Herbst: Failure to deliver aid to Ukraine would deal serious blow to U.S.

That’s according to an oped by John Herbst, director of Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Analyzing the failure of a procedural vote in Senate on a negotiated package deal that combines aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan with measures to resolve the crisis on the border with Mexico, Herbst asks: "Are we at the end of an eighty-year period of US global leadership? " due to the strengthening of isolationist moods?

He recalls that bundling all these complex issues into a single piece of legislation was “not necessarily a good idea”, it was “the consequence of the refusal of a small number of Republicans in the House of Representatives to approve aid to Ukraine so long as there was no plan to fix the border."

"While this was a ploy by that small group to block aid to Ukraine," other representatives and senators in both parties were willing to bring these disparate issues together, Herbst explains.

According to him, “none in this group understand that Russia... is seeking to undercut US security and prosperity by weakening NATO and the European Union; undermining US allies in Europe and elsewhere; and directly sowing confusion in the United States via election interference and cyber operations."

Those who see China as the United States’ most dangerous long-term adversary fail to understand that stopping overt Russian aggression now is the best way to deter China’s aggression in the future, Herbst emphasizes.

If Moscow conquers Ukraine, as both President Joe Biden and House Speaker Mike Johnson have said, the United States will be forced to directly defend its NATO allies in the Baltic states or Poland from Russian aggression, he reminds. This, according to the expert, will cost “far more money” than the $38 billion per year that the U.S. has provided Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion, which is less than 5% of the U.S. defense budget – and may well put American troops in harm’s way.

"Right now, the Senate is considering a bill that would drop the provision on the border and bundle aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. If this bill makes it out of the Senate, all eyes will be on Johnson," wrote Herbst.

After all, he has to put it to the vote but at the same time, "[t]he small group of House Republicans with little understanding of the historic stakes are threatening to defenestrate the speaker if he does that."

Failure to provide aid to Ukraine would be a major blow against U.S. leadership, empower U.S. foes in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran; and could ultimately "cost the United States in both money and blood," the expert believes.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the U.S. Senate on Thursday was able to gather the necessary number of votes in order to proceed to the consideration of legislation on aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan in the total amount of $95 billion. On Wednesday, the Senate had blocked a comprehensive bill, which, in addition to foreign aid to other countries, also included funding for strengthening the border, as well as reforming the U.S. migration policy.