(Dobbs) If People “Get Tired” Of The War In Ukraine, “We Die”
If we don’t give more help, we will “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield.”
Many Americans have soured on supporting Israel. For reasons I’ve explained in past columns, I haven’t, but as they see it, Israel’s war tactics, however much it tries to justify them in its own fight for survival, are doing more harm than good.
But Ukraine? During his visit today to Washington, President Zelensky will have to plead with the members of Congress who meet him, please don’t give up on us. As his wife told the BBC on Saturday, if people “get tired” of the war, “we die.”
Like Israel, Ukraine was wickedly attacked. Without warrant, without mercy. But unlike Israel, Ukraine’s response has been strictly defensive. It is struggling to drive Russian forces from its land. That’s all it’s trying to do. Although Russia has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians, Ukraine’s response against Russian civilians has been measured. Except for the occasional drone or missile fired into Russia with negligible effect, civilian Russian casualties have been minimal.
Yet although Ukraine is the irrefutable victim in this war and Russia is the aggressor, conservative Americans, especially from the MAGA movement, have soured on supporting it. That includes politicians who are holding up funding for helping Ukraine keep fighting.
Either they have no idea what harm they’re doing or, even worse, they do but just don’t care. Michael Kofman at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warns, “U.S. military assistance to Ukraine is now running on fumes.” Senator Christopher Murphy, one of the Democrats negotiating with Republicans to sustain America’s support, frames it in the tersest of terms: “We are about to abandon Ukraine.”
What the MAGA crowd is doing is holding our besieged foreign ally hostage to domestic goals for a more secure southern border. Texas Republican senator John Cornyn complains that the Democrats “want tens of billions of dollars to help our friends and allies overseas, but they’re not willing to do what’s necessary to prevent a potential crisis at the border.”
As if it’s either/or. It’s not. Given what’s at stake, we can come up with the money for both. In fact the Biden administration proposed a compromise with Republicans which includes money for additional Border Patrol agents, immigration judges, and other border measures that would improve security at the southern border.
But for today’s Republican Party, it’s “my way or the highway." To make political points, they go beyond the debatable argument about the economic costs of illegal immigrants coming across the border. South Carolina’s Lindsay Graham, a renowned hawk who previously was a cheerleader for Ukraine, last week jumped in with the opposition, calling the border “one of the biggest national security problems I’ve seen since I’ve been up here.”
Again, it’s not. It’s an economic problem, it’s a social problem, it’s a logistical problem, it’s a human problem. The flow of illegal immigrants has become a flood. But nobody has made a good case that it is a threat to our national security.
But Vladimir Putin is a threat. That’s what these people ought to be worrying about.
He is a threat to our national security and to the Western world’s stability. As Senator Murphy cautioned his opposites in the funding negotiations, “When Vladimir Putin marches into a NATO country, they will rue the day they decided to play politics with the future of Ukraine’s security.”
Speaking last week from the White House, President Biden built on that. “If Putin takes Ukraine,” he urged, “he won’t stop there. He’s going to keep going. He’s made that pretty clear. If Putin attacks a NATO ally… then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops.”
Anyone who thinks that’s impossible hasn’t been paying attention. Can any of these Republicans be sure that Putin, who even has hinted at the possibility that he would go nuclear, would stop with Ukraine?
Here’s the difference between the two issues that Republicans have tied together and said, we won’t fund one until we can fund the other: the influx at the border is a challenge. The aggression in Ukraine is a threat. Putin has made it clear, he’s not giving up. At the beginning of this month he commanded his military to put nearly 170,000 new troops into uniform. At the same time he signed a budget with nearly a third dedicated to “national defense.”
Ukraine can’t begin to match that without Western help. But it’s running out of time. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet bluntly describes the crisis: “Ukraine is out of bullets. They’re giving up their lives.” A Ukrainian battalion commander interviewed by The Washington Post says bullets aren’t even their greatest need anymore. “Honestly,” he said, “we need more soldiers. The professional military personnel are running out.”
We won’t be sending soldiers but we can help with the bullets, if Congress approves the money. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said last week that if funding doesn’t come through and come through fast, “That will mean Ukraine’s ability to defend against advanced Russian attacks that are happening right now, and Ukraine’s capacity to take more territory, will be severely degraded.”
To back that up, the director of the Office of Management and Budget sent an identical letter last Monday to the four leaders of Congress: “Without congressional action,” she wrote, “by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks.” Then she got to the bottom line: “There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money — and nearly out of time.” She too framed it in sharp words: if we don’t give more help, we will “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield.”
What could that lead to? It certainly would weaken and maybe wreck the coalition of nations that have stood up for Ukraine. And what could that lead to? A stalemate between Russia and Ukraine at best, a Ukrainian defeat at worst. Followed, possibly, by an expansionist Russia, followed then, equally possibly, by the bigger war that Biden warns against, the war that NATO nations would be committed to join.
Putin’s already pushing. Late last month Russia sent more than a hundred armed drones into Ukraine, its biggest drone attack of the war. Then last Friday, after going more than a month-and-a-half without covering the country with Cruise missiles, Russia started up again. Yesterday— as President Zelensky was traveling toward Washington— it sent eight missiles at Kiev, its biggest bombardment against the capital in months. As winter takes hold, this forewarns a repeat of Russia’s ruthless tactics last winter: destroying the infrastructure that keeps people warm, fed, and alive.
In an interview over the weekend with Agence France-Presse, the Russian foreign ministry didn’t mince words about Putin’s goals: Ukraine’s complete capitulation.
The New York Times editorial board made a lengthy argument last week for Congress to keep funding Ukraine, but it came down to a single line: it is “a commitment against authoritarianism in Eastern Europe.” If the funding doesn’t happen, there will be broad smiles in two places: the Kremlin, and every meeting of MAGA.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Bravo Greg. Yes, live in MAGA fantasy land where Putin stops at Ukraine and DJT will be a dictator only day one.
Thanks, once again for your prescient column..I am stunned at the lack of support AND understanding from congress re the issues..it is frightening to me .. the consequences of abandoning Ukrainian will lead to unfathomable consequences..I pray (.. if that even helps!!)
..when will they understand and recognize the error in there thinking!!