Many commentators believe people are either for giving US support to Ukraine or against it, period. There is no room for nuanced thinking. Or so The New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens writes in his think piece titled "The Curious Conservative Case Against Defending Ukraine." He, too, tosses all views critical of the Biden administration's approach to assisting Ukraine as far-right conservative views.
Besides being wrong, his logic is intellectually needy. Fundamentally conservative pundits, foreign and national security wonks, political officials, and media commentators may have completely different perspectives for supporting or questioning the current US leadership's handling of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Being firmly against Biden's "as long as it takes" strategy (used loosely) does not preclude being an advocate for providing military and humanitarian assistance to the Kyiv government.
Congressional Letter Raises Concerns About Limitless Support to Ukraine
As an example of the "vocal opposition" from "the hard right," Stephens cites an April 20 letter sent by the Republican House and Senate leadership as evidence of conservative reluctance to support Ukraine. The closing paragraph of the letter suggests otherwise. The legislators explain:
"Open-ended US aide to Ukraine is fundamentally incompatible with our strategic interests. There are appropriate ways in which the US can support the Ukrainian people, but unlimited arms supplies in support of an endless war is not one of them. Our national interests, and those of the Ukrainian people, are best served by incentivizing the negotiations that are urgently needed to bring this conflict to a resolution. We strongly urge you to advocate for a negotiated peace between the two sides, bringing this awful conflict to a close."
The suggestion that President Biden works with NATO allies and global friends to negotiate an agreeable end-state to the horrendous fighting doesn't seem extreme or "hard" anything. The letter explains the current unconstrained flow of military aid to the Kyiv government puts US stockpiles of arms at risk of depletion below an inventory capable of meeting US strategic obligations to meet and defeat the Chinese, if necessary. That warning seems prudently cautionary. The letter's content is not a repudiation of helping Ukraine, as Stephens would like the reader to believe. Instead, the intent is to remind the President of the US he has national security obligations to Americans to which he must attend.
Stephens Takes Broad Swipes at Those Critical of Biden’s Ukraine Support
(Photo By Gustavo de la Paz/Europa Press via Getty Images)
The NYT opinion piece takes swipes at traditional progressive targets for derision like former Fox News' number one rated commentator Tucker Carlson, executive editor of The Federalist, Joy Pullman, and the unlimited-Ukraine-support detractors Stephens calls "conservative intelligentsia, Peter Hitchens, the brother of Christopher Hitchens, is a fierce critic, as is the Orbanist (reference to Hungary's President Viktor Orban) writer Rod Dreher, whose manner of critique is 'Russia is wrong, but…'" Rod Dreher had the temerity to quote Secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro's comment to a group of reporters at the 2003 Surface Navy Association in his article for The American Conservative, Del Toro observed that the US Navy might come to a decision point in the next six months to arm itself or Ukraine because of the rapid depletion of weapons and the resulting shortage. What is so objectionable about that concern?
Stephens' beef with Joy Pullman is that she raised the US open southern borders issue and the Biden policies welcoming illegal aliens "whose migration keeps the cartel supplied with the billions to buy military-grade weapons," Pullman warned. At the same time, the unfettered influx of criminals causes Americans "to suffer murder, rape, and other heinous crimes." While Biden ignores the southern border, $113 billion has been Congressionally appropriated for Ukraine. The White House FY2023 budget for US Customs and Border Protection is "a $428 million decrease from fiscal year 2021. (Factor in inflation, and the cuts are even deeper)," the New York Post explains. As Liberty Nation reported, "Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) pointed out that though the Border Patrol nabbed 98 potential terrorists in 2022 and 69 to date in 2023, 'I used the figure of 600,000 got aways, that's an old figure. I asked staff to give me a figure; 1.3 million got aways during the Biden administration." Is questioning Biden's national security priorities unreasonable?
The NYT opinion columnist gives a begrudging nod to the notion that there could be some exceptions. "The hard right's reverence for the raw strength and unblinking obedience runs deep. This is not true of every conservative," Stephens writes. However, 90.4% of his article's word-count suggests he does not really believe that. Instead, his attempts to appear reasonable ring hollow.
Nevertheless, closing his opinion article, Stephens tries to assuage the feelings of some because "Certain conservative readers of this column will no doubt feel insulted and claim that it should be possible to oppose US support for the war on strategic grounds without being labeled pro-Putin." Alas, however, in one parting shot, the opinion writer draws a parallel between critics of Biden’s Ukraine approach and pacifists as he invokes George Orwell's 1942 denunciation of "Western pacifists vis-à-vis Nazi Germany: 'Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist.'" But Stephens forgets that in 1942 the US was already at war with Germany. The US and NATO are not at war with Russia – not yet, anyway. But with an "as long as it takes" approach, who knows?
