Two key House GOP chairmen said the reluctance of the Biden administration and certain European countries to provide tanks and other weapons to Ukraine reeks of appeasement and resembles the sort of policies that they say failed to deter the Russian invasion.
In a statement today, Representative Michael McCaul, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Representative Mike Rogers, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, compared the refusal to approve these weapons shipments to the failure to kill the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project in 2021.
Their statement comes amid the German government’s continued reluctance to ship tanks to Ukraine or to allow other European allies to do so unless the U.S. moves first, with German chancellor Olaf Scholz fearing that such a step would be viewed in Moscow as an unacceptable escalation, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Thus far, the Biden administration has declined to back proposals to transfer tanks held by NATO countries to Ukraine.
In their statement, however, McCaul and Rogers urged the administration to urgently move forward with efforts to arm Kyiv with weapons that it says it needs to wage a counter-offensive against Russian forces:
The current handwringing and hesitation by the Biden administration and some of our European allies in providing critical weapon systems to Ukraine stinks of the weak policies of 2021, such as not sanctioning Nord Stream 2 or providing U.S.-origin Stingers before the full-scale invasion. While those policies failed to deter this conflict, the current indecision and self-deterrence will prolong it – costing Ukrainian lives. Now is the time for the Biden and Scholz governments to follow the lead of our U.K. and Eastern European allies – Leopard 2 tanks, ATACMS, and other long-range precision munitions should be approved without delay.
Opponents of the Russian pipeline say that it was part of a strategic gambit to freeze Ukraine out of energy markets and to increase Western European dependency on Russian gas. Ultimately, the German government pulled the plug on the project after the start of the invasion last year.
The statement by the two GOP chairmen is also significant because it comes amid an intra-Republican party debate about whether Washington should continue to back the Ukrainian war effort. Throughout the first ten months of the war, Congress has authorized over $100 billion in spending as part of various U.S. responses to the conflict. Much, but not all, of the authorized spending is intended to go directly to the Ukrainian government.
While some Republican lawmakers oppose Ukraine aid, today’s statement by McCaul and Rogers shows that there’s still robust support for Kyiv among some senior House GOP lawmakers — and that their critique of the administration will continue to assert that the U.S. is doing too little to support Ukraine.