Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a prominent Republican and Senate Armed Services Committee member, said Thursday a Ukrainian victory in the ongoing war will ultimately come in the form of a “negotiated peace.”
In January, Cotton penned a letter to President Biden urging him to provide more advanced weaponry to the Ukrainian military and empower the country to “throw out the Russian invaders, retake its sovereign territory, and win this war.” This week, speaking at the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit, the senator clarified that—while short-term military wins are crucial—negotiations are the endgame.
“From Ukraine’s standpoint, victory in the end is some kind of negotiated peace,” he said. “If Ukraine is successful enough on the battlefield… that’s how they can negotiate at a table.”
In Cotton’s view, the path to de-escalation in Ukraine will be achieved through escalation.
He emphasized that the key to achieving such a settlement is to “put Putin in enough fear that he will lose more territory and be disadvantaged on the battlefield than if it goes to the negotiating table.”
“We can’t force nuclear-armed power to sit and negotiate,” Cotton said. “But we can put them enough on the backfoot that they'll perceive it as in their interest to negotiate.”
Despite his support for a settlement, the senator stated that he would not speculate on the specific terms of a negotiated settlement, saying, “I'll leave that for Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people.”
Republicans Divided on Foreign Policy
The Republican Party’s position on whether to continue to fund the Ukrainian military remains in dispute.In December, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)—who has voted against U.S. involvement in the war since it began—challenged the notion that sending tax dollars abroad is a virtuous policy.
“It is not charity. Charity would be given freely,” he wrote on Twitter. “The American taxpayers have been conscripted into making welfare payments to this foreign government.“
Cotton was highly critical of the Biden administration’s foreign policy, accusing the President of being weak in response to last week’s Iran-backed drone strike that killed an American contractor.
“They killed an American and wounded five others Thursday morning,” he said. “We hit back, mostly it’s empty buildings, Thursday night.”
According to war monitors, the President’s Thursday night strike killed at least 19 people—a mix of Iranian and Syrian nationals.
Sen. Cotton did not respond to a request for comment.
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