These are trying times for foreign policy makers almost everywhere, especially in Washington. President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Council Advisor Jake Sullivan absolutely need their heads mounted on swivels as they of necessity turn from the consternation in Gaza, to worrying clashes in the South China Sea and the Taiwanese Straits, and back to bolstering Ukraine’s staunch defense of its homeland. The Senate’s failure yesterday to fund Ukraine appropriately only adds pain and anxiety to their (and our) attempts to ensure a more stable world.
Together, or singly, they hardly need or have the bandwidth in these tumultuous times to strengthen our global warming posture and promises in Dubai, at COP28; to make the necessary forthright demands for hideous atrocities to cease in Sudan’s Darfur, and also in Khartoum; to caution Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed about his conflict in Amhara and his war-like demands for access to a port along Eritrea’s Red Sea coast; to deal with the coup leaders and the Islamists who are causing chaos in the Sahel, where Russia ‘s Wagner Group has dangerous interests; and to help quiet insurgent activities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where 120 warlord-led armies are accumulating gold and coltan to fund their depredations. Nor have our policymakers fully been able to handle the assaults by Iranian-inspired Houthi rebels on shipping off their Red Sea coast.
Furthermore, Washington hardly been able to halt the menacing by Venezuela’s autocratic cacique Nicolas Maduro of tiny next-door Guyana, where one of the world’s richest offshore petroleum deposits is being exploited by ExxonMobil. This is a territorial dispute revived by Maduro for electoral and mercenary purposes about 125 years after President Cleveland helped to settle the border between the two polities – a border that remained undisputed in this century until impoverished Guyana discovered oil.
The globe is in disarray, much of it fomented by China; Iran (through Hamas, with Hezbollah poised to follow Hamas, and the Houthis already active); and Russia continuing its deploying of Iranian-made kamikaze drones against Odesa and other Ukrainian cities, towns, and frontline encampments.
It is amid such truly combustible crosshairs that President Biden and his advisors are backstabbed consistently by Congressional Republicans who seem to believe that they can avoid continuing to help Ukraine oppose Russia, safeguard its sovereign freedoms, and – even more so – assist the United States in preventing a menacing Russian assault on European and American fundamental freedoms.
As Senator Christopher Murphy of Connecticut said Tuesday, “When Vladimir Putin marches into a NATO country, they [the Republicans] will rue the day they decided to play politics with the future of Ukraine’s security.”
What are the Republicans thinking – if they ever think at all? Admittedly, a new, inexperienced evangelical Speaker is fearful of doing anything that might forfeit his position. And Senate Republicans yesterday added to the dangers of Ukraine by focusing on the American southern border rather than on winning the ongoing war in eastern Europe.
The extreme right wing Republican hard core dirty dozen cares about nothing but expressing themselves; being seriously instrumental and accomplishing good, or almost anything sensible, for our nation and for the peoples of the planet, is so far beyond their operational rationale that leave Ukraine dangling in the wind. They have not even agreed to appropriate funds for Israel, a seemingly easier ask.
The White House Office of Management and Budget told the Speaker in frustration that the United States – the supposed magisterial leader of the free world – was running out of appropriated funds to support front line troops in Ukraine and to bolster its (and Israel’s) antiaircraft capabilities. “Cutting off the flow of U.S. weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories,” she said.
Ukraine is rapidly running out of ammunition while two handfuls of irresponsible Republicans in the House and a smattering of Republican senators try to pander to constituents who may – understandably – be weary of a distant war and as crypto-isolationists may be reluctant to spend money overseas. But the border with Mexico is a wholly different issue and should not be allowed to cloud the real needs east of Kyiv.
It is our war as well as Ukraine’s, fortunately for us being fought by Ukrainians, not by Americans, and with our dollars, not our lives. We can and must do far more, even as Washington and the Pentagon must continue to think hard and wisely about Israel in Gaza. If – a big subjunctive – Ukraine only had the air power that we have been slow delivering, then Ukraine could overfly the minefields and fortifications on the ground that are deterring Ukraine from advancing toward the Sea of Azov and Crimea and gaining adversarial and territorial advantages against Russia. Nothing else will easily bring Putin to a meaningful negotiating table.
Even Republicans might begin to understand that Putin is desperate to prolong the suffering of Ukrainians and endure his side of a slogging and stalemated war until this time next year, after the U.S. presidential election. He is Trump’s buddy and hopes what is now a contest in Ukraine that he cannot win will become a triumph following a Trump victory and an American slinking away with its tail between its legs. Does the Speaker of the House of Representatives really favor that prospect? Do his coterie of hard right supporters in the Senate?
Unless we rush air and ground upgraded fighting equipment to Ukraine now -- before Christmas – and show Europeans and Asians that America is still there to fight the world’s fight – Putin and Xi Jinping will read the wrong lessons into our inactions and backsliding. Surely no one wants us at this stage to “lose Ukraine” just as we were accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others of “losing” China in 1949?
This is a time to remember Pearl Harbor, 82 years to the day.
Sadly, it may be too late for that....they've already made it clear they are casting their lot with Putin over Biden ... one can only hope the Europeans will be able to dig deep (very deep for some) and keep the forces of good on the battlefield as the GOP continues to wave its white flag of surrender. Wasn't it Donald Trump, incidentally, who said how much he hates losers??
But WELL PUT, professor.