Putin’s War Has Isolated America’s Neo-Isolationists

I n the weeks leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a favorite talking point of prominent right-wing populists in the U.S. was that elites in Washington cared more about protecting Ukraine’s borders than they cared about protecting America’s southern border.

On February 8, Representative Matt Rosendale (R., Mont.) even introduced a bill that would “prohibit the U.S. government from providing military and security assistance to Ukraine until the border wall system on the southern border is completed.” Given that Republicans failed to build the wall when they controlled Congress and Trump was president — the plan could never get the 60 votes it needed in the Senate — and that the project would take months to complete, the only practical effect of Rosendale’s bill, which earned nine other Republican cosponsors, would have been to deny any military aid to Ukraine.

But then, Russia invaded, and on Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for the United States to “deliver additional and immediate defensive security assistance to help Ukraine” by the wildly lopsided margin of 426–3.

The three “no” votes were cast by Rosendale, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Paul Gosar of Arizona. “Talk to me when our border is secure,” Gosar wrote on Twitter afterward. Gosar cosponsored Rosendale’s bill (and Massie did not), but the other eight original cosponsors of Rosendale’s bill had flip-flopped, voting in favor of the resolution.

America’s neo-isolationists, never a large group even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had become even more isolated.

A Quinnipiac poll released this week found that 80 percent of Republicans believe Biden has not been tough enough on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, while only 2 percent believe Biden has been “too tough.” The rhetoric of Fox News host Tucker Carlson, one of the leading neo-isolationist voices before the invasion, has shifted dramatically. Back in 2019, Carlson said he was totally opposed to Russian sanctions: “I think we should probably take the side of Russia, if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine.” As recently as last week, after Putin had made it clear that he intended to escalate his war against Ukraine but before the invasion began, Carlson was still telling his viewers to ask themselves why they should hate Putin more than they hate the American left. But this week, Carlson told his viewers: “I think Biden — I never say this, but [he] is taking the right position right now on this.”

Missouri Republican Josh Hawley isn’t an isolationist, but he is the most prominent populist in the Senate GOP. Before the invasion, in February, Hawley was one of only twelve Republican senators who declined to sign a letter laying out the sanctions Russia would face if it invaded. Despite his strong non-interventionist streak, Hawley came out in favor of tough sanctions after the invasion.

“The most important thing we can do,” Hawley said earlier this week in the Capitol, is to “arm the resistance.” He also reiterated his call to shut down Russia’s energy sector, a move the Biden administration has so far opposed. “Russia’s a gas station. That’s what it is. It’s not a country; it’s a gas station. We need to turn it off,” he said.

The most prominent Republican in America has had an erratic approach to Russia, Ukraine, and NATO. Former president Donald Trump has praised Putin and said Putin was “smart” to invade Ukraine. But the Trump administration provided lethal aid to Ukraine — something the Obama administration had refused to do — and on March 1, a Trump press release was sent out highlighting a 2018 article: “Trump expresses ‘strong support’ for NATO, presses Merkel on paying dues.”

Trump has at other times opposed America’s membership in NATO. In 2000, his book The America We Deserve asserted that “America has no vital interest in choosing between warring factions whose animosities go back centuries in Eastern Europe. Their conflicts are not worth American lives. Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually. The cost of stationing NATO troops in Europe is enormous. And these are clearly funds that can be put to better use.” He privately discussed pulling the United States out of NATO after becoming president, and said in 2020 that he would do so in his second term, according to the book I Alone Can Fix It by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post.

Trump, of course, says lots of contradictory things. He hired advisers with wildly different views on foreign policy — Steve Bannon, John Bolton, Mike Flynn, H.R. McMaster — to work in his administration, and it was never clear where he’d land on a particular issue on any given day. But Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has made it unthinkable — likely for decades to come — that any American president would try to withdraw the United States from NATO.

“We need the NATO alliance,” Senator Hawley told me in the Capitol when asked about the argument that America should abandon the alliance. “We stand by our security commitments. I take those very seriously.”

“It’s a really positive sign — really positive — that Germany’s going to finally increase its defense spending above 2 percent [of GDP],” Hawley added. “If we could see more of our NATO allies do more in defense of Europe, which would allow us to focus our military resources on the Indo-Pacific and China, which we need to do, that would be a good thing.”

During his State of the Union address this week, President Biden said, “The United States and our allies will defend every inch of territory that is NATO territory with the full force of our collective power. Every single inch.” When I asked Rand Paul, the most prominent Republican dove in Congress, about Biden’s statement, the Kentucky senator replied that, “I don’t think that’s sort of tilling any new ground. I mean, that’s been the NATO position since NATO was formed.”

But what does Paul himself think about the NATO alliance? Asked if he supports maintaining America’s role in NATO, Paul declined to discuss his views on the matter. “It’s a longer sort of debate than we can have in the hall in a minute,” he said.

Meanwhile, Colorado congressman Ken Buck, a member of the staunchly conservative Freedom Caucus, told National Review that he agrees with Biden’s statement. He pointed out that NATO allies would fight alongside the United States if we were attacked, just as they had done in Afghanistan. “It is our strongest trading partner,” Buck said. “While I agree that alliances can be dangerous, I also think that in this world where you have superpowers — really, three at this point — it’s necessary to have those kinds of allies.”

In short, Russia’s invasion has “reminded every member of NATO how valuable the asset is,” as Representative Tom Cole (R., Okla.) put it. “In some ways, it’s Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare come true.”

Correction: This article originally reported there were nine total cosponsors to Rep. Rosendale’s bill. The correct number of cosponsors, including Rosendale, is ten. This article has also been corrected to reflect the fact that Rep. Massie was not a cosponsor of Rep. Rosendale’s bill.