And yet Republicans are helping the president avoid responsibility for his inaction.
And yet Republicans are helping the president avoid responsibility for his inaction.
I n a heavily edited taped message to the nation, Joe Biden cast aspersions on Donald Trump “and other Republicans” for likening the treatment endured by the late Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny to what the former president is experiencing in American courts. He used the opportunity presented by Trump’s opportunistic remarks to increase the pressure on House Republicans to take up a Senate-passed measure designed to replenish American ordnance stocks and support America’s embattled foreign partners: Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. “The speaker needs to call a vote,” Biden closed, “so we can stand with Ukraine and send them the supplies they need to defend themselves.”
The video is the latest evidence that Biden plans to lean heavily into the notion that Ukraine’s battlefield setbacks are the result of Republican recalcitrance, and the press is more than happy to play along. “The GOP’s ambivalence on Russia has stalled additional aid to Ukraine at a pivotal time in the war,” the Associated Press observed. “The refusal of pro-Donald Trump Republicans in Congress to extend a military lifeline for Ukraine,” one CNN report read, “show [sic] that Trump is already reshaping geopolitical realities months before his possible White House return.”
House Republicans, who are sharply divided over the utility of continued contributions to Ukraine’s defense, are doing everything in their power to confirm the substance of this indictment. It’s hard to fault Biden and his allies for trying to make political hay out of the GOP’s hostility toward Ukraine’s cause, which recent Pew Research Center polling indicates is supported by not only a supermajority of Americans but a majority of self-described Republicans. The GOP’s internecine squabbles are a gift to Biden, not just because a vocal minority in the Republican House conference has dedicated itself to arguing in favor of an unpopular proposition, but because their conduct obscures the ways in which Biden himself has mismanaged America’s support for the Ukrainian campaign. The president shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
This week, following months of increasingly desperate requests from Kyiv, the Biden administration is reportedly prepared to drop its objection to giving Ukraine long-range ordnance for use in U.S.-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS). The Biden White House has been reluctant to provide Ukraine with weapons that could be used to attack deep inside Russian-held territory, where Moscow stages the forces invading Ukraine. Nevertheless, the administration spent months signaling its willingness to eventually get around to providing Ukraine with long-range rockets. The provocative nature of those weapons plus the Pentagon’s reluctance to deplete American stockpiles without congressional appropriations that guarantee resupply are hardly minor concerns, but it wasn’t the House GOP that shook the Biden administration out of its complacency. It was the clarifying effect of Ukraine’s recent retreats.
The news comes as Ukrainian forces were compelled to abandon the city of Avdiivka. There, forces loyal to Kyiv put up a valiant fight and imposed serious losses on Russian invaders, but the risk of encirclement amid dwindling ammunition supplies had become too acute. Ukrainian forces are facing similar pressure near the city of Robotyne, where Ukraine’s defenders repel wave after wave of advancing Russian troops but retrograde operations may soon become necessary. Kyiv’s ammo shortages “are likely helping Russia launch opportunistic offensive operations along several sectors of the frontline in order to place pressure on Ukrainian forces along multiple axes,” an analysis from the Institute for the Study of War concluded.
The Biden administration is not solely responsible for Ukraine’s debilitating ordnance shortages. Nevertheless, his approach to supporting Ukraine’s campaign against Russian aggression has been typified by anxious dithering almost from the outset.
Since February 2022, the Biden administration adhered to an outlook not at all dissimilar to the one that has recently been adopted by Ukraine-skeptical Republicans, who contend that supporting Kyiv amounts to throwing good money after bad. Battlefield successes would have to come first; U.S. support, second. As I wrote for the magazine in March of last year:
On March 29, Moscow acknowledged the withdrawal of the forces it had committed to the siege of Kyiv. Shortly afterward, Washington consented to expand the scope of the weapons systems it was willing to share with Ukraine, including long-sought heavy artillery. By mid May, the Russian forces had retreated from positions around the eastern city of Kharkiv, breaking the siege and bombardment of this sprawling urban center. The White House followed by finally consenting to provide Ukraine with long-range artillery, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). In early September, Russian troops abandoned the whole of Kharkiv Oblast. Before the end of that month, the Biden White House approved an additional $1.1 billion in Ukrainian security assistance — the largest single tranche up to that point. Russia pulled its troops back from Kherson, the first major city to fall to Russian invading forces, in November. Russian retrenchment helped Washington overcome its reluctance to provide Ukrainian forces with Patriot missile-defense systems and the training to use them. Over the winter, Ukrainian resistance to “spoiling attacks” by Russian forces across what had settled into largely static front lines shook loose Western commitments to provide Ukraine with tanks and half-track vehicles.
In the intervening months, the Biden White House has shifted its approach from waiting to see Ukraine succeed before committing American support to only doing so after it watches Ukraine fail.
Despite Moscow’s documented use of cluster munitions both on Ukraine’s front lines and inside cities, Biden was reluctant to provide Kyiv with similar munitions — at least, until it became clear last summer that Ukraine’s counteroffensive would not produce territorial gains akin to those the Ukrainian resistance achieved in 2022. Ukraine’s lack of progress on the battlefield was foreseeable. Indeed, it was foreseen by the GOP’s more stalwart opponents of Russian aggression.
Likewise, Biden only finally agreed to send Ukraine ATACMS last autumn amid similar Ukrainian battlefield frustrations. The platforms contributed to dramatic Ukrainian victories almost as soon as they were deployed. But that presidential waiver didn’t receive a presidential signature until the Ukrainian advance had stalled outside Russia’s second lines of defense in the occupied territories.
Biden reacted with all due horror in response to Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine, and he immediately committed American national prestige to Ukraine’s cause. But he did not match that obligation with a commensurate dedication of American arms. Throughout this stage of Russia’s decade-long war to end Ukrainian independence, Joe Biden has provided Ukraine with just the support it needs to avoid losing — but not to win. That should provide Republicans with a ready-made argument against Biden’s management of a popular American commitment abroad, but the party’s loudest voices are instead arguing that the president hasn’t dithered enough. In the process, Republicans are giving the president a way to wiggle out of having to take responsibility for his own inaction.
The president may curse the misfortunes that have befallen America’s partners abroad, but he must be thanking his stars for the quality of the opposition he faces at home.