Donald Trump set off another controversy when, recalling a meeting he had as president with a European leader, he suggested at a weekend campaign rally he would let the Russians do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member not meeting alliance spending guidelines.
It follows months of a small group of populist House Republicans blocking a large aid package Ukraine needs to prevent the Kremlin from conquering the country.
Both Trump’s remarks and the aid blockage undermine critical American interests.
But the first may be more theatrical and ultimately manageable; the second is far more dangerous.
To understand the stakes, a little background is needed.
Tom Brokaw properly chronicled my father’s generation, which won World War II, as “The Greatest Generation.”
Evan Thomas and Walter Isaacson properly dubbed the American statesmen who then created the international institutions — the United Nations, NATO, the International Monetary Fund — that ensured an unprecedentedly prosperous postwar period without great-power war “The Wise Men.”
After an earlier generation of great Americans helped win World War I, the United States did not produce a comparable cohort of wise leaders, unfortunately.
Instead we had officials who shied away from global leadership by refusing to join the League of Nations and for years stood aside as aggressive powers emerged and serially attacked small countries in faraway places that did not “merit” support.
The eventual result of America’s and other democratic states’ 1930s lethargy was another, more devastating, world war in which more than 60 million people died, including more than 400,000 Americans.
NATO has done more than any other institution to prevent great-power war, deter large aggressors and provide the basis for the past 75 years’ peaceful economic growth that has greatly benefited the American people.
And NATO’s absolute core is the treaty’s Article 5, interpreted as its members’ iron-clad commitment to protect any ally under attack.
It is therefore “penny wise” for senior American politicians to suggest they would not enforce Article 5 in the case of allies who pay less than they should for their own defense.
If our foes in Moscow or Beijing believed America is not committed to Article 5, their behavior would be more provocative and the world a far more dangerous place.
That is why US and European senior officials denounced Trump’s statement.
But this is not the story’s end.
There is the decades-long problem of many NATO allies spending far less on defense than America and not meeting the NATO spending guideline of 2% of gross domestic product.
As president, Trump sharply criticized NATO, especially on the spending issue, and enjoyed more success than previous presidents in getting NATO allies to pony up more for their own defense.
His tactics were rough, but he achieved results, and his administration took other measures, including at NATO summits, to keep the alliance strong.
The question is whether Trump’s recent remarks are a page from his old playbook — in which case the situation is manageable — or the first shot in a more concerted effort to decouple the United States from NATO.
There is no way to tell at this point.
Then there’s the notably more important matter of American military and economic support for Ukraine.
Why is this important?
The answer is simple.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is our adversary.
Since at least his infamous 2007 address to the Munich Security Conference, he’s pursued a policy designed to undermine critical US interests in Europe and beyond, including weakening NATO and the European Union.
Putin is working with US foes in China, Iran and North Korea.
And while China is more dangerous in the long term, Russia is our only nuclear peer and pursuing the most provocative policies including aggression in Georgia and Ukraine.
Despite Putin’s lies to Tucker Carlson last week, Russia is seeking to restore its political influence across the former Soviet Union’s entire space.
President Biden has said a Kremlin victory in Ukraine may well be followed by an attack on the Baltic states or Poland.
Speaker Mike Johnson has said such a win could embolden Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
All this means the best way to enhance American security is to give Ukraine the aid it needs to stop Putin there.
The approximately $78 billion in aid the United States has given Ukraine in the past two years (less than 5% of our defense budget), coupled with Europe’s greater aid, has destroyed approximately 50% of Moscow’s conventional military capability.
It’s a great security return on our investment.
Cutting off aid permanently could well enable Putin to win.
It would be a great blow to US global leadership — far greater than the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan — and only encourage a Chinese strike on Taiwan and further Iranian provocations against America and Israel in the Middle East.
The Senate has passed the aid package worth $95 billion, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine; but Johnson quickly deemed this bill inadequate.
While a large majority in the House favor the package, the speaker has the authority to permit or block a vote; a small group in his party is threatening to remove Johnson if he allows a vote on the aid.
There are two ways to move this package to a vote.
Either the speaker reconsiders or a majority of House members, 218, sign a discharge petition.
The petition’s use is not common because it can be a lengthy process and requires bipartisan cooperation.
But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is considering this move.
To sum up, the aid package for Ukraine (and Israel and Taiwan) is blocked by a small group in the House.
It has an outsized say, as surely as Charles Lindbergh and his isolationist pals did in the years preceding World War II.
In 1941, that group tried hard to stop passage of the Lend-Lease Act, which sought to provide the United Kingdom the weapons to stay in the fight against Nazi Germany.
But Congress did vote and passed it.
Were a vote permitted now, the result would be the same as 1941.
A solid House majority would send Ukraine the means to stop Putin for us.
The stakes are high.
Let’s hope we find our wise men and women so that another generation of American soldiers is not forced to fight a major war.
John Herbst is director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine under George W. Bush.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
