The media blame Congressional Republicans for failing to support Ukraine; but the real failure of support lies in the Oval Office with Joe Biden.
The media and most foreign policy analysts would have you believe that farsighted Joe Biden supports Ukraine, while myopic Congressional Republicans don’t; and that a lack of GOP support is why Ukraine enters this, its third year of war, on the defensive, facing a Russian military onslaught.
In fact, the opposite is true. Joe Biden says he supports Ukraine; yet he has deliberately withheld from Ukraine critical weapon systems such as the ATACMS or long-range Army Tactical Missile System.
He has been seriously tardy and parsimonious about the weapon systems he has provided (e.g., a few dozen Abrams tanks and just 20 ATACMS), while imposing range and use restrictions on other provided weapon systems (e.g., the HIMARS or High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems).
As Biden himself publicly acknowledged Nov. 9, 2022: “There’s a lot of things [i.e., weapon systems] that Ukraine wants that we didn’t do” or provide.
Consequently, as Phillips P. O’Brien observes, “while Russia can strike anywhere in Ukraine, the U.S. has denied the Ukrainians the weapons they need to hit Russian targets, even in the parts of Ukraine that Russia occupies.”
Biden’s dithering and delay has been quite costly. It has given Russia the time and space that it needed to massively mine occupied Ukraine and to erect massive defensive fortifications, which the Ukrainians simply have not been able to overcome, especially given their lack of Western and American aircraft.
The President, of course, has his reasons, or excuses, for practicing self-deterrence. He says he wants to avoid a wider war, “escalation” and “World War III.” But whatever the reason or excuse, the bottom line is still the same: The West has given Ukraine enough to survive, but not enough to win.
For the most part, Biden’s center-left supporters have implored him to speed up the delivery of weapon systems to Ukraine while they refrain from criticizing him directly. Instead, they aim their rhetorical fire at Congressional Republicans for not supporting Biden’s most recent Ukrainian aid request.
As David Frum argues, “A ‘yes’ on both Ukraine and the border is still within reach, if only pro-Ukraine Republicans will press their colleagues to grasp it.”
Congressional Republican Politics. There is some truth to Frum’s argument. Some Congressional Republicans are, indeed, opposed to aiding Ukraine, while other GOPers are playing politics and trying to use Ukraine aid to score political points against Biden.
But the more important and consequential issue which Frum and other center-left Biden supporters ignore, is that most Congressional Republicans are fed up with Biden’s weak, timid and half-hearted approach to aiding Ukraine.
Congressional Republicans don’t want another “forever war”; they want a clear and decisive Ukrainian win. Yet Biden has never laid out a strategy for ensuring that Ukraine wins and Russia loses. Instead, he repeats his vague mantra about “standing by Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
But this begs the question: as long as it takes to achieve what, exactly? Win? Lose? Tie? Negotiate? Biden never says.
Biden’s Timidity. Occasionally, the president will tip his hand. During a June 13, 2023, Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Biden said explicitly that aid to Ukraine is designed to achieve not a military victory for Ukraine, but a negotiated settlement instead.
“It’s still early days,” he told reporters, “but what we do know is that the more land that Ukrainians are able to liberate, the stronger hand they will have at the negotiating table.”
In other words, Biden isn’t playing for a Ukrainian win; he’s playing for a tie and a negotiated settlement that will force Ukraine to cede large amounts of its territory and millions of its people to the tender mercies of Putin’s Russia.
As O’Brien frankly acknowledges, “The Biden administration doesn’t want Ukraine to win.”
Most Congressional Republicans, however, do want Ukraine to win, and this explains their frustration with Biden and their reluctance to support additional aid request for Ukraine.
“Absolutely, we have to stop Putin,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Florida) told Fox News’ Mark Levin Dec. 11, 2023. But “it’s our job to say ‘to what end?’ What’s the strategy? How are you going to get there?’—and also to question what he [Biden] has done so far.”
“We are in a stalemate that will be very long and very expensive,” Waltz adds.
“I’d say from the very beginning, they’ve [the Biden administration] been engaging in half-measures while Ukraine has been half-succeeding,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) Feb. 16, 2023.
“That has been a pattern with this administration from the beginning,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) Feb. 26, 2023.
They have slow-rolled critical military weapon systems… [and] it’s a long list. It’s Patriots, it’s HIMARS; it’s tanks; and now it’s F-16’s. And to me, that is a real blunder.
We need to get them what they need now and listen to the Ukrainians… They’ve proven their ability to fight bravely, and I think we need to do a much better job.
It took nine months to get them the Patriots…
In short, Biden says he supports Ukraine but fails to follow through with specific policies that would make that rhetorical support real and tangible. Most Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, support Ukraine but have grown weary of a president who refuses to commit to victory.
As Frum rightly notes, “If leadership was ever needed, it’s needed now.” But that leadership has to come from the President, the Commander in Chief. It cannot come from Congress.
Featured photo credit: President Joe Biden (L) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) (R), courtesy of the Washington Free Beacon (Getty Images). Biden and Cotton represent polar opposite approaches to Ukraine. Biden, the Democrat, wants a tie and a negotiated settlement. Cotton, the Republican, wants a Ukrainian win and a Russia defeat.