Congress finally did the right thing on Ukraine, but is U.S. aid coming too late to make a difference? | Editorial

It’s hard to get excited about Congress briefly escaping the strangling tentacles of partisan politics to provide long-overdue military aid to Ukraine. While the Eastern European nation continues to struggle mightily, a resurgent Russia and the threat of Donald Trump’s reelection mean the war is far from over.

Ukraine had been punching above its weight, retaking some of its lost territory and dominating its invader in the Black Sea, but the six months it took for Congress to pass aid legislation gave Vladimir Putin ample time to recover. Lacking the weapons it needed to repel the Russians, Ukraine surrendered more than 139 square miles, and Putin had time to replace his more than 315,000 killed and wounded.

Perhaps more devastating than the territorial losses was the anguish felt by the Ukrainian people, who understandably felt betrayed by American politicians too busy plotting their own agendas. That sense of abandonment has eroded the morale of young Ukrainians. They rushed to join the army when the invasion began two years ago, but now many are draft dodging by fleeing their country.

Perhaps a history lesson is needed to remind Americans of what is at stake.

Except for speed, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has all the attributes of Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Adolf Hitler’s storm troopers accomplished their mission in 35 days; six months later, France fell while Great Britain teetered on the brink. Interestingly, a 1939 Gallup poll showed that 71% of Americans nonetheless wanted no part in another world war.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1940 State of the Union address said that he understood “the wishfulness of those who oversimplify the whole situation by repeating that all we have to do is to mind our own business and keep the nation out of war. But there is a vast difference between keeping out of war and pretending that this war is none of our business.

“We must look ahead and see the possibilities for our children if the rest of the world comes to be dominated by concentrated force alone — even though today we are a very great and a very powerful nation. We must look ahead and see the effect on our own future if all the small nations of the world have their independence snatched from them or become mere appendages to relatively vast and powerful military systems.”

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and the inevitable could no longer be avoided. We declared war on Japan, and Germany, abiding by a verbal agreement with Japan, declared war on the United States.

Eight decades later, this country can avoid a similar trajectory toward another world war by helping Ukraine escape Poland’s fate. Ironically, Poland today has good reason to fear Putin’s apparent desire to cobble together a new Soviet Union. Even more fearful should be the Baltic nations Estonia and Latvia, which, like Ukraine, have large ethnic Russian populations who may be sympathetic to Putin’s ambitions.

Republicans who opposed more Ukraine aid claimed it would be an unwarranted giveaway when this country should be doing more to secure our southern border from undocumented migrants. That argument was a canard designed to divert attention from the reality that America has more to lose if Putin is emboldened by Ukraine’s fall to replicate the domination the Soviet Union once held.

That is not to say the current border crisis isn’t real, but it’s also solvable. Just six months ago, a bipartisan group of senators came up with immigration reform legislation that included $20 billion to improve border security, plus additional millions to hire more judges for immigration courts, combat human trafficking, dismantle drug cartels, and impose sanctions on groups that participate in the distribution of fentanyl.

That legislation never made it to the House because Speaker Mike Johnson said it would be dead on arrival. But Johnson risked his speakership last week by helping push the Ukraine funding bill through. So maybe the Louisiana congressman who has seemed under the thrall of Trump is finally seeing things more clearly.

The same cannot be said for the coterie of dangerous do-nothing demagogues — including Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene and Arizona’s Paul Gosar — who continue to follow the former president’s lead and parrot Putin talking points.

America needs immigration reform, but it can’t afford to ignore what is likely to happen in Europe if Ukraine doesn’t get the assistance it needs when it needs it. It may already be too late. It will take time to deliver some weapons systems and other supplies included in the $61 billion aid appropriation that President Joe Biden signed Wednesday. And Ukraine doesn’t have a lot of time.

If Ukraine falls, its allies, and especially the United States, must accept some blame. Ukraine’s task was always Herculean, but in the early days of the war, it seemed capable of getting the job done if given adequate support. That has not happened. Partisan politics got in the way in this country — and Trump has said that if reelected, he would end the war in “one day,” likely by forcing Kyiv to give up territory to Moscow.

That doesn’t mean Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable — and voters will have a strong say in November — but it does mean our nation’s word must be its bond every time it makes promises to countries that need our help.