The war in Ukraine ranks high in David French’s argument that Kamala Harris is a better choice for conservatives than Donald Trump. (You can hear David lay out his thinking with our Charlie Cooke here.)
I don’t begrudge French his priorities or his decision to vote for whichever candidate he prefers. And the flaws of Trump on Ukraine are clear, although there are intermittent reasons to think Trump may not be as dovish on Ukraine as, say, JD Vance would prefer, i.e., as president, Trump sent Javelin missiles that the Obama administration had refused to send, and Trump ultimately acquiesced to the foreign aid package that passed in spring, sending nearly $61 billion in aid for Ukraine.
Similarly, I see several reasons to doubt that a President Kamala Harris would be ideal for the cause of Ukrainian independence and freedom. Sure, she’s said a lot of the right things at international conferences, but that’s been in the role of vice president supporting Joe Biden’s policy decisions, not setting the course herself.
If she’s elected, I’d love to be wrong. But I see reasons for Ukraine hawks to be wary.
First, in mid-February 2022, roughly a week before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Harris attended the Munich Security Conference and met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president “urged the U.S. to impose preemptive sanctions against Russia, arguing that would force Vladimir Putin to rethink his decision to invade… If the attack was indeed unavoidable, Zelensky argued, the U.S. should flood weapons into Ukraine, including the anti-aircraft systems, fighter jets and heavy artillery needed to prevent Russian forces from overrunning the country.” Harris said no to both requests.
Second, blame it on my late Cold War kid instincts, but I think the Democrats’ hawkishness on Ukraine is about a mile wide and an inch deep. Democrats went from applauding “the eighties are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back” in 2012 to becoming hardline Russia hawks by 2017, almost entirely because of “Russiagate.” The typical Democrat doesn’t think badly of Donald Trump because of his connections to Vladimir Putin; they think badly of Vladimir Putin because of his connections to Donald Trump. By June 2022 – less than six months after the invasion began! — House progressives were signing a letter calling for direct talks with Putin.
Third, while we’re only one night into this convention, Ukraine was just briefly mentioned in Biden’s speech and few others. Also note that Harris didn’t mention the word “Ukraine” in her speeches in Raleigh, N.C., (1) Rochester, Penn. (2), Largo, Md. (3), San Francisco, Ca. (4), Las Vegas (5), Glendale, Ariz.(6), Wayne, Mich. (7), Detroit, Mich. (8), Eau Claire, Wisc. (9), Philadelphia, Penn. (10), or Houston, Texas (11). When an issue doesn’t come up at all, even once, in eleven speeches, it’s quite difficult to believe it’s a top priority.
And then in her recent interviews and press conferences, Harris said… just kidding, you know she hasn’t held any recent interviews and press conferences.
Fourth, while Harris has more experience with foreign policy now than she did four years ago, she has strikingly little record for us to draw conclusions. In February 2021, her staff was idiotic enough to cooperate with a late February Politico article entitled, “Harris gets a crash course on foreign policy” that declared, “Harris comes to the vice president’s job as a neophyte on foreign policy.” Stacy Swanson of Squire Patton Boggs summarized it succinctly in 2020, declaring, “foreign policy has never been a primary interest of Harris.”
Would Harris continue U.S. support for Ukraine? Probably. Would she also continue Biden’s hesitant, piecemeal, terrified-of-anything that the Russians would call “escalation” approach? Probably. There’s little reason to think that a President Harris would be any more enthusiastic about using U.S. weapons to strike Russian targets on Russian soil, or hitting Russian oil refineries.