On Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington with his hand out, and specifically he’s interested in another $60 billion of your money on top of the $100 billion he and his people already have.
So far, Zelensky’s asks haven’t received much in the way of answers. It’s almost like Uncle Sam isn’t interested in playing Uncle Santa — or worse, Uncle Santa has checked his list and found Zelensky naughty this Christmas.
The real problem Ukraine has in getting that $60 billion in military and intragovernmental aid from the U.S. Congress isn’t Zelensky’s pitch, and it isn’t the weariness of the American people over an inconclusive war nearly two years in duration at this point. The problem Zelensky has is Joe Biden — to the extent that Joe Biden even truly exists anymore.
The kind of money we’re talking about here is over the top, after all. Spending $160 billion in less than two years on Ukraine would be more lavish than even the money we spent on allies in World War II. For example, the massive aid we gave to the Soviet Union from 1941–45 under the Lend-Lease program totaled $11.3 billion, or about $180 billion in today’s money. All of Lend-Lease, which included aid to 30 different countries, was $50 billion over four years. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Western Europe for $13.2 billion, or close to $200 billion in today’s money, and that was over four years from 1948–52.
And what do we have to show for the $100 billion we’ve already spent?
Well, we’ve attrited the Russian Army to a significant extent, though the Russians have rearmed and might be better equipped now than they previously were because of the new gear they’re supplying their forces. They’ve suffered massive personnel losses, which is something. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been decimated both militarily and with respect to its civilian population. Millions of Ukrainians are refugees all over Europe and elsewhere in the world, and many of that country’s cities have been pummeled into dust.
And we have a stalemate, with the Russians holding much of the Donbas region, which was disputed territory in the first place, plus a chunk of southwestern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia had already taken from Ukraine nearly a decade ago.
This past spring, the Ukrainians were supposed to clear the Russians out of their territory with a major offensive. That didn’t happen. It now seems largely impossible for Ukraine to gain back those territories without the war escalating into World War III. Which is something in the interest neither of the United States nor anyone else in NATO. It’s also not in Russia’s interest, but we’re two years into listening to the fantastical promises of our ruling class that Vladimir Putin will suddenly lose his taste for blood and scurry back within his own borders due to threats from Washington or Brussels.
Everybody knows those are the contours of the situation. Everybody also knows this is going to be settled at the peace table.
Now, you might believe that we should continue bankrolling the Ukrainian side of the conflict until the Russians are driven out of that country. At this point, what you have to articulate is how exactly that will happen. Not specifically. Generally. Is it going to happen as a function of military victories that push the Russian army out? Or will it happen through peace negotiations?
If it’s the former, are you suggesting that we send in American forces? You’re going to have to recognize that American boots on the ground in Ukraine is a nonstarter with both the American people and Congress, so that suggestion isn’t realistic, and regardless of the dumb statements of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week, deploying Americans for combat in Ukraine is not a viable threat to squeeze that $60 billion out of Congress.
Further, right now, it doesn’t seem as though the Ukrainians are capable of much in the way of offensive action that would produce a restoration of the 1991 borders. Does that change with another $60 billion? How does that work?
And in the latter case, meaning peace negotiations to restore those borders, will $60 billion in new aid to Ukraine scare Putin into giving up his current gains at the peace table? Nobody really believes that. Offering up some other guarantee or consideration might do that, or it might not, but simply committing to fund a stalemate indefinitely wouldn’t seem to change the situation in a positive way.
We’re going through this mental exercise, some of which you might not agree with, and that’s fine, because the president of the United States clearly will not. We are getting nothing from Joe Biden or any of his people — not Lloyd Austin, not Jake Sullivan, not Antony Blinken, and not Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries — to indicate they’ve even contemplated what benefit that $60 billion will be to the war effort or what an endgame looks like.
Biden certainly didn’t bring any of that to the table on Tuesday. I can’t even say what he offers; the man was utterly insensate during that press conference. To wit:
Biden, reading directly from a pre-written notecard, says if Republicans don't drop their push for border security, it'd be "the greatest Christmas gift they could possibly give" Putin pic.twitter.com/yZRn80547t
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 12, 2023
What does that mean? If the Ukrainians don’t get the $60 billion, their front will collapse before Christmas and Putin will march into Kyiv? If that’s true, then why are we just finding out about it now?
Maybe the situation really is serious. After all, Biden noted that he’s raiding the Pentagon’s munition stockpile for another $200 million in missiles and other hardware to give to Zelensky:
Biden tells the press to "hush up," announces he "just signed another $200 million drawdown from the Department of Defense for Ukraine," then sits and stares as his handlers remove the press from the room pic.twitter.com/pKto8y4KMt
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 12, 2023
And if it really is this dire, then shouldn’t Biden be willing to give in on border security measures that House Republicans have made clear are far more important to them than more billions to fund a stalemate in Ukraine?
If I was Joe Biden, I would damned sure be willing to give in to a partisan demand for something the American people overwhelmingly want, something that is contributing to my atrocious approval rating, in order to prevent presiding over losing not just one war (Afghanistan) but two.
It seems like a no-brainer, and yet Biden comes off as a no-brainer in his own right. This was not a good moment:
Biden says securing our border is an "extreme Republican partisan agenda" pic.twitter.com/PkaxfLzxAO
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 12, 2023
That’s gibberish.
He’s trying to convince the American people to support $60 billion in funding to restore Ukraine’s eastern border instead of some likely smaller figure to preserve our southern border — which has been invaded by exponentially more people than have invaded Ukraine. Who is this supposed to persuade?
And who is this supposed to persuade?
Joe Biden says "a host of a Kremlin-run-show" praised Republicans for blocking Ukraine aid. pic.twitter.com/EBcsDGvmwJ
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 12, 2023
It’s hard to imagine that our foreign policy priorities have descended to the point that we’re aiming to make Russian talk show hosts sad. Whatever happened to the idea of making a deal with your own countrymen to get a consensus for what you want?
Perhaps the real question is whether Biden is capable of making such a deal. Or whether he’s capable of much of anything. This isn’t very encouraging:
BIDEN: "We also need Ukraine to make changes to fix the broken immigration system here—" pic.twitter.com/LQh6xJrMS9
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 12, 2023
Nor is this:
Biden gets lost reading his pre-written script pic.twitter.com/NLezUCIP3i
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 12, 2023
He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and this is with a script he’s reading from.
It looks like our Ukraine policy, like our Israel policy and our border policy, is rudderless. Know why? Because it is. Joe Biden isn’t in charge. That’s obvious.
So who is?
As I note in Racism, Revenge and Ruin: It’s All Obama (which, by the way, makes a splendiforous holiday gift), the most likely figure is Biden’s old boss Barack Obama.
After all, virtually everything that happens in the Biden administration is simply the logical extension of things Obama put in place. And that includes Ukraine — whether it’s making an American puppet of the government of that country while agitating the Russians, turning Ukraine into a money-laundering outfit for defense contractors and other ruling-class fatcats and presiding over the loss of Ukrainian territory when Putin smelled American weakness behind all of that bluster.
Obama never made a case to the American people on behalf of the Ukrainians, either. And he never made a case to Republicans for anything. Remember Obamacare, and how simply forcing things down the throats of his political enemies was Obama’s brand?
That’s the real telltale sign from Tuesday’s abysmal press conference — and some proof that this is an Obama redux administration.
Do you really think a Joe Biden of sound mind would have much difficulty agreeing to Republican demands for border security to save his Eastern European laundromat? Biden, the most transactional politician in America (that’s not meant as a compliment, by the way) over the last half-century?
The younger Biden would blow that money out of the treasury to stop up the border in no time flat — in the knowledge that, as soon as he was reelected (on the strength of a “successful” Ukraine war effort and “getting control” of the border), he could throw the whole thing open again and let in even more illegals with nobody to stop him for the next four years. You’d think he would be happy as a pig in slop to run that bait-and-switch on the electorate while boasting of his ability to work across the aisle.
But he’s not doing that. Instead, he’s playing chicken with the Republicans — and they’ve clearly got the better vehicle.
That kind of intransigence? It’s pure Obama. It isn’t Biden. In fact, as Tuesday showed, there isn’t a Biden anymore. He’s just an avatar, a shill.
And until somebody makes an honest case for what that money for Ukraine buys us and where this thing is going, rather than berating us with threats and insults, not a dime more should be spent on this war.
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