Biden is pushing for a long, drawn-out tie. Trump would effect a quick Russian win. DeSantis should argue for a swift Ukrainian victory.
Nikki Haley’s entry into the 2024 presidential race has raised anew the question of how Ukraine will figure in the Republican presidential primary.
More specifically, how should Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the clear and dominant frontrunner in the race, approach the issue of Ukraine, given the conspicuous rise of isolationist or non-interventionist Republicans led by one, Donald J. Trump?
Haley has positioned herself as a hawk firmly in synch with the Reagan Republican tradition of peace through strength and military aid to freedom fighters willing to bear arms for their own freedom and against America’s enemies.
Trump, meanwhile, has gone soft and limp. He would, he says, force Ukraine and Russia to negotiate and thereby end the war “within 24 hours.” Cutting off, or cutting back on, American military aid to Ukraine, he argues, would help force the two countries to negotiate “peace.”
Of course, the resultant “peace” would be a frozen conflict in which Russia retains significant chunks of Ukrainian territory while rearming and preparing for the day when it can reignite the conflict and conquer all of Ukraine. This is the “peace” that Putin wants and hopes for.
DeSantis wisely has not spoken out about Ukraine. Unlike Trump and unlike Haley, he has a full-time job as governor of America’s third-most populous state, Florida. And he was just reelected governor there by the biggest margin statewide in 40 years, and by the biggest margin ever for a Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate.
The people of Florida expect him to do the job to which he was just reelected and Ukraine, obviously, is out of his lane as governor.
However, when DeSantis does announce later this year that he is running for president, the war in Ukraine most likely will be raging still and with no end in sight thanks to Biden’s slow walking of aid to Ukraine. And DeSantis no longer will be able to ignore the issue. He will have to take a stand that is bound to be controversial with some GOP voters.
Here’s what I think DeSantis should do and will do: He should triangulate between Biden and Trump. He should say that both men have bad and dangerous ideas re: Ukraine.
Biden, as Sen. Tom Cotton has observed,
has dragged his feet all along, hesitating fearfully to send the Ukrainians the weapons and intelligence they need to win.
Today, Mr. Biden stubbornly refuses to provide fighter jets, cluster munitions and long-range missiles to Ukraine. As a result of Mr. Biden’s half-measures, Ukraine has only half-succeeded.
Trump, meanwhile, wants to effectively pull the rug out from under Ukraine and thereby give Putin a victory. But neither approach serves the American national interest.
The United States, DeSantis should say, does not want a long, drawn-out war that kills countless Ukrainians while consuming vast amounts of American money and scarce military resources. Yet that is what Biden’s dithering and delay has wrought.
Nor does America want a Russian victory that will create a new zone of war and conflict in Europe. Yet that is what Trump’s call for “negotiations” and an “immediate” end to the war will inevitably bring about.
Instead, Americans want, and America needs, a swift and decisive Ukrainian victory, which is possible with real presidential leadership. DeSantis will provide this leadership and thereby quickly end the war, but on terms favorable to the American national interest. He will, finally, put “America First” in Ukraine.
Politics. Will this work politically in today’s Republican Party? I believe that it will. Most Republicans, and certainly most GOP primary voters, are not isolationists or anti-interventionists. However, they are opposed to long, drawn-out wars with no end in sight.
As they see it, the problem in Ukraine is that Biden doesn’t have a strategy for winning. Instead, he’s committed to half-measures for “as long as it takes”—and “as long as it takes” suggests another interminable, decades-long “forever war.” No thanks.
Fortunately, the war in Ukraine doesn’t have to end that way. There is a real and viable alternative waiting to happen but for a lack of presidential leadership.
As a former Navy JAG attorney who saw service in “The Surge” in Iraq (2007), DeSantis surely understands this. He knows war in a way that Donald Trump never has and never will. (Trump received five military draft deferments to avoid service in the Vietnam War.)
GOP primary voters will respond well to a candidate who unapologetically puts American interests first and pledges to swiftly and successfully end the war in Ukraine by ensuring Russia loses. Such an approach will distinguish DeSantis from his main primary opponent, Donald Trump, and also his likely general election opponent, Joe Biden.
Triangulating between Trump and Biden on Ukraine and on other issues (Social Security, Medicare, and entitlements, for instance, where Trump wants to do nothing and Biden wants only to raise taxes) will allow DeSantis to crush Trump in the primaries while simultaneously appealing to centrists and independents in the general election.
Nikki Haley is pioneering this approach, but it will be a winning strategy for Ron DeSantis.
Feature photo credit: Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, former President Trump, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are all vying for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination, courtesy of Newsweek.