NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE D uring a recent interview with Howie Carr, the Boston-based host of a conservative radio talk show, Ron DeSantis was asked if he supports the Biden administration’s reluctant decision to provision Ukrainian forces with artillery shells that distribute bomblets over enemy positions — so-called cluster bombs. In the process of answering the question, the Florida governor inadvertently exposed the extent to which his approach to managing the crisis in Europe resembles Joe Biden’s, departing from that dubious model only to double down on the Democratic president’s mistakes.
Asked directly if he supports sending cluster munitions to Ukraine, DeSantis replied: “I don’t want to do anything that’s going to escalate this conflict.”
But does the West’s belated and symmetrical response to Russia’s actions constitute an escalation? Moscow denies that it has used cluster munitions in Ukraine, either on the front lines or deep inside population centers, but you can read and see for yourself the verified evidence of the Russians’ mendacity. If DeSantis has a moral objection to the use of these weapons on the battlefield, he should say so. And if that is his view, he should support the ratification of international treaties banning the use of these weapons to which the United States is not presently party.
But DeSantis didn’t say that. Rather, he articulated a view that sees the West’s proportionate and equivalent responses to Russian aggression not as reciprocity but as a provocation. That’s a point of view the Biden administration has ill-advisedly shared for much of this conflict. From Patriot air-defense systems to multiple-launch rocket systems, from anti-ship missiles to tanks, the administration repeatedly talked itself out of providing Ukraine with the weapons platforms it requested (only to eventually reverse itself). Does DeSantis think the Biden administration has been too deferential to Ukraine’s solicitations?
“Right now, you have an open-ended, blank check.”
No, you don’t. Congressional appropriations for Ukraine’s defense are not a blank check in any sense of the term. They are quite specific, limited, and overseen by the inspectors general attached to the various agencies responsible for disbursing those funds. Most of the taxpayer dollars devoted to provisioning Ukraine with arms end up in the pockets of domestic U.S. arms manufacturers, so they’re not hard to track.
Some Republicans insist this level of oversight isn’t sufficient. They support the establishment of something like an inspector general supreme to oversee every aspect of U.S. support for Ukraine. But critics of this move call it “duplicative,” and they’re correct. If your remedy for the inefficient distribution of taxpayer dollars is to create a lavishly funded redundancy, fiscal responsibility isn’t your foremost priority.
“There’s no clear objective for victory.”
That depends on who sets the terms for victory. The Ukrainians have an objective. The Russians have an objective. From the West’s perspective, this war can produce both desirable and undesirable outcomes. DeSantis can articulate the outcomes he doesn’t want to see result from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but can he describe what he does want to see?
“The danger is, one, this could escalate — I mean, Russia has nuclear weapons after all. And two, this could end up just going on for years.”
The former is indeed a “danger,” but such an escalation would be executed by Russia, the aggressor. To assign the blame for the sort of escalation DeSantis articulates to the defensive side of this conflict would be a bizarre inversion.
Nuclear weapons are Russia’s last ace in the hole, and it regularly rattles that saber (despite the diminishing returns). But nuclear weapons’ value proposition is in their deterrent effect. Their battlefield use wouldn’t weaken Ukraine’s resolve to arrest the Russian onslaught. The only strategic consequence their deployment might achieve would be to scare Ukraine’s weak-kneed Western sponsors into capitulation. By lending Russian threats such potency, DeSantis has inadvertently ratified the Kremlin’s calculations.
As for the notion that this conflict might continue to unfold over the course of years rather than months, that’s obviously true. Indeed, this conflict has been going on with various levels of hostility since 2014, back when DeSantis supported the provision of lethal armaments to Ukraine to provide for its defense. If DeSantis has had a change of heart, it’s incumbent on him to fill us in on his conversion narrative.
“I think we need to find a way to get a sustainable peace in Europe. We gotta do it in a way that is not going to reward aggression. But this notion of just continuing to do conflicts with no end — I served in the Iraq War back in the day, and I remember becoming involved in what became a quagmire. And we were, initially it was about WMD, couldn’t find them. Then it was about creating democracy in Iraq. And on and on it goes. And I think from a foreign-affairs perspective, we get in trouble as a country when we get involved in areas without a concrete objective for being there.”
This long digression adds up to a non sequitur. If the governor’s goal was only to articulate a fashionable hostility toward America’s post-9/11 project in Iraq, mission accomplished. But the Iraq War doesn’t even bear a passing resemblance to Russia’s war of territorial expansionism in Ukraine.
“We” are not prosecuting the conflict here. “We” are responding to one in the utterly banal form of providing material support to a partner nation, as we have done with dozens of other non-allied nations engaged in regional conflicts in which the United States has a stake.
To some extent, DeSantis is consistent here. He has said he was hostile to the Trump administration’s support for the Saudis in their effort to prevent an Iran-backed militia from securing (and possibly mining) the strategically vital Bab al-Mandab Strait. A Bernie Sanders–style view of American interests, which privileges broad moral abstractions over concrete, strategic interests, is a worldview, foolish though it may be. But it’s incumbent on DeSantis to justify his outlook on this war in specific terms rather than to rely on the calcified narratives around the Iraq War to do the work for him.
“Joe Biden’s administration will not say to this day what victory looks like, and that’s not the way you conduct business.”
It doesn’t sound like DeSantis would either. And perhaps that is prudent. After all, we cannot dictate those terms to either of the combatants in this conflict. That doesn’t mean the U.S. has no objectives.
Optimally for America, this war would conclude with the hobbling of the geopolitical adversary most prone to taking risks, its unprovoked aggression punished and, with that, a message conveyed to every other revisionist state on the globe that landgrabs don’t pay. If a Democratic president won’t say that, then it is incumbent on the GOP to correct that mistake — not to ratify the wisdom of Biden’s trepidation.
Back to cluster munitions: “I would not do that. I think it probably runs the risk of escalation. What I’ve said from the beginning is, no weapons that could lead to attacks inside Russia or escalating the conflict.”
Again, Biden’s reluctant decision is a response, not an escalation. But this is hardly the first time the administration backed off its opposition to Ukraine’s requests for weapons platforms, including long-range munitions. For months, NATO allies have provisioned Ukraine with long-range munitions and drones that are regularly deployed against perfectly legitimate targets inside Russia — both war-making infrastructure and the staging areas inside the Federation from which Russia launches attacks on Ukraine. Is DeSantis aware that he is describing conditions that long ago ceased to be operative?
“We cannot become involved in this directly.”
Quite right. The best way to avoid that would be to support Ukraine’s defense to the extent that it keeps the fighting as far away from NATO’s borders as possible. The closer the fighting gets to Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, or Slovakia — U.S. allies with a vital interest in keeping the fighting at some remove — the greater the risk that an accident or miscalculation draws NATO assets directly into the conflict.
“And then, no support that will diminish our own stockpiles and prevent us from being able to respond to exigencies around the world. And I think they’re in danger of doing that. What if something happens in the Indo-Pacific? What? We just don’t have an ability to respond?”
DeSantis has a point here. That is an urgent matter, though it is one he appears to see as intractable. That’s odd given his professed support for domestic industrial policy.
If we can spin up American factories to produce untold numbers of unnecessary ventilators in response to a public health crisis, we can use the means at the president’s disposal — like, say, the Defense Production Act — to cut red tape around the production of armaments. Does DeSantis have a solution — a plan to restore our depleted ordnance stockpiles — or does he prefer the problem?
Moreover, if responding to exigencies around the world is an American priority, that means arming our allies. The U.S. supports our partners in the Pacific, but it will be the Republic of Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan on the front lines of a conflict with China. Does DeSantis believe Taiwan has its priorities all wrong given its support for Ukraine’s self-defense? Does he believe Taiwan will remain confident in America’s support if Washington vacillates on Ukraine? Or might Taipei try to secure its existentially threatened sovereignty by seeking accommodations with its aggressive neighbor at America’s expense?
“I think a strong America with hard power will successfully deter China, but I think the way Biden is going is going to invite a conflict with China.”
Maybe. But given the substantive and rhetorical similarities between Ron DeSantis’s approach to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Joe Biden’s, why should we expect different results from a DeSantis administration?