Ukraine

When Donald Trump declared that Russia could do “whatever the hell it wants” to NATO countries, he was espousing his own lifelong credo. Trump has done whatever he pleases for most of his life. It was generous of him to extend the same carte blanche to the Kremlin, which is presumably pleased with his offer but has yet to comment on it publicly.  Once upon a time, conservatives used to raise an eyebrow over the notion over doing whatever the hell you want. They were in a more censorious mode, arguing that this amounted to moral relativism. Now it seems that anything goes.  The old certitudes are gone.

After a long wait, the text of the bipartisan Senate bill for Ukraine and border funding was finally released on Sunday night. The massive piece of legislation clocks in at 370 pages and, in addition to the border policy changes previously reported on here, sends an additional $60 billion to Ukraine, tightens asylum standards, prohibits removal of unaccompanied minors, authorizes $1.4 billion in FEMA funding for resources for migrants settling in the US and gives President Biden the authority to overturn any emergency authorization at the border. The House GOP’s verdict is in: Speaker Johnson asserted that the legislation is “dead on arrival” in his chamber.  “I’ve seen enough.

Given just how unpopular illegal immigration is, it is stunning to see both the likely nominees for president fumbling the issue. That’s political malpractice.  For Biden, the malpractice consists not only in keeping the border open, which is already killing him in the polls, but in resisting the strongest Republican proposals to close it. Every time Republican congressional leaders visit the White House to negotiate, they come away empty handed.   In stiff-arming the Republican proposals, the White House has put itself in the awkward position of saying it will grudgingly accept their efforts but only if Republicans make concessions on other issues.

The West’s military posture has moved from ‘thick’ to ‘suicidal’. The recent speech of General Sir Patrick Sanders, the head of the British Army, in which he suggested that Britain needs a ‘citizens army’ to see off Russia, has forced the Government to deny that it wishes to introduce conscription – in advance of a great power conflict that Grant Shapps says is perhaps five years away. The media is casually debating ‘would Britons refuse to serve?’, on the basis that Gen Z is too neurotic to fight. The better question is ‘should we serve?’, on the grounds that our generation of leadership is so staggeringly dumb. What did Phil Ochs sing?

Ukraine’s parliament will soon vote on much-needed conscription regulations which would draft an extra half a million recruits into the army. The categories of eligible men will be expanded, the draft age will be lowered from 27 to 25, and any man caught attempting to evade it will face harsh sanctions or imprisonment. Volodymyr Zelensky has stopped talking about victory coming any time soon. His New Year’s message was grim: everyone must either fight or help through work. Ukrainians are braced for another year of war. But talk of ‘peace’ or ‘compromise’ is still seen as code for a surrender which would reward rather than punish Vladimir Putin’s atrocities, cede ground and give him the opportunity to come back for the rest later.

The news this week that Republicans in the US Senate had voted together to block a supplemental funding bill that included provision for $61 billion for Ukraine was greeted with predictable dismay in Kyiv and glee in Moscow. Ostensibly this was a bid to force the White House into prioritising more spending on securing the Mexican border. However it also reflects a real sense on the part of some within the GOP that the United States is either throwing good money after bad in maintaining support for the conflict, or continuing to subsidise a backsliding Europe that really ought to be taking the lead on this crisis. After all, while Europe as a whole has committed more funds to Ukraine – $143.

A primetime address in the Oval Office is the pinnace of presidential speechifying. Ronald Reagan used the room in 1986 to console the nation after the Challenger blew up on live television. George W. Bush declared the global war on terrorism there. Donald Trump leveraged the weight of the Resolute Desk as he talked to Americans about a deadly but mysterious virus called Covid-19 for the first time.   Tonight, it was Joe Biden’s turn. The topics, the wars in Ukraine and Israel, couldn’t be more different with respect to the players, the stakes or the circumstances leading up to them. Even so, Biden tried to convince the American people on the idea that the two wars were one and the same.

Vasyl, a burly, tattooed infantry commander who lost a leg to a Russian mine on the eastern front, sits swinging his remaining leg on the edge of the treatment table in the ‘Unbroken’ rehabilitation clinic in Lviv. He’s been inside the Russian trenches 50 times, he tells me. His stories are reminiscent of the first world war. I ask him what Ukraine needs for victory. Answer: ‘Motivated people.’ His T-shirt proclaims ‘no sacrifice, no victory’. After we shake hands and I wish him luck, he suddenly jumps off the table and starts skipping at amazing speed, his blue skipping rope whizzing around under his one foot, while he looks at me with a broad grin, as if to say ‘Here’s your answer’.

After the US House stole the spotlight last week, sources on the Hill say a similar, yet more “behind-closed-doors” brouhaha is brewing within the Senate. In the face of a government shutdown, conservatives have been in “constant” cross-chamber communication. For instance, when the Schumer-McConnell bill, with its $6 billion of funding for Ukraine, was on the table the weekend before last, Senate Republicans were apprised that House Democrats were filibustering to get it passed. As the House convened on Saturday September 30, and the Senate convened at noon for a 1 p.m.