30 United States The Economist May 21st 2022
The quietUkraineconsensus
“V
irtually the whole world is against us,”Mikhail Khoda
ryonok, a defence expert, told Russian state television this
week. And what is more, he noted, even America’s political parties
are together on this: “The lendlease programme is about to start
functioning and the resistance of a single senator will be over
come quite quickly.”
He was exaggerating slightly. Hours later, 11 of the 50 Republi
can senators voted to block a $40bn package of military and other
aid for Ukraine. Yet with all other senators in favour, the bill was
expected to breeze through the Senate shortly after this column is
published. Not many policies receive such bipartisan backing
these days—especially ones as significant as this. Added to the
roughly $4bn of arms that Joe Biden’s administration has already
shipped to Ukraine from American arsenals, the new bill repre
sents a staggering haul. It is more, in just three months, than
America sent to Iraq or Afghanistan in any given year. A senior
Pentagon official describes it, probably accurately, as the fastest
supply of military support in history.
This reflects material change in America’s risk calibration. Ad
ministration officials who used to speak warily of Vladimir Putin’s
threat to use nuclear weapons now almost shrug it off. Russia,
they note, has not overreacted to nato’s support for the Ukrai
nians, even as that has increased in heft as well as volume. In
March the administration prevaricated over, then ruled against
providing Polish mig-29fighter jets; it has since delivered so many
spare mig parts to help patch up Ukraine’s existing planes that it
comes to the same thing. As the war has moved from its hitand
run phase outside Kyiv to trench warfare and artillery duels in the
east, meanwhile, the scale of other Americansupplied kit has in
creased hugely.
According to a factsheet released by the Pentagon, America
has provided 90 howitzer artillery pieces, 72 vehicles to tow them,
16 helicopters and 200 armoured personnel carriers. The Ukrai
nians are also asking for multiplelaunch rocket systems and anti
ship missiles. John Barrasso, a Republican member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, predicts that they will get them.
“We’ve given them every weapons system they’ve asked for so far,”
he said, after returning from a visit to Kyiv last weekend alongsideMitchMcConnell,theRepublican Senate leader. So long as nato
troops are not on the battlefield, it seems almost anything goes.
Considering how momentous it is, the issue is politically low
key. Mr Biden, a relatively inconspicuous president on any issue,
has made only a couple of Ukrainerelated speeches. The latest
arms package looked set to clear Congress with remarkably little
debate given its size, most of it occasioned by Rand Paul, the isola
tionist senator Mr Khodaryonok alluded to. Donald Trump, a light
ningrod for Russiarelated controversy, has for the most part
sounded ambivalent on the war. It has received scant attention in
early campaigning for the midterms.
That is less paradoxical than it might seem. The dismal politi
cal reality is that any prominent issue is liable to get polarised and
stuck. The fact that Mr Biden and his counterparts on Capitol Hill
have not been more outspoken on Ukraine represents in part a tac
it consensus to prevent that happening.
Such dealmaking is not uncommon. Over the past decade Con
gress has passed a number of hugely important bills with biparti
san majorities in part by not really talking about them. The list in
cludes a $305bn infrastructure splurge under Barack Obama, a
$35bn cleantech investment under Mr Trump and this year a long
overdue overhaul of the postal service’s finances. Simon Bazelon
and Matthew Yglesias, both writers on politics, term this phenom
enon “the Secret Congress”. And it is good to know that Washing
ton, dc, is a bit less dysfunctional than it often seems. But, when
applied to a foreign policy as important and delicate as this one,
such elite discretion also looks risky.
Voters deserve more of a public debate on Ukraine than they
are getting, not least on the crucial question of where America’s
military support is heading. If the war turns into a stalemate,
should there be limits to America’s aid? Or would the administra
tion escalate further?
As a matter of good democratic practice, presidents also de
serve more reward for good policy than Mr Biden has had. His ad
ministration has won global acclaim and, in private, even grudg
ing praise from some Republicans for its handling of the crisis. Mr
Biden’s advantages over Mr Trump have never been more obvious.
Yet he remains very nearly as unpopular as Mr Trump was.
Worse, the lack of serious debate leaves space for the unserious
to fill—and Republican isolationists have ambitions in that re
gard. Back in March, only three House Republicans opposed Con
gress’s first response to the Russian invasion, a simple declaration
of support for Ukraine. But over the course of 15 subsequent Uk
rainerelated bills, the number of Republican holdouts has steadi
ly increased. Over a quarter of House Republicans opposed the
$40bn aid package. That encouraged Mr Trump to mischaracterise
the bipartisan bill as a case of “Democrats...sending another
$40bn to Ukraine [while] America’s parents are struggling to even
feed their children.”Dare you to say it, Mitch
Mr McConnell suggested his visit to Volodymyr Zelensky was in
tended to head off the antis in his party: “What I assured him, as
this is an allRepublican delegation, is that support for Ukraine
and this war against the Russians is bipartisan.” To ensure it re
mains so, he should put more of his political capital where his
mouth is. He should undertake that all future delegations will be
bipartisan. And given that Mr McConnell appearstoagree with
everything Mr Biden has said and done on Ukraine,heshould en
thusiastically say so. That would be quite something.nLexington
Congress has maintained bipartisan agreement on the war by not talking about it much