US Military Aid for Ukraine: Unpredictable Power Games

After many months, the House of Representatives finally gives the green to military aid for Ukraine. But the vote was not about the bill’s content.

Actually, U.S. foreign and security policy, particularly in times of conflict, has always remained one of the subjects spared from the upheavals of inner domestic political confrontations, even during election years. This wasn’t always a good thing: if someone had caught the neocons who ruled under George W. Bush in time, there may not have been a war in Iraq and there would have been hundreds of thousands fewer deaths.

The fact that the decision on military aid for Ukraine was on ice for many months in the House of Representatives because of domestic — more precisely internal Republican — political wrangling, only to pass nearly unchanged in the end, is unprecedented. But it has also cost lives. For almost four months, Ukraine was cut off from aid by its most important military ally.

The lack of ammunition caused lost positions on the front line, and a lack of air defense caused death in the cities. Why all of this? It’s not because the U.S. thinks peace in Ukraine needs a solution other than weapon deliveries, nor because there were no serious deliberations.

It was because a radicalized sector of the Republican faction in the House of Representatives frightened Speaker Mike Johnson, elected after many rounds of voting, to the point where he froze from putting the aid bill to a vote. Last week, Johnson did a U-turn, separating out aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and got the bill passed with the help of Democratic Party votes.

His calculation was: if Democrats protect me from being ousted by the rebels in my faction, then my speaker position is safe, so I have to give them something in return. What he said was: I have taken on international responsibility, I did the right thing. The world is watching us … Blah blah blah. It’s good for Ukraine that aid can start once again.

We can hope that the right materials arrive in time for Ukraine to repel a feared Russian June offensive. However, the lesson for the international allies of the U.S. remains this: as long as the Republicans deranged by Trumpism sit close to power in Washington, then the U.S. will remain an unpredictable partner, whose decisions we cannot rely on.