At the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit on Thursday, Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) suggested the U.S. should send Ukraine long-range weapons while speaking on the importance of supporting the country in its fight against Russia.
Cotton, who served in the U.S. Army as an infantry officer, joined National Review executive editor Mark Wright for a wide-ranging conversation about the U.S. military. Wright asked Cotton what the U.S. can do to help Ukraine force Russia to the negotiating table.
“I wish we could get the time machine to go back two years and arm Ukraine to the hilt so we wouldn’t have the invasion,” he said. “Or arm Ukraine to the hilt in February/March of last year so it wouldn’t be fighting to reclaim so much territory.”
Cotton went on to suggest the U.S. should supply Ukraine with cluster munitions, “a kind of artillery that has lots of small bombs on it.”
“We have an almost unlimited supply and we won’t provide it to Ukraine,” he said. “Why? well, because the progressives in the White House are worried about offending European sensibilities and people who signed the Arms Control Treaty.”
“But Russia is using cluster munitions in Ukraine and Ukraine wants to use cluster munitions in Ukraine, so why would we care if they use cluster munitions in Ukraine?” the senator said.
He said Ukraine also needs “longer-range missiles and rockets.”
“I’m not talking about allowing Ukraine to reach Moscow or St. Petersburg or Vladivostok, but we cannot have a situation where Russia is allowed to drive its artillery right up to the Ukrainian border and fire into Ukraine, killing innocent civilians, setting back their military, blowing up critical infrastructure, and Ukraine can’t strike back at those firing points,” he said.
Those moves alone would “help Ukraine get back on the front foot,” according to the Arkansas Republican.
Cotton also said the Biden administration’s “weakness” in 2021 “gave Vladimir Putin the kind of temptation to do what he always want to do.”
“And then for the last year, [President Biden’s] been pussyfooting around, refusing to supply Ukraine with the weapons they need in the volumes they need, not just to avoid losing the war, not just to avoid Russia overrunning them, but to actually win the war, take back Ukrainian territory, and put Russia on the back foot,” he said.
Cotton warned the U.S.’s behavior in Ukraine will send a message to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and could serve as either a deterrent or a go-ahead for China to invade Taiwan.
If China sees the U.S. and the rest of the Western world abandon Ukraine after just 13 or 14 months, it will believe there is “no chance” the United States and its allies would come to Taiwan’s defense.
Cotton’s comment comes amid an ongoing fight among some Republicans about the United States’ support of Ukraine.
In February, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) reintroduced legislation to audit the military aid the U.S. has sent Ukraine in the year since Russia first invaded. She told Fox News that the United States’ continued investment in Ukraine could lead the U.S. into World War III.
Greene was one of ten Republican lawmakers to co-sponsor legislation by Representative Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) last month to end U.S. aid to Ukraine. On the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion, the Biden administration announced a $10 billion aid package to support the Ukrainian government in addition to $2 billion in military aid.
America was spending just under $7 billion a month in Ukraine as of November, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Ukraine has also emerged as an early wedge issue in the 2024 race.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has not declared a run but is widely considered a likely contender, came under fire from Democrats and Republicans alike recently for suggesting the conflict there amounts to a “territorial dispute.” Despite that comment having come in a written statement, DeSantis later claimed his position had been “mischaracterized” but restated his belief that there is no vital U.S. interest at stake that requires further American involvement.
Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, for her part, penned an op-ed earlier this month saying it gets things “backward” to suggest the conflict is a mere “territorial dispute” or that the U.S. should “ignore Ukraine so we can focus on China.”