Noah notes a poll showing a sharp increase in American support for aid to Ukraine after the mercenary mutiny/attempted coup by Yevgeny Prigozhin. That’s not surprising, given the middle position in American politics: Most Americans want Ukraine to win the war and are willing, up to a point, to help them do it. But memories of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam die hard: There is a lot of skepticism of signing on to an endless commitment, hence the Republican insistence on “no blank check,” and hence why many Republicans have supported every aid package thus far but are still grumbling about future ones. As I predicted would be the hawkish takeaway from all this, the Wagner Group mutiny made Putin and Russia look like losers, and made the war look winnable for Ukraine — and Americans love to back a winner even more than they dislike spending money on an endless stalemate.
The polls showing more ambiguity when the question is framed as backing a presidential candidate who supports Ukraine is likely a symptom of partisanship. Even people who may take one position these days are apt to be flexible if they already know they’ll be supporting a candidate with a different position. But it also reflects the fact that, in presidential campaigns, most foreign-policy positions are less about the position itself than about what it signals to voters about the priorities and temperament of the candidate. That’s (mostly) rational: The foreign-policy decisions of 2025–28 are likely to be made on the basis of different facts than those we have today.