President Joe Biden gave Kyiv a surprise visit and promised to support Ukraine “as long as it takes.”
Back at home, there is a bipartisan coalition of support for Ukraine, and there are two partisan coalitions against Ukraine. But do not despair. The bipartisan coalitions against it have a problem that their pro-Ukrainian opponents don’t: They hate each other more than anything, and I have a difficult time seeing Pramila Jayapal and Marjorie Taylor Greene joining forces and forming a partnership to accomplish anything. To the contrary, it is not difficult to imagine Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Roger Wicker, James Risch, Michael McCaul, and Mike Rogers join forces with Democrats like Joe Biden, Jack Reed, Hakeem Jeffries, and Adam Smith. We can take some solace in the fact that the anti-Ukrainian coalitions mostly engage in performative politics and wear incompetence as a badge of honor.
Of the Syrian Civil War, Robert Malley observed that the problem with U.S. support for the opposition forces was that we gave them enough support to keep fighting, but not enough to win. Malley was wrong about that with regards to Syria, but that is a very good observations about Ukraine. Ukrainians need ATACMS, Small Diameter Bombs, fighters, and tanks—which are unlikely to arrive in 2023 in large numbers for no good reason. Ukrainians are getting everything they want just, later than they could get them because of bad judgment and unnecessary infightings within the U.S. government and with European allies. So we are prolonging the war.