It’s appropriate for Republican members of Congress to speak up for the majority of Republicans who don’t think we’ve been doing too little for Ukraine.
It’s appropriate for Republican members of Congress to speak up for the majority of Republicans who don’t think we’ve been doing too little for Ukraine.
H ow committed are Americans to the Ukrainian cause? It’s a question that’s likely to be answered in the next Congress.
Last week, GOP House minority leader Kevin McCarthy noted that a GOP majority after November’s elections may have different priorities than the current Congress. “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession, and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” he said.
This drew rebukes from Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who argued that the Biden administration and Congress should be doing more to support Ukraine. In the recent past, McConnell has indicated that Ukraine is the most important issue for Americans.
Over at Commentary, Noah Rothman looks into the polls and warns McCarthy and the party against wasting time talking down American support for Ukraine. This would be appeasing “a loud minority of populist agitators.” And besides, Rothman argues, support for Ukraine is solid.
Reuters polled American adults in early October and found that 73 percent continue to support the Ukrainian war effort, including two-thirds of self-described Republicans. One month earlier, Gallup found that 66 percent of all Americans support Ukraine’s effort to retake its territory by force, and most Republicans agreed with them. A July poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs pegged the GOP’s support for arming Ukraine at 68 percent compared with 72 percent of all respondents. These numbers are generally reflective of polling — both of American adults and Republican voters — from the outset of this conflict. From the initial invasion, to the siege of Kyiv, to the collapse of the Russian lines around Kharkiv, to today, with Ukraine putting pressure on territories Russia and its proxies have occupied since 2014, Americans’ views of the conflict have been largely static.
I’m not so sure that these poll numbers mean what people think. By the named standards — “supporting the Ukrainian war effort” and “support Ukraine’s effort to retake its territory by force” — even an anti-interventionist skeptic such as I would count as a Ukraine hawk. If the question is merely one of affinity, it’s rather easy to say Ukraine has been wronged, and its war effort is just. The question is about what costs and risks should be imposed on Americans.
I’ve argued over and over that Washington is in the habit of conducting its wars beyond American opinion. There is no general draft. Costs are put on the national credit card, which is never paid. The enemies are almost always incapable of touching us. So long as we’re just talking about money, Americans are likely to say it is worth it. This also happens to be the reason our wars end without satisfying conclusions. Democracies that go to war as democracies are fearsome opponents that achieve brilliant results. But democracies are slow to that kind of volcanic anger, and choosy about the wars they enter.
But Americans remain conscious of the costs and risks of D.C.’s foreign policy. In February at the start of the war, AP found that just 26 percent of Americans wanted the U.S. to play a major role in Ukraine. It’s always been difficult to determine what a “major role” might mean, but one Target Point survey of Pennsylvania voters in February found that 45 percent of respondents wanted to “impose the strongest possible sanctions on Russia and seek a diplomatic resolution.” Twenty-three percent chose “Arm and support the Ukrainian resistance so they can kill as many Russians as possible.” And 17 percent chose “Send in U.S. troops to support the Ukrainian resistance fighting the Russians.” Fourteen percent said, “Do nothing, not our problem.”
PHOTOS: Russia-Ukraine War
A critical-issues poll this summer saw that America’s willingness to “pay a price” for supporting Ukraine was not entirely steady, but fell into the summer. And there was a notable partisan difference:
There are substantial differences in the degree of preparedness to pay a price for supporting Ukraine between Democrats and Republicans, and the gap between the two is slowly growing, with Democrats expressing much greater willingness to pay a price. While 78% percent of Democrats are prepared to see higher energy costs, only 44% of Republicans say the same; while 72% of Democrats are prepared to pay with higher inflation, only 39% of Republicans say the same.
President Biden has blamed inflation on “Putin’s price hike.” That’s not entirely wrong. Wars in the past have magnified inflation. Can Republicans really spend 2022 campaigning on inflation as their No. 1 issue, and then turn around to voters and say that financing and extending the war in Ukraine is more important than inflation?
Another Gallup poll finds similar partisan differences.
Democrats (46%) and Americans with a postgraduate education (46%) are the groups most likely to say the U.S. is shortchanging Ukraine. This contrasts with 30% of Republicans and 31% of adults with no college education.
In September, Pew found that only two in ten respondents (18 percent), believed America wasn’t sending enough aid to Ukraine. That’s down from 42 percent in March. The findings on Republicans are especially interesting.
Nearly four-in-ten (37%) now say the U.S. is providing about the right amount of support to Ukraine in the conflict, while 20% say it is providing too much support — up from just 7% who said this in March. About a quarter (24%) say they are not sure.
Three-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents currently say the U.S. is providing about the right among of support for Ukraine, while a similar share (32%) say the U.S. is providing too much support. Just 16% now say it is not providing enough support. By contrast, in March, about half of Republicans (49%) said the U.S. was not providing enough support, and just 9% said it was providing too much.
That is, Mitch McConnell’s position on Ukraine is in line with just 16 percent of Republicans.
The reason think tanks such as the Brookings Institution are keeping such a close eye on the willingness of Americans to make even greater sacrifices for Ukraine, and bear even larger risks, is that think-tankers, the White House, and the foreign-policy establishment want to make those sacrifices and expose Americans to those risks.
In February, Americans tended to favor sanctions and diplomacy when given the options. And since then their willingness to commit more money and matériel has been declining. Especially among Republicans. But now our most prominent military minds go on television to discuss NATO entering the war as a full belligerent, and launching decapitation strikes on the Kremlin. And the president is now talking during fundraising dinners about facing the prospect of “Armageddon.”
The American public has treated this war like the wars in Libya and Syria — as just another credit-card war, run by war hobbyists in Washington, that has little to do with them. If the White House continues to ask for enormous tranches of cash, and more weapons, even while the war sends energy prices soaring, it’s perfectly appropriate for Republican members of Congress to speak up for the 84 percent of Republicans who don’t think we’ve been doing too little for Ukraine.