Don’t Renege On Our Promise To Ukraine
Editor’s Note: The U.S. Senate is currently considering a $100 billion supplemental spending bill, S.Amdt.1371 to H.R. 815. It would provide $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, and Taiwan, and include $14 billion for U.S. border security. As much of the world’s attention has shifted to the Middle East, support for Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression is waning in some countries, including the United States.
Op-Ed by William Slomanson
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Thomas Jefferson School of Law. William Slomanson is also the author of California Procedure in a Nutshell (5th ed. 2014), co-author of California Civil Procedure casebook (6th ed. 2022), and co-author of Fundamental Perspectives on International Law (7th ed. 2023)
One cannot forget the remarkable consensus when the entire Congress rose to its feet, with sustained applause, as Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to the 2022 joint session of Congress. But less than a year later, the U.S. House of Representatives is poised to renege upon its fervent support of Ukraine against Putin’s empire-building aspirations.
Ukraine Still Deserves Attention
Ukraine continues to deserve a geopolitical spotlight. House Democrats and Republicans are murmuring about whether to include it in a pending congressional spending package. House Speaker Mike Johnson previously declared that “Ukraine must prevail.” (See Politico, Oct. 26, 2023). His post-election position focused on aid to Israel, but not Ukraine.
This shift might be explained by the outsized influence of the far-right Freedom Caucus. Late last year, Rep. Matt Gaetz said Johnson won’t be allowed to present a bill including both Ukrainian and Israeli war funding, because “more than half the [Republican] conference opposes it.” (See Spectrum News, Oct. 29, 2023).
Gaetz’s position crystallized last February in legislation: the Ukraine Fatigue Resolution. With support from 11 members, the resolution called for ending U.S. military and financial aid to Ukraine. The resolution also urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement.
Biden Administration Reaffirms Support
These developments piqued the angst of the Pentagon and the White House. During his third wartime visit to Ukraine in November, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reaffirmed U.S. support.
“What happens here matters not just to Ukraine, but to the entire world,” Austin said. “This is about the rules-based international order. This is about … not living in a world where a dictator can wake up one day and decide to annex the property of his peaceful neighbor. That’s not the world we want to live in.”
(Defense.gov Nov. 20, 2023).
Austin’s quote was tendered on behalf of the nearly 50 countries in the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group. President Joe Biden also promised a consistent “commitment to Ukraine” while speaking in Lithuania.
“We will stand for liberty, and freedom and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes,” Biden said.
[Editor’s Note: This week, Austin reaffirmed that support once again while speaking with the Ukrainian Minister of Defense ahead of the January 23 Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting.]
Russian President’s Defiance
Russia’s defiance has been seemingly forgotten in the congressional divide over Ukrainian funding. In 2007, Vladimir Putin articulated an under-the-radar but over-the-top threat. In his telling forecast, Putin then revealed his contrarian approach to the post-WWII global order.
“One state and, of course, first and foremost t the United States has overstepped its national borders in every way,” Putin said at the Munich Security Conference. “I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security.”
President of Russia Transcripts, Feb. 10, 2007
Putin lost no time in implementing his vision. In 2008, Russia invaded neighboring Georgia, marking the start of Europe’s first twenty-first-century war. In 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. That violated Russia’s international obligations under the U.N. Charter and several other treaties.
The 2014 Minsk Agreements, for example, called for an “immediate and comprehensive ceasefire in certain areas … of Ukraine [and] [w]ithdrawal of all heavy weapons by both sides.” (See Financial Times, Full text of the Minsk agreement, Feb. 12, 2015).
Russia’s invasion also violated numerous thou-shalt-nots established well before 2022. In an egregious example, Russia, the United States, Canada, and 33 nations in Europe adopted the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. Under that treaty, they all must “refrain from any action inconsistent with … the territorial integrity … of any participating State, and in particular from any such action constituting a threat or use of force. The[y] … will likewise refrain from making each other’s territory the object of military occupation.” Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 14 Int’l Legal Mat’ls 1292 (1975).
The 1994 Budapest Memo was drafted on the occasion of the post-Cold War transfer of nuclear weapons from Ukraine to Russia. Ukraine, Russia, the U.S., and the U.K. expressly agreed to refrain from the use of force against Ukraine. No weapons could ever be used against it. Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Dec. 5, 1994, Vol. 3007 U.N.T.S. 52241 (Oct. 2, 2014).
In an earlier era, the U.S. was initially reluctant to participate in World Wars I and II. But fascist dictators implemented imperialistic dreams of conquering Europe and threatening global order. Putin’s 21st-century campaign mirrors those 20th-century quests for geo-political domination.
U.S. Initial Response
The House of Representatives thus reacted to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine with a strong condemnation against Russian politicians for the “flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, international law, and Russia’s commitments under the 2015 Minsk agreement.”
H. Res. 945 also stood “firmly and decisively in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and against the Putin regime’s military aggression and blatant violations of international laws and norms.”
Don’t Renege Now
One cannot forget the remarkable consensus when the entire Congress rose to its feet, with sustained applause, as Zelensky spoke to the 2022 joint session of Congress. But less than a year later, the U.S. House of Representatives is poised to renege upon its fervent support of Ukraine against Putin’s empire-building aspirations. If left unchecked, the U.S. will ultimately be drawn into existential conflicts, with the attendant loss of blood, treasure, and economic stability.
Many politicians nevertheless support the congressional quest to extract U.S. support from Russia’s latest perfidy. But they will, one hopes, ultimately digest the following Machiavellian truth: if Russia wins the war against Ukraine, Putin will have accomplished his eerie 2007 Munich Security Conference plot to restructure global order.
