John McCormack reports that senate candidate J. D. Vance (R., Ohio) and populists like him are sideways of public opinion on Ukraine.
He cites a February poll showing that 80 percent of Republicans thought Biden wasn’t tough enough on Russia, and only 2 percent thought he’d been too tough. Fair enough.
But tough isn’t a policy. Like all generalities, Republicans respond in a partisan way to questions like this. They are expressing disapproval of Joe Biden. And this is a kind of sleight of hand at work. The relevant question about Ukraine is: What are you going to do about it?
The consistent message of Vance is that he doesn’t want Americans to fight in the war in Ukraine. You might respond that currently we’re not fighting in that war. But in a recent debate, two of Vance’s primary opponents, including the current poll leader Mike Gibbons, committed themselves to the policy of setting up a no-fly zone in Ukraine, led by Europeans, our NATO allies. If Russia responded by attacking these allies, we would be obliged under Article V of NATO to treat it as an attack on us.
There were some polls showing that upwards of 70 percent of Americans supported a no-fly zone until you told them what it entails. Subsequent polling showed that respondents changed their mind when informed that a no-fly zone meant shooting down Russian planes. Here’s Aaron Blake explaining it in WaPo:
In a separate YouGov poll for the Economist, the pollster got at this in a different way. It asked two questions of its entire sample:
- “Do you think each of the following courses of action is a good idea or a bad idea?” and then, two questions later,
- “Should the U.S. military shoot down Russian military planes flying over Ukraine?”
In this case, there was a more significant difference and a drop in support. While Americans favored the undefined no-fly zone 40 to 30 percent — similar to the other poll — they actually opposed shooting down Russian planes 46 to 30 percent. Fully 28 percent of people who say they want a no-fly zone also don’t want to shoot down Russian planes (which a no-fly zone would, in all likelihood, entail).
Unsurprisingly, in his debate, Vance explained that shooting down Russian planes is exactly what a no-fly zone means when contesting the issue with his opponents.
More recent polling shows that Americans support tough economic sanctions on Russia, keeping troops in NATO, and accepting thousands of Ukrainian refugees. But a minority of 35 percent support military action if it risks the possibility of nuclear conflict with Russia. Sixty-two percent “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose military action in light of these risks. Now, certainly military action that risks nuclear conflict with Russia is a “tough” policy, but you’re not going to convince me that four in five Republicans support it. Vance’s position sounds like a majority position to me.
There’s an underhandedness to the technique Vance’s critics use. Hawks intuitively understand that their position of getting the U.S. heavily and directly involved in the Ukraine war is deeply unpopular. Another poll showed that 72 percent of Americans want America to have “no role” or a “minor role” in the Ukraine conflict. Only 26 percent took the hawkish position that the U.S. should play a major role.
So they don’t tell you what policy they think is correct with any specificity. They just sell their leadership as a “tough” policy (80 percent among GOP), and attack Vance on behalf of candidates who do want to impose a no-fly zone (30 percent), which would mean the U.S. playing a “major role” (26 percent) in the conflict. It’s dishonest.