Vladimir Putin would have had additional motivation to prepare for a long battle of attrition in Ukraine after witnessing the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night.
Rhetorical battles over the conflict exposed a growing schism inside the Republican Party between Donald Trump’s “America First” philosophy and the fading aggressive internationalism once epitomised by President Ronald Reagan.
The standoff threatens the multi-billion dollar American aid pipeline on which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky relies, which might have far-reaching implications for his drive to expel Russian forces from all of Ukrainian soil.
However, rising scepticism among American voters about his government’s generosity towards Kyiv might make it more difficult to get huge aid packages through Congress, even if President Joe Biden wins reelection next year and doesn’t abandon Ukraine. However, if Trump or another similar Republican is elected president, the United States may no longer serve as the Western leader in rallying support for Ukraine’s survival effort. In addition to altering the geopolitical dynamics of the war, the slower-than-anticipated summer onslaught by Kyiv might boost pressure on Zelensky and among undecided European powers for a settlement while Biden is still in the White House.
However, the prospect of a new US president who is not dedicated to the war may influence Putin’s calculations.
The populist, transactional foreign policy shift he caused in the party was on full show even without Trump on stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday (he skipped the debate, saying he was too far ahead in the primary for it to be worth his while).
In Trump’s absence, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy tapped into widespread scepticism about the war among Republican base voters.
According to Ramaswamy, “the United States does not consider Ukraine a top priority.” You cannot… start another no-win war with the same folks that took us into (the) Iraq War and the Vietnam War, in my opinion. And I don’t want us to get to the point where we’re deploying troops overseas instead of keeping them at home to keep our borders safe.
Ramaswamy may not be in a position to win the GOP nomination, but he does represent a significant school of thinking within the party, exemplified by Trump, who has made the improbable pledge to end Russia’s war in Ukraine within 24 hours if he is elected. He could only achieve this by imposing absolute Ukrainian submission to Putin’s demands.
The problem for Ukraine is that the 2024 GOP candidates who are most in favour of continuing US assistance have a slim chance of winning the nomination. These candidates are categorically opposed to Ramaswamy’s views, which are increasingly popular among Republicans in the House of Representatives.
After returning from Ukraine, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie issued a warning, saying, “This is the Vladimir Putin, whom Donald Trump labelled brilliant and a genius. We are next if we don’t speak out against the despotic murders going on over the world.
While many Republicans today argue that the war is a diversion from a larger and more dangerous geopolitical clash with China, former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley made an impassioned plea for continuing to help Ukraine.
It’s imperative that the President of the United States have moral clarity. The former governor of South Carolina compared the situation in Russia and Ukraine to that of a pro-American country attacked by a thug. “So when you want to talk about what has been given to Ukraine, less than 3.5% of our defence budget has been given to Ukraine,” she continued. (The fact checking team at AWN determined that Haley’s estimate was slightly lower than the real percentage of the US defence expenditure.)
If Russia wins, China wins. This is information we must have. For us, Ukraine is the front line of defence.
Even while the party that won the Cold War has a powerful element that supports Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, like Trump does, Pence, a former vice president, joined Haley in calling for ongoing support for Ukraine. Pence gave a speech to Ramaswamy, 38, telling him that America could not afford to put a “rookie” in the Oval Office. Putin would not wait long to roll through a NATO border if we give him the land that you want to give him. The men and women of our military forces, honestly,” Pence continued, “are going to have to go and battle him.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who made a stir earlier this year by referring to the war in Ukraine — which was sparked by an unlawful invasion of a sovereign country — as a territorial dispute — is the Republican candidate that comes closest to Trump in most surveys. DeSantis seemed eager to win points at the debate by demonstrating his war scepticism, while also attempting to head off any new issues about his fitness to be president.
DeSantis urged the president to uphold his constitutional duty to protect the nation and its citizens. To paraphrase: “That means you’re sending all this money, but you’re not doing what we need to do to secure our own border.”
DeSantis said that he will want European powers to do more to rescue Ukraine. The governor of Florida went on to say, “I’m not going to send troops to Ukraine, but I am going to send them to our southern border.” Since putting US forces into the fight would cause a direct collision with Russia and may escalate into a Third World fight, his comment was dishonest. Not even Ukraine’s greatest US backers are advocating for this.
One of the tragedy’s of the fight for Ukraine was highlighted in the discussion. No matter how valiantly its people fight, they cannot stop Russia from invading without help from the United States and its friends. They have no say in what Putin does, thus their future is up to the voters in the United States in 2024.
