Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell weighed in yesterday on the next multi-billion aid to Ukraine. Over the objections of Republican Senators, he created a $20.1 billion spending bill, in which aid for Ukraine is now bundled with aid for Hawaii. McConnell argued for success of aid to Ukraine, whereby the US weakens Russia “without firing a shot.” In a speech on the Senate floor, McConnell claimed that President Joe Biden “has not been as decisive as many of us have preferred” when it comes to funding Ukraine’s war effort, but that this was not a reason for Congress to “compound the administration’s failures with failures of our own. Helping Ukraine retake its territory means weakening one of America’s biggest strategic adversaries without firing a shot.”
He concluded that, with Kiev “eroding Russia’s capacity to threaten NATO, “it is not the time to ease up.” Further, with NATO unified and European countries starting to spend more on their militaries, “it is certainly not the time to go wobbly.”
While some might question the unity of NATO, or whether the West or Russia is eroding its military capacities more quickly, there is highly credible evidence that McConnell has been studying the right and wrong times to go wobbly.
