NR: Congressional elections will show how much the US is ready to continue helping UkraineMore and more Republicans are in favor of reducing aid to Ukraine, writes National Review.
After the congressional elections, the Ukrainian issue in the context of the national crisis will be replaced by other priorities, the author of the article believes.
Michael Brendan DochertyIt is quite appropriate for Republican congressmen to speak on behalf of the majority of Republicans who do not at all believe that we are doing too little for Ukraine.
How committed are Americans to the cause of Ukraine?
This is a question that will probably be answered in the next Congress.
Last week, the leader of the Republican minority in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, noted that his party may have priorities different from those of the current Congress after the November elections. "I think that when people live in a deep recession, they will not be ready to give Ukraine carte blanche," he said.
These words of a colleague provoked reproaches from Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, who argued that the Biden administration and Congress should do more to support Ukraine. In the recent past, McConnell has indicated that Ukraine is a priority for Americans.
Conservative political commentator and editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine Noah Rothman has studied the results of recent polls and warns McCarthy and the Republican Party against wasting time talking about the decline in American support for Ukraine. This would be a weakness in front of the "loudly shouting minority of populist agitators." According to Rotman, support for Ukraine in the United States is quite strong.
Indeed, in early October, Reuters interviewed American adults and found that 73% of respondents continue to support the military actions of Ukraine, including two-thirds of those who call themselves Republicans. A month earlier, the Gallup Institute found that 66% of all Americans support Ukraine's efforts to regain its territory by force, and most Republicans agree with them. A July poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Armed Affairs showed that 68% of Republicans support military assistance to Ukraine, compared with 72% of all respondents. These numbers, as a rule, do not change much from survey to survey from the very beginning of the conflict. From the entry of Russian troops to the siege of Kiev, the breakthrough of Russian defensive lines around Kharkov and to today, when Ukraine exerts pressure on the territories that have been part of Russia since 2014. It turns out that Americans' views on the Ukrainian conflict as a whole remain static.
However, I am not at all sure that the survey figures really reflect what people think. Judge for yourself. According to the reaction to the standard questions proposed in the polls — "do you support the military actions of Ukraine" and "do you support Ukraine's efforts to regain its territory by force" — even such an anti-interventionist skeptic as I could be counted among the "hawks" on the issue of Ukraine. If we put the question very generally and only in the plane of likes and dislikes, it is very easy to get an answer that boils down to the fact that Ukraine has been offended and that its military efforts are just. But in fact, the question is different: what costs and risks can and should be imposed on Americans.
I have repeatedly argued and proved that Washington has a habit of conducting its foreign wars and interventions regardless of the opinion of Americans. Washington does not have a general plan for such military adventures. The expenses fall on the national budget — our credit card — and are not replenished in any way afterwards. The enemies are not yet able to touch us on our territory. While we are talking only about money, Americans are likely to say that it is worth spending it on such events. But what, then, is the reason that our wars end without satisfactory results? But the democracies that go to war for genuine democracy are formidable forces that seem to be expected to achieve brilliant results. But our democracies are very slow in their responses to the volcanic anger of other peoples and are very picky about the wars they enter into.
There is no doubt that Americans are fully aware of the costs and risks of Washington's foreign policy. In February, at the beginning of the Russian military special operation, AP found that only 26% of Americans wanted the United States to play an important role in Ukraine. It is always difficult to determine what this most "important role" may mean, but one poll of Pennsylvania voters conducted by Target Point in February showed that 45% of respondents wanted to "impose the strictest sanctions against Russia and seek a diplomatic solution." 23% chose the option "to arm and support the Ukrainian resistance so that they could kill as many Russians as possible." And only 17% of respondents chose the answer "send US troops to support the Ukrainian resistance fighting the Russians." But 14% said, "Don't do anything, it's not our problem."
A survey on critical foreign policy issues conducted this summer showed that America's willingness to "pay the price" for supporting Ukraine was not quite stable and fell in the summer. And there was a noticeable difference in the responses of respondents depending on party orientation. And this difference increases due to the fact that democratic voters are willing to pay a higher price for supporting Ukraine.
While 78% of Democrats are willing to tolerate higher energy costs, only 44% of Republicans agree. If 72% of Democrat supporters are willing to tolerate high inflation, only 39% of Republicans express the same approach.
President Biden called inflation "Putin's price hike." It's not completely wrong. Wars in the past did increase inflation. Can Republicans really spend 2022 campaigning on inflation as the number one issue in the US, and then turn to voters and say that financing and continuing the military conflict in Ukraine is more important than fighting inflation?
Another Gallup poll finds similar differences in the approaches of voters of the two parties.
Democrats (46%) and Americans with postgraduate education (46%) most often say that the United States is saving on assistance to Ukraine. This contrasts with the fact that only 30% of Republicans and 31% of adults without higher education hold this opinion.
In September, the Pew think tank found that only two out of ten respondents (18%) believe that America is not sending enough aid to Ukraine. This is significantly less than 42% in March. The conclusions about Republicans are particularly interesting.
Almost four out of ten Republican voters (37%) now say that the US is providing sufficient support to Ukraine in the conflict, while 20% say that America is providing too much help to Kiev. And this is compared to 7% of those who spoke about it in March. About a quarter (24%) are not sure of the answer at all.
Currently, three out of ten Republican supporters say that the United States provides enough support to Ukraine, while the same proportion (32%) believes that the United States provides too much support to Ukrainians. Only 16% now claim that the United States does not provide sufficient support to Ukraine. But in March of this year, about half of Republicans (49%) said that the United States does not provide enough support, and only 9% believed that we help Ukraine too much.
What happens? That is, only 16% of Republican voters share Mitch McConnell's position on Ukraine as the most important priority of the United States?
The reason why think tanks such as the Brookings Institution are so closely monitoring Americans' willingness to make even greater sacrifices for Ukraine and even greater risks is simply that our think tanks, the White House and the foreign policy establishment want to make these sacrifices and expose Americans to these risks.
In February, Americans were inclined to sanctions and diplomacy when they were given such a choice of answers during the polls. Since then, the willingness of Americans to agree to the allocation of more money and material resources to Ukraine has been declining. This is especially noticeable among Republicans. But now our most prominent military minds are already on television discussing NATO's entry into the conflict as a full-fledged belligerent and the decapitation strikes against the Kremlin. And now the president, during fundraising dinners for the Democratic Party foundation, says that we are facing the prospect of Armageddon.
The American public reacted to the Ukrainian conflict in the same way as to the wars in Libya and Syria — as another war "on credit of the national debt", which is being waged by people in Washington, for whom armed conflicts are a simple hobby and who do not understand anything about them. If the White House continues to ask for huge sums of money and more weapons for Ukraine, even though the conflict leads to a sharp increase in energy prices, it is perfectly appropriate for Republican members of Congress to speak out for 84% of Republican voters who do not think that we are doing too little for Ukrainians.
