Lend-Lease and other measures against rampant fascism. Today’s sad, faded president is incapable of performing this quintessential presidential function
An America whose empathy is so shriveled that it will not help to sustain Ukraine’s heroism had better hope that the world has exhausted its supply of nasty surprises. Such an America is unprepared for any future that resembles the past.