215 - Ukraine's Struggle for Freedom Needs to be Sustained

Republican Subversion

 The struggle for the survival of Ukraine as an independent nation “is not just a test for Ukraine.  It is a test for the United States and for the free world.”  Who possibly could have used those stirring words to remind us how important and how universally existential are Ukraine’s defense of its sovereignty and its freedoms?  Sen. Mitch McConnell, of all Republican and American leading politicians, uttered those sentiments last week at a public event in Washington. He continued: “The path toward greater security for all of us is simple; Help Ukraine win the war.”

            McConnell also urged Americans to think of the battle for Ukraine as one critical phase of an all-encompassing combat against “an axis of evil: China, Russia, and Iran.”  His stirring words were meant to rally Americans and Republicans around the imperative to stand firm with Ukrainian partisans against hordes of assaulting Russians.  It was also part of his plea for Washington to continue aiding, even raising, its military and budgetary assistance to Ukraine despite Republican Representatives in the House (and some progressive Democrats) opposing such renewed help for Ukraine.

            For naked political purposes the callow, inexperienced, Speaker of the House of Representatives is prepared to back assistance to Israel, but not the $61 billion in appropriations that President Biden advocates for Ukraine.  Speaker Mike Johnson and other radical right-wingers in the House publicly argue that Washington has spent sufficient on Ukraine.  He and others are also trying to link billions of dollars for Israel with the drastic slicing of funding for the Internal Revenue Service – trading monies for Israel’s war against Hamas for freedom for millionaire cheats.

            That last proposal makes no policy sense at all.  Nor does Johnson’s antagonism to support for Ukraine. As McConnell (and other more responsible) Republicans in the Senate assert, allowing Russia to overwhelm Ukraine would be tragic for every part of the free world.  It would diminish in major ways our own freedoms as Americans in the face of Russian and Chinese depredations. It would allow dictatorship to triumph over democracy, tyranny over participatory freedoms, one-man rule over political choice. A Putinesque victory that comes from waiting out Western patience and Western resolve would also detract from help for Israel. It would further embolden President Xi Jinping’s ambitions regarding Taiwan.  Johnson’s political maneuverings are harmful in every particular, as well as potentially weakening America’s role in the world power struggle.

            Americans should in no sense countenance narrowly partisan acrobatics in the House and Johnson’s new-found opportunism over Ukraine.  Nor should Americans despair because the battles between Ukraine and Russia have become stalemated – a desperate slog, with catastrophically high casualties on both sides.

            It is true that Ukrainians on the front lines have not had the successes that they had long predicted. It is true that even some Ukrainians are wearying of the war in the same manner that Americans and Europeans are now distracted by the Israeli response to Hamas’ barbarism.  But, as the leading Ukrainian general reminded us last week, now is the time to redouble, not reduce, Western assistance to Ukraine. It matters.  We must support both Ukraine and Israel.

            When F-16 aircraft finally arrive in number, Ukraine can battle more equally with the Russians for control of the skies. One of the key reasons why Ukraine’s counter offensive against massively fortified and deeply mined front-line Russian redoubts has so far largely failed is because Ukrainians have been unable to take to the air and destroy Russia’s supply lines and staging areas behind the front lines. Nor has Ukraine been able to halt the Russian use of kamikaze drones (supplied by Iran!)    to attack civilians and cities well behind the Ukrainian front lines.  With air firepower, Ukraine could assault the bases from which drones and missiles are launched.  Ukraine’s new British, German, and American supplied long-range artillery provide improved targeting and range abilities, but ammunition is in short supply and range-finding is being limited by Russian jamming of electronic surveillance equipment.

            Now, just before the onset of winter, is a critical and dangerous time. The West must not take its collective eye off Russia’s immoral invasion of Ukraine because of the tragic and necessary attempt to extirpate Hamas. Both campaigns are critical for freedom and democracy, but Ukraine’s comparative advantage militarily against Russia is much more precarious than Israel’s against Hamas  (even with Israel’s handicap in winning the simultaneous information war).

            American political disagreements years ago stopped at the water’s edge.  Just possibly McConnell (of all politicians!) can lead Congressional Republicans, and Johnson and his benighted ilk, back from the brink of nihilism and anarchy. Perhaps McConnell alone can explain forcefully to Johnson that Republicanism is more than opposition to abortion and (falsely imagined) isolationism in budget-busting raiments.

            McConnell is right for once.  Ukraine is fighting for us and for our ideals and sense of global justice. Ukraine, despite the slowdown in its direct military accomplishments, must not be abandoned now because of Hamas, not because of war weariness, not because there is some perceived disarray in the ranks of the upper echelons of the Ukrainian war effort. Nor must the least sensible of Republicans in the House be allowed to subvert the will of those who understand how Washington must continue to lead in the world’s battle for respect for the rule of law, fundamental human freedoms, and democracy. 

            Instead the Biden administration must receive the funds it has requested and the Pentagon needs to overcome supply side restraints and supply chain complications to give Ukraine the aircraft and the other electronic equipment and assistance that it desperately needs to remain strong and relevant in the face of Russia’s relentless attacks.  If Ukraine succumbs, to will Taiwan, and so will essential freedoms and human rights everywhere.

“Think of it as an axis of evil: China, Russia, and Iran,” McConnell said during an event this week in Kentucky with the Ukrainian ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova. “So this is not just a test for Ukraine. It is a test for the United States and for the free world. And the path toward greater security for all of us is simple: Help Ukraine win the war.”