The upset in Washington has revealed to U.S. allies, including Ukraine, just how tenuous U.S. financial support in a war might be. Tens of billions of dollars in military aid, much less putting U.S. troops under fire, could be canceled in a single vote in a single chamber of Congress due to admittedly reasonable wishes on the part of American voters to omit themselves from seemingly endless wars in Europe and Asia. Their isolationism and domestic priorities, such as decreasing the federal debt, ending the influence of lobbyist money, and controlling the border, clash with expensive measures to keep an increasingly dangerous world at bay.
There are no easy answers to these questions, and opposing Republicans in the House aren’t villains, though they portray the other side to be. The chaos created by the fight, however, has second-order effects globally.
The ability of a small group of House holdouts to cancel Ukraine aid makes our allies less sure of “iron-clad” American support when needed. The latest disappointment will lead our developed democracy allies on the frontlines with Russia and China, including Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and Poland, for example, to seek stronger militaries, more defense spending, and perhaps even their own independent nuclear arsenals. Much of this is obviously a good thing for the U.S. budget. But, there’s a catch.
“That has a domino effect. It is greatly debilitating to the national security of the United States, not the least of which it’s going to set off a view by many countries that, ‘We can’t count on the United States. We need nuclear weapons.’”
A Ukrainian nuclear deterrent could escalate the war, but could also end the war immediately if Vladimir Putin decides he doesn’t want to risk escalation against a quietly but clearly enraged Ukrainian leadership. It could continue as a conventional war but with new red lines, for example an increased threat of retaliation should Russian troops further breach Kyiv or the Dnieper River.
There’s risk in all these scenarios, but in at least several, the requirement for outside military aid to Ukraine would decrease significantly. That would calm the bloated U.S. budget, which is ultimately the cause of the chaos caucus’s eructation against Mr. McCarthy.
If we don’t spend what’s required to win in present-day Ukraine, will future invasions be more numerous? Almost certainly. Eventually, if Mr. Putin and Xi Jinping aren’t nipped in the bud, they will use invasions to strengthen themselves to the point that they threaten Brussels, Tokyo, or Washington more directly. That may seem a long way off, but it’s the logical conclusion of the apparently unlimited territorial goals of Moscow and Beijing.
There are no easy solutions to these threats, and all choices entail risk. Neither Mr. Gaetz nor Mr. McCarthy are the villains. At some point, however, most reasonable people will come to agree that budget cuts must be made, and new sources of revenue found.
Innovative ways to decrease the likelihood of costly wars, while increasing U.S. revenues, should be considered by fiscal conservatives. One of those ways is to sell nuclear weapons to frontline developed democracies such as Ukraine. By doing so, we would decrease expenditures while increasing revenue.
