Don’t Cut Defense or Aid to Ukraine, Mr. Speaker by Marc A. Thiessen

Political Crossfire Don’t Cut Defense or Aid to Ukraine, Mr. Speaker. The Gipper is Watching

By Marc A. Thiessen

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has long kept a giant portrait of Ronald Reagan hanging behind the desk in his U.S. Capitol offices. Let’s hope he feels the Gipper’s glare searing the back of his head now that he has cut his deal to win the speaker’s gavel. If McCarthy agrees to cut defense spending or support for Ukraine – as a newly empowered minority of House Republicans is demanding – it would be a betrayal of everything that Reagan stood for.

We still don’t know the full extent of the concessions McCarthy made to secure the speakership, but CNN reports that Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. – leader of the “never-Kevin” rebellion – says he relented only because McCarthy gave up so much that Gaetz “ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.” McCarthy reportedly agreed to hold discretionary spending to fiscal 2022 levels, which would mean $75 billion being cut in defense spending. And Gaetz tweeted that in his fight to stop McCarthy, “Biggest loser: Zelensky. Biggest winner: U.S. Taxpayers.”

Reagan would be appalled by this. His defense buildup – the largest peacetime military expansion in history – was one of the great achievements of his presidency. Reagan’s policy of “peace through strength” brought us victory in the Cold War without firing a shot. Today, as China and Russia have locked arms to wage a new Cold War against the West, conservatives should be pushing to increase, not cut, defense spending.

Similarly, we must follow the Reagan playbook when it comes to confronting Russian aggression and deterring China. When Reagan took office, in the wake of the Vietnam War, Americans had no appetite for sending U.S. troops to fight in distant lands. But Reagan knew we still had to push back on Russian aggression, so he forged the Reagan Doctrine, which recognized that there were courageous men and women across the world willing to fight their own wars of liberation. All they needed were U.S. weapons, training, intelligence, and financial, diplomatic, and humanitarian support. By providing that assistance, Reagan helped freedom fighters from Central America to Africa and South Asia liberate their countries from the grip of an expansionist Soviet Union – without committing American ground forces to every global flash point. That is precisely what the United States is doing in Ukraine. In the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans once again have no appetite for sending U.S. troops to fight in faraway lands, so we are supporting a new generation of freedom fighters in Ukraine who are willing to fight our enemies for us. Their success will strengthen deterrence from Europe to the Pacific and make it less likely that we will have to deploy American troops to defend NATO allies or respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

The problem is not that we are doing too much to help Ukraine; it is that President Biden is slow-rolling military aid to Kyiv – dragging out the conflict and delaying Russia’s defeat – out of a pathological fear of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden has blocked Poland from transferring Soviet-era MiG-29 jets to Ukraine and waited more than nine months to give Ukraine just one Patriot air-defense system, allowing Putin to shell civilian neighborhoods and destroy critical infrastructure. Despite Ukraine’s begging for months for armored vehicles, Biden only approved 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles last week – and still refuses to send M1 Abrams tanks. After months of Ukrainian pleading, Biden finally delivered game-changing High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), but when they arrived, the Ukrainians discovered they had been secretly modified so they couldn’t fire long-range rockets – and Biden still refuses to give Ukraine long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles.

Biden is forcing Zelensky to fight with one hand tied behind his back. Conservatives should be pushing the president to do more, not less. Instead, some Republicans are acting like the liberal Democrats of Reagan’s day, who fought to cut aid to the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance (a.k.a. the contras) and other freedom fighters and opposed the Reagan defense buildup. These self-proclaimed conservatives are channeling their inner Ted Kennedy instead of their inner Reagan.

They are a minority, both within the House Republican caucus and the country at large. According to a survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 65% of Americans want to continue to arm Ukraine – including a 55% majority of Republicans. And a December poll by the Vandenberg Coalition found that 67% of Americans support increasing defense spending to keep pace with China – including 87% of Republicans.

So, what is McCarthy going to do? After finally allowing McCarthy to assume the speakership, Gaetz retweeted a supporter who declared: “McCarthy may hold the gavel, but Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert hold the real power in the House. Kevin McCarthy is a Speaker in Name Only.” Is that true? Who runs the House? McCarthy and the Republican majority who supported him throughout last week’s standoff? Or Gaetz and a handful of isolationists who want to hold the entire GOP conference hostage to their minoritarian agenda?

The vast majority of Republicans support Reaganite policies of increasing defense spending and standing with Ukraine. Will McCarthy win one for the Gipper, or capitulate to a small band of know-nothing isolationists?

Reagan is watching.