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These are desperate and potentially decisive days in Ukraine’s fight against Vladimir Putin’s invading forces. And on Capitol Hill, it was also a crucial day for House Speaker Mike Johnson to decide how and whether to vote to lift the block on $60 billion in U.S. military aid to Kiev. .
But Ukraine’s fate depends on more than a vote in the Duma.Kiev must win the more fundamental debate over Ukraine’s fate problemThat’s because a Russian victory could well embolden Mr. Putin to threaten other European countries. It would also harm America’s national interests.
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Congressional reservations about U.S. aid to Ukraine stir up memories in Europe of how World War II began: a disengaged United States turned its back on Europe.
European leaders have pursued the matter in Washington, reminding Americans how World War II began. Adolf Hitler threatened Czechoslovakia with claims very similar to Mr. Putin’s. Britain and France did not stand up to him, and isolationist America distanced itself from European politics.
World War broke out.
“Have we learned the lessons of history?” asked British Foreign Secretary David Cameron in Washington this week.
So far, there are few signs that the efforts of him and his European colleagues are having much of an impact in Congress. The stakes are high.
“If Ukraine loses, no one in Europe will feel safe,” warned Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
These are desperate and potentially decisive days in Ukraine’s fight against Vladimir Putin’s invading forces.
On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson this week will discuss how he can manipulate the opposition of Republican hardliners to allow a floor vote to block $60 billion in U.S. military aid to Kyiv, and whether or not to do so. The decisive days that will decide the future are continuing.
The aid package is urgent, a top U.S. general told Congress on Wednesday that the Russian military currently has nearly 10 times as many shells as the Ukrainian military, but Ukraine’s fate ultimately depends on a House vote. It will depend on the above.
Why I wrote this
A story focused on
Congressional reservations about U.S. aid to Ukraine stir up memories in Europe of how World War II began: a disengaged United States turned its back on Europe.
Kiev must win the more fundamental debate over Ukraine’s fate problem, allowing Putin to take control of the neighbor he attacked 26 months ago would have even more serious consequences. It would not only threaten the security of Europe as a whole, but also the national interests of the United States.
This is a message being conveyed with increasing urgency by Ukraine’s European allies, most recently during British Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s visit to the United States this week.
Their primary audience is not President Joe Biden. He shares the belief that allowing Mr. Putin to win would embolden other European countries and endanger America’s credibility with both allies and rivals, including China.
Their hope is to sway Rep. Johnson, a prominent House loyalist of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and Trump himself.
They seek to separate the Ukraine aid issue from the intense political battles in the United States in an election year.
And their core message is the need to learn from Europe’s own recent history, particularly the two world wars that engulfed the continent in the last century.
European leaders see disturbing historical parallels with the Ukraine war.
Due to the build-up and rearmament of the Russian military, Ukraine is currently in a severe stalemate similar to World War I, with opposing armies engaged in trench warfare, the front lines barely moving, and suffering a war of attrition. .
Ukraine repelled Putin’s first attack in February 2022 and made significant progress a few months later, but last year’s counterattack failed to achieve much.
With U.S. aid stalled in Congress, Kiev’s military is increasingly outnumbered and outnumbered. As General Christopher Cavoli said before the House Armed Services Committee, “the side that can’t fight back loses.”
Still, the most haunting historical echo for Europeans is World War II, the consequences of not acting against the military threat of dictators before it was too late.
This is a message that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has conveyed with particular passion in recent weeks. World War II began with Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939.
A year ago, Adolf Hitler threatened to invade the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia with a large ethnic German population, and Mr. Putin’s plan to take over the largely Russian-speaking region of Ukraine He was making a very similar claim.
Britain and France chose to give Hitler a diplomatic green light in the hope that he could satisfy his territorial ambitions in Czechoslovakia and avoid a wider war.
Mr. Tusk, who visited Washington last month, said he expected House Speaker Johnson to understand the broader implications of abandoning Ukraine. He said the issue is more than just a “political skirmish of significance to American politics.”
Upon his return, he made similar historical arguments to European reporters. “If we cannot support Ukraine with enough equipment and ammunition, and Ukraine loses, no one in Europe will feel safe,” he warned.
British Prime Minister David Cameron hammered home that message bluntly in Washington this week. “Future generations may look back at us and say, ‘Did we do enough when this country was invaded by a dictator who wanted to redraw its boundaries by force?'” he predicted. Have we learned lessons from history? ”
And before meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he traveled to Florida to meet with Trump and make the case for continued Western involvement in Ukraine.
So far, there is little sign that his and other European politicians’ efforts are bearing fruit.
Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump ally and leading opponent of Ukraine funding, responded to a similar warning from Cameron a few weeks ago with a vitriolic social media post and support for Kiev. He responded with a pledge that he would not be “bullied”.
And Britain’s foreign secretary tried unsuccessfully to set up a meeting with Mr Johnson during his visit this week.
Europeans’ immediate hope is that he will lift obstacles to the current funding package.
Still, they know that Ukraine will need long-term support to deter Russian forces.
And Prime Minister Cameron drew another World War II parallel between the claims made today by Mr. Trump’s allies, including Congressman Greene, and the policy of appeasement Britain followed until war broke out. It may be particularly troubling.
Days before then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler and acquiesced in his territorial claims in the Sudetenland, he appeared on national radio to quell growing fears of war that might engulf Britain.
He dismissed Hitler’s invasion of the Sudetenland as “a fight between ignorant people in a faraway land”.
It quickly became much more than that.
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