Since bipartisan majorities in Congress vote to increase the real military budget year after year after year, it presumably didn’t take a lot of imagination for the Republicans to decide, “Hey, let’s demand increases to the military budget!”
But here’s what Defense One is getting from them. They have a “dual campaign” in mind that includes another of their perennial practices, frivolous Congressional hearings to try to dig up dirt on the Biden Administration:
The first part of the dual campaign is to conduct closed-door classified information gatherings in Congress, like the recent classified Senate Armed Services Committee briefing that included Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs and William LaPlante, the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, according to two people with direct knowledge of current discussions within Republican leadership. [my emphasis]That Part 1 is described in awfully vague terms, though. The Democratic Senate held some closed-door hearings about military purchases, or something, and this gives Republicans a chance to do ... what, exactly?
Out here in the real world, holding a serious set of Congressional hearings on the US goals in the Russia-Ukraine War would be Congress doing its actual job on a very important subject. But there is close to zero chance that such a thing will happen short of a catastrophic new development in the war. And if there were such hearings, Republicans would try to focus them on Hunter Biden or Dr. Fauci.
The second part is a public-facing campaign to call on President Joe Biden to provide things like Grey Eagle drones, and the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, which would help Ukraine strike at the Russian artillery batteries continuously lobbing missiles at Ukrainian forces. Kyiv has been requesting ATACMS since the start of the war, but the requests have grown louder as the United States approved other pieces of equipment it previously resisted, such as M-1 Abrams tanks. [my emphasis]This sounds like just another variation of the Republicans’ perennial cant about how the-Democrat-Party-is-weak-on-*de*-fense. “With their message, several Republicans atop key national security committees are trying to show that not only do they support Ukraine, they will do so more enthusiastically than Democrats and the White House. “
Anonymous sources also had this: “Republicans also will focus more on accounting for aid packages, particularly in light of two decades of questionable military aid in previous conflicts, especially in Afghanistan, the individuals said.“ In RebublicanSpeak, that sounds like “Hunter Biden” to me.
A large part of the article is devoted to comments from Rebeccah Heinrichs of the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. She takes a pot-shot at the Progressive Caucus and their very mild maybe-we-should-have-good-diplomacy-too letter, which they bizarrely withdrew as soon as they got any criticism. She managed to spin a half-baked both-sides-do-it scenario:
"The Progressive Caucus, they went quiet going into the midterms because they had their letter yanked... [Actually, they “yanked” their own letter, but whatever.] That is a pretty serious faction in the Democratic party. I think it's something that we haven't grappled with: how they're going to move forward on the Ukraine issue now that we're past the election. I mean, they are much closer to the populist wing, [of the Republicans] than, than everybody else" on this issue, she said.The left “resistance” to the US support for Ukraine is pretty much composed of the kind of “leftists” that appear on Tucker Carlson’s White Power Hour show. What we badly need is more critical questioning of specifics, like: What is the actual US war aim here, to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty or to keep the war going as long as possible to weaken Russia? And, what kind of exit strategy does NATO have for various contingencies? Long, long ago - back in the 1990s - it was considered sober military wisdom to be very conscious of The Exit Strategy in the Weinberger Doctrine that was later rechristened the Powell Doctrine.
Still, the rising resistance from both the far left and the far right could actually be a gift to those looking to accelerate aid to Ukraine now, while it’s still politically feasible to do so, according to the two individuals. The Republicans’ strategy will also remind the administration that support for the war is dropping among Republican voters. While Biden administration officials are fond of saying U.S. support for the war will continue for “as long as it takes,” Republicans will be much more eager to see progress. [my emphasis]
Rebeccah Heinrichs actually echoes a bit of the Weinberger/Powell position with this comment on the Ukrainian side of the current war: “‘You need to go hard and fast, rather than carry this thing out,’ she said. 'It’s bad clock management.’“ That was the core of the famous Doctrine: only fight conventional wars, go in with overwhelming force and crush the Bad Guys, and leave the ruins behind as quickly as possible. The highbrow version of America First militarism, in other words.
As much as Trumpistas and Christian Nationalists may fantasize about Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin as models for saving the West and Christian Civilization, they aren’t really that familiar with the concept of international solidarity in any way analogous to how the left conceives of it. The “America First” mentality is isolationist only in the sense that it supports xenophobic militarism. Which is why most of them will find it easy to trash Ukraine and at the same time cheer the ballooning profits of US weapons manufacturers.
And that seems to be the only part of the Republican strategy outlined by Defense One that Republican office-holders and their donors actually care about.
(This post is also available on Substack with detailed footnotes.)
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