Though it’s not at the top of most voters’ radar, the upcoming midterm elections could play a decisive role in whether Ukraine is able to continue repelling Russia’s invasion. At the moment, Ukraine seems to have momentum in the fight, in significant part due to extensive arms deliveries from the United States and its allies. But as Greg Sargent discusses in a recent The Plum Line post, congressional Republicans are indicating they may well reduce or even cut off U.S. aid should the GOP regain control of the House of Representatives.
Although a majority of House Republicans have thus far supported aid to Ukraine, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recently commented that a GOP-led House would not write a “blank check” for Ukraine aid. Sargent rightly points out that this isn’t just an idle threat, and that current GOP support for Ukraine could change quickly. Sargent writes that it’s politically naive of White House advisors to think that the GOP would fear the possibility of setting itself for blame should a U.S. arms cutoff be followed by Ukrainian defeat, and that the GOP would simply place the blame on Biden.
But I would push this line of thinking a step further, and point to the great incentives the GOP has for derailing the U.S.’s assistance to Ukraine if they could then pin any resulting turning of the tide on President Biden. I think the question is better posed as, “Why wouldn’t they do this?” After all, Trumpist elements of the GOP already avow sympathy for Vladimir Putin; most glaringly, the former president quite possibly owed his election to Russian intervention, and his consistent deference to the Russian leader throughout his term is well documented. And as Sargent observes, “Democrats need to take seriously the idea that a kind of pro-Russia axis, or at least an axis loosely allied with what you might call a developing right-wing authoritarian Internationale of autocrats, strongmen and illiberal democracies, is taking hold inside the GOP.” The first impeachment of Donald Trump should have established that the current Republican Party places party loyalty over national interest, having defended the president against his subversion of U.S. foreign policy for the sake of his re-election effort. I have no doubt there are sufficient incentives for a GOP House to stick the shiv in Ukraine if they thought it would hurt Joe Biden.
This is a big deal, because a persuasive case can be made that Ukraine has become the front line in a globalized struggle between a growing authoritarian movement and a democratic world rocked by covid, economic inequality, climate change, and fears of immigration and demographic change. Such is the case that historian Timothy Snyder made in a recent essay published in Foreign Affairs. And in a follow-up piece to the Plum Line post mentioned above, Sargent interviews Snyder about U.S. support for Ukraine and the threat of a Republican cut-off of aid. Snyder offers a cautiously optimistic view of the war, suggesting that Ukraine is “on the verge of winning,” and that similarly, the global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism could be at a tipping point in democracy’s favor. But even at a more granular level, Snyder describes how the war in serving the United States’ concrete foreign policy interests:
By pinning down the Russian army and substantially weakening it, they are weakening China’s cat’s paw, which is Russia. By showing how difficult it is to carry out this kind of invasion, Ukraine is making the scenario for war with China — a Chinese invasion of Taiwan — much less likely.
I would also add that we should not forget Russia’s attempts to intervene in the 2016 election, which have never been properly addressed or punished by the United States. I don’t think this country has ever fully grappled with the seriousness of Russia’s election subversion, which arguably amounted to an act of war against American democracy. Everything that has happened since 2016 has confirmed that Russia is a threat to global stability and the prospects for democracy, with Vladimir Putin acting as a sort of white Christian leadership figure for neo-fascist movements in Europe and the United States.
To date, I think the Biden administration has recognized the stakes in supporting Ukrainian sovereignty against Russia’s invasion, brutality, and terroristic violence against civilians, which includes mass murder, the kidnapping of Ukrainians, and the targeting of utility infrastructure like power plants. Unlike American folly in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. engaged in fruitless invasions that destabilized the region, this is a case of the United States pretty clearly standing in defense of democracy and against authoritarianism.
For these reasons, it was disturbing to read this letter to President Biden signed by 30 liberal House Democrats that seemed to suggest the United States is on an unsustainable path in its support for Ukraine; let us hope that the signatories’ retraction of the letter just 24 hours later, amid reports that the letter was not meant to be released and was actually written months ago, signals their lack of support for its content. The missive urged President Biden “to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire, and to “engage in direct talks with Russia.”
Coming bare weeks out from a close midterm election, such a message would have strengthened the hand of far-right Republicans critical of Ukraine aid, and could have emboldened the GOP into opposing further aid should the party regain the House. To her credit, Representative and letter signer Pramila Jayapal acknowledged this possibility, stating today that, “The proximity of these statements created the unfortunate appearance that Democrats, who have strongly and unanimously supported and voted for every package of military, strategic, and economic assistance to the Ukrainian people, are somehow aligned with Republicans who seek to pull the plug on American support for President Zelensky and the Ukrainian forces.”
Most of the time, representatives like Jayapal, Jamie Raskin, and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez speak of policies and values that deeply resonate with The Hot Screen’s world view. But with this letter, in both its noxious timing and its pessimistic prognostications of a long war that is not worth the cost, they engaged in both a political and policy foul. This letter never should have seen the light of day. I am deeply curious to learn more details about what led to this letter’s original drafting and dissemination now, because it strikes me as just a really, really bad idea, even outside the snafu of its one-day cycle of release and retraction.