Is there no one in Washington to speak up for the less-than-hawkish desires of most Americans?
Is there no one in Washington to speak up for the less-than-hawkish desires of most Americans?
A s I write on Tuesday evening, Congress is taking an hour to debate a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, $7 billion more than President Biden requested. The bill was introduced just a few hours ago. A few especially disliked elected officials — Chip Roy and Marjorie Taylor Greene — have taken the few minutes they have to object to the absurdity of Congress being used in this way, as barely more than a rubber stamp for a very serious aid package to Ukraine.
It is a fitting spectacle, signaling something like brain death of American foreign policy. The Biden administration’s Ukraine policy is plainly and dangerously divorced from the sentiments of the American people. There is zero diplomatic effort led by the U.S. to end the war, only to make the war more favorable for the Ukrainians and less favorable to the Russians, but without America committing itself to any particular outcome. All of this is accompanied by loose and frankly unrealistic talk about Vladimir Putin’s regime falling in Russia, whether by President Biden in his speech in Poland, or by administration officials.
In a continuation of the dangerous situation under President Donald Trump, America’s foreign policy seems to run without the full direction of the White House. Sometimes without its knowledge. Under the previous administration, President Trump would announce a troop withdrawal; weeks later “the White House” would announce a different policy.
But under Biden in this far more dangerous war zone, things are worse. In the past week, the New York Times reported from intelligence sources that the United States provided the information that Ukrainians used to target and kill the Russian generals who have died in action. Then a report dropped from NBC News that the U.S. helped direct fire on Russian positions and aircraft, killing hundreds of Russian troops. Then another report was published in the Times that the United States provided the intelligence that helped Ukraine sink the Moskva, Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea fleet.
In a single week, the week leading up to Russia’s Victory Day holiday and parades, U.S. intel sources took all the credit for the three most humiliating events of the Russian campaign. And, according to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, U.S. intel agencies took the credit for these actions against the wishes of President Biden.
When the U.S. intel agencies are strutting around bragging about how many Russian generals and young soldiers they’ve killed, Russian propagandists don’t have to lie to make the United States look like a belligerent in this war. Do you remember how angry official Washington was at the (false) rumor that Russia was slipping a few bucks to the Taliban?
A political opposition might stand up and ask a few questions about the administration’s policy. Simple things like: How does the administration draw the line between aiding Ukraine and becoming a belligerent in the war? Or is it really in our interests to be depleting our own stockpiles of Javelin missiles? Does committing so much to this theater make China more likely to do something in Taiwan? Are the increases in defense spending by Nordic countries a one-time effort to get into NATO, or truly sustainable? Do we have a plan for credibly defending 830 more miles of border from Russia if Finland joins NATO? This seems like the least Republicans could do, since they once claimed to be interested in the fact that the Ukrainian government was bribing President Biden’s drug-addicted son.
But of course, most elected Republicans and my friends in the conservative movement don’t oppose this administration’s policies; they want to double down on them.
After news of the $40 billion package Congress was preparing for Ukraine, Senator Lindsey Graham went on Fox News Sunday to say “there is no off-ramp in this war” if Putin remains in power. Mitch McConnell says, “We all agree the most important thing going on in the world right now is the war in Ukraine.”
All the recent polling shows that Americans do not believe this. Americans rate inflation, the American border, and climate change well ahead of Ukraine as their most important issues. Hawks should probably be grateful that the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard trial wasn’t offered as an option. Other polls show only 26 percent of Americans want the U.S. to have a major role in the war.
Does sending as many nominal dollars to Ukraine in a few hours of Congress as were sent to the United Kingdom in the whole of Lend-Lease during World War II count as a major role? Does bragging about killing Russian generals count as a major role? Does depleting our own stockpiles of weapons?
When asked about specific options the U.S. might pursue, less than a quarter of Pennsylvanians in one poll supported the policy that the Biden administration and its Republican cheerleaders are excited about: “Arm and support the Ukrainian resistance so they can kill as many Russians as possible.” In that same poll, 45 percent of respondents supported “imposing the strongest possible sanctions on Russia and seek a diplomatic resolution.” Who in Washington speaks up for this?
Nobody. The genuine and appropriate moral outrage that conservative-movement leaders feel at Russia’s war of choice is joined to arthritic Cold War reflexes, and no substantial policy ideas. In the past week I’ve heard conservatives preposterously call Russia a “totalitarian” state. Or speak of its global ambitions. No, that would be our most important trading partner, China. Russia is merely an authoritarian state with a personalist regime on top, like our gallant NATO ally Turkey.
There are no hard-and-fast rules about what counts as “belligerence” in a war. But the Biden administration, sometimes without the knowledge of Joe Biden, is acting like a belligerent. Can it really be that conservatives have nothing more to say to this dangerous spectacle, than to ask for more of it? Can it really be that conservatives, looking at the intel agencies that have recently tried to thwart Republican campaigns, label Republican ideas as disinformation, and geld the last Republican administration, have nothing to do in response to their plainly reckless behavior but write them bigger checks?