POLITICS
The MAGA Position on Ukraine Literally Makes No Sense
A debate about foreign military aid in general is useful, the current debate on Ukraine is not
In one of several ideological shifts of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, there lies a huge contradiction. This is regarding the military aid to Ukraine to help them in their efforts to fight off Russia, their enemy and our constant adversary.
The debate has turned on its head a belief that was once the universal hallmark of the GOP: that Russia — at least when consumed in authoritarian rule — is an adversary to be defeated (economically and politically, more so than militarily). There was a time, in the early to mid-20th century, when the left was more sympathetic to Russia due to its attempts to make socialism successful on a massive scale in the form of Communism. Later in the century, the left came around, and it became a more bipartisan belief and understanding that Russia was a significant nuisance that the U.S. needed to triumph over. Both the left and the right agreed on this stance for the next several decades.
Also, during this more recent time period, it was a given that the Republican Party was more “hawkish” on foreign policy, meaning more prone to strong inflammatory rhetoric regarding our enemies, and even more willing to induce conflict with them — to be more “warmongering” so to speak. The Democrats, particularly the further left on the spectrum, tended to be more “dovish,” or less prone to want to provoke conflict. They could be described as more “peace-loving.” In short, the GOP tended to be the “warmongers,” Democrats tended to be the “pacifists.”
Since Donald Trump became President and the strong-armed leader of the Republican party, the position of a significant portion of the GOP, the MAGA wing, on Russia and hawkishness oddly shifted 180 degrees. Now, MAGA is trying to make the GOP the pro-Russia party and the anti-warmonger party. The Democrats are now the warmongers, fueling unsustainable American imperialism abroad. And for reasons that I can’t articulate, it’s apparently bad for Democrats to want to be a counter to Russia’s militant aggressiveness on the world stage. It’s pro-establishment, or something like that.
How much economic or military influence and support we should offer Ukraine, or any foreign country, is a meaningful debate to have. Indeed, the question of whether it’s best to be more neutral or isolationist in our foreign policy is as old as the United States itself.
But the oddity of this shift in attitude of the MAGA GOP prompts many questions. One obvious issue that doesn’t get much attention is the historical reality of our support for Ukraine. This MAGA aversion to aiding Ukraine in its defense of its territory after the Russian invasion suggests that this may be a new or unique concept in our foreign policy; that Biden and/or Dems and/or the establishment “deep state” began a new policy towards Ukraine that didn’t exist before.
But this is demonstrably not the case; there’s been a long history of financial support for Ukraine. Therefore, there’s no obvious reason to suddenly stop it, at least none that is sufficiently articulated by MAGA. They just promote the idea that it’s bad to help Ukraine, and bad to try to tamp down on Russian imperialist ambitions.
According to the State Department Foreign Assistance data of budget obligations of foreign military aid, the United States has agreed to contribute at least some military support to Ukraine as far back as the early 1990’s, in the range of $100–200M a year. This dipped down to an insignificant amount in the first decade and a half of the 2000’s. But, interestingly enough, the annual amount jumped up into the $300M range starting in 2016 and continued in this range through 2021. This timeline includes all of the years of Donald Trump’s term as president.
The timing of the higher amounts seems to correspond to when security of that region of the world would have been at its weakest and in the forefront of the world’s consciousness. The early 1990s were right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the former members would have been very concerned about ensuring their safety, and the U.S. and allies would have been obliged and happy to help. The increase in 2016 also makes sense, as that would have been soon after Russia attacked and annexed the south-eastern portion of Ukraine.
It is true that the 2022 military assistance for Ukraine increased 10-fold from 2021 to 2022, for obvious reasons; Russia attempted a full-scale invasion and takeover of the whole country in February 2022. But the current issue for the GOP MAGA wing is not this large increase. It seems to be simply the fact that we are supporting them at all in their fight against Russia. If you support this military assistance for Ukraine, you are labeled a warmonger and American imperialist, not a pragmatic policy maker, offering support for an ally trying to make a western-style democratic government work in a part of the world that does not have many.
We’ve been sending military assistance to Ukraine for at least 3 decades, including the largest amounts in history the whole time that Trump was president. It has been an obvious long-standing policy of the U.S. So, it makes little sense to suddenly stop, especially during a time where they need the help more than any other period in their modern history. Furthermore, this assistance is just equipment and funds. There is no actual military action the U.S. is undertaking. This aid is just to help the Ukrainians do their own fighting, and hopefully successfully ward off and weaken Russian ambitions.
As far as who the “warmongers” are, Joe Biden’s record with actual conflict has been very good when compared to his predecessor, if one considers “warmongering” to be bad. According to Air Force records, in 2021, Biden’s first year as president, and the most recent year that full data has been compiled and reported, the bombs dropped in our regions of conflict at the time — Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria — totaled 1370. In 2018, 2019, and 2020, all years when Trump was president, the total was 16,075, 12,152, and 2819, respectively.
Sure, you can give Trump points for trending downward, but his record is not exactly that of a pacifist, especially when compared to Biden. According to this data, Trump’s recent pacifist rhetoric doesn’t jibe with the reality of his policies when he was in power; and Biden should by no means be considered a “warmonger.”
Another very curious feature of MAGA foreign policy rhetoric is that Ukraine appears to be unique in their “warmonger” rhetoric. When Hamas conducted their terrorist operation on Israel on Oct 7, there was mainstream bipartisan support for helping Israel do what it needed to do militarily to defend itself, including prominent MAGA politicians and media personalities that have been among the most vocal.
Israel has had extremely stable support from the U.S. every year for the past 40 years. Since 1980, the U.S. has obligated around $3B annually to military financial support. Israel is known for having strong defense capabilities with a modern and effective military, largely due to our help and the help of our allies. Israel is always in some degree of conflict with its neighbors, although it hasn’t been invaded or been in an all-out war with another nation for about 50 years.
But we’ve consistently given them each year for 40 years more than twice what we’ve agreed to give Ukraine in 2022, a country that is literally being invaded and actively fighting for their very existence. We haven’t heard any objections from Trump or MAGA about this assistance to Israel; in fact, it’s been the very opposite in the days after the Hamas attack. They fully support us offering Israel military financial aid.
Additionally, there are many countries that we send military financial aid to, and this policy isn’t being questioned at all, by MAGA or anyone else. Israel and Ukraine are our top two recipients in 2022, for very good reasons. But in 2021, the year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Somalia and the Philippines, in that order, received more military aid than Ukraine, with little to no objections. And there are many others throughout Africa, Europe and South America that receive significant contributions from the U.S.
But in 2022 and 2023, suddenly MAGA are vocally opposed to military aid to Ukraine, but vocally supportive of military aid to Israel, and not vocal at all about any other military support to any other country.
The only variable that makes sense is that MAGA loves Trump, and Trump does not support Ukraine, but does support Russia, therefore, MAGA does not support Ukraine and does support Russia. The reasons for Trump’s positions are open questions that have puzzled me, and many pundits and experts for years.
If you are someone that thinks that we should not send so much military financial aid to foreign countries, that is understandable, and a worthy debate to have. There are legitimate concerns about what our role should be on the world stage, and whether this foreign support is worth it, or is making U.S. citizens worse off at home.
But since this recent objection appears to be confined to the one extremely specialized area of Ukraine being invaded by Russia, the objection to helping them is at best dubious. As far as a coherent foreign policy strategy, this opposition to military aid to Ukraine alone does not make any sense.
