It was said of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the 1930’s that he was naïve, that he really didn’t comprehend what he was up against in Germany’s Chancellor Adolf Hitler. A career in business, consensual government, Parliamentary debate, and compromise among political actors and parties didn’t prepare him for dealing with the time’s new brutal, totalitarian utopians like Hitler – more street thug, but with a vision, than anything. Mistaking the chancellor for opposition mp’s in the House of Commons led to appeasement and a goon’s growing appetite for more in Czechoslovakia, Poland, lebensraum, and six years of the bloodiest war in history.
Chamberlain was honest but naïve. In contrast, Sen. Josh Hawley’s Russian appeasement is grounded in reasoning so confusing and disjointed that a person can be excused for questioning his sanity or drawing the conclusion that it’s pure demagoguery. In sum, it’s a thought process that might sell in a schoolyard to people who still believe in the Easter bunny.
Hawley is following in the footsteps of John Kerry, erstwhile Democratic candidate for president in 2004. In a 2004 March debate (see below), Kerry declared, “[I] actually did vote for the $87 billion [$87 billion Iraq War appropriation] before I voted against it.” Kerry was sending reassurances to the dominant left wing of the Democratic Party. Here’s Hawley expressing his own flip-flop in support for Ukraine (see below):
February 24, 2022 – “Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine and invasion of its territory must be met with strong American resolve.”
February 24, 2023 – “I would just say to Republicans: You can either be the party of Ukraine and the globalists or you can be the party of East Palestine and the working people of this country.” Adding, “It’s time to say to the Europeans: No more welfare for Europeans.” Shortly before these comments, he said more succinctly, “I don’t think we should give any more funding right now.”
What to make of that Hawley hash? One year passes and he’s ready to act like the Democrat-led Congress of 1973 when they approved a cut-off of funds for military operations in Indochina (see below). It could simply be the pandering demagogue that resides in many a politician’s soul. He’s certainly got his nose in the air and is picking up the scent of the reinvigorated isolationist right.
It doesn’t make any more sense after dissecting his meandering rationalizations. We can’t support Ukraine and address a train derailment? What? Are we Guatemala? This is a policy pronouncement groping for a justification.
The thought-funk doesn’t get any clearer as he bounces from complaints about Europeans not doing more, to amazingly suggesting that the Ukrainian success means . . . end the support. Got it? It doesn’t make any more sense to me either. Do I need to say it? Ukraine’s successes can be greatly attributed to our willingness to keep them in the field with the weapons and munitions to grind down the Kremlin boss’s Wehrmacht (see below for an excellent piece on the Russian losses and failures), and all the while sending a signal to Xi that taking Taiwan won’t be made easier by the influence of the trembling knees of appeasers like Josh Hawley.
Let’s face it, the posture may be more of the schoolyard at work: Biden’s for it so we must be against it. To be fair, I find the Left’s totemistic virtue-signaling with the Ukrainian flag flying from dorm windows, like the Viet Cong flag of yesteryear, chintzily exhibitionistic. Still, I don’t care how they get there, or how they express it, so long as they continue to support sticking a thumb in the eye of one of Xi Jinping’s allies.
It’s stunning to find the Right more like Chamberlain or Code Pink than Theodore Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. This may come as news to the isolationistic right, but this isn’t 1814 when it took three weeks for the letter announcing the end of the War of 1812 to reach New Orleans after the battle had been fought. Oceans no longer insulate us from the world’s travails, especially if they’re patrolled by Putin’s and the PLA’s navies or leaped by tribesmen and disgruntled urban jihadis who decide to express their hate by seizing airliners. ICBM’s, hypersonics, jet aircraft, prosperous economies, super cargo ships, the space domain, satellites, trade, and modern communications should remind anyone that the security value of oceans has long been downgraded.
Like it or not, the world is interconnected, and so are human endeavors. Fecklessness in international relations isn’t a virtue. Appeasement toward Russia diminishes the value of any bellicosity toward the CCP. Deterrence becomes a dead word. The “pivot” to Asia will be imperiled, not enhanced, by a retreat in Ukraine.
The Roman general Vegetius was famous for writing, “Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum” – if you want peace, prepare for war. I don’t know where appeasement fits into the equation.
RogerG
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* Hawley’s 2022 stance on Ukraine was uncovered in a Tweet by the reporter John McCormack on Feb. 24, 2022 at https://twitter.com/McCormackJohn/status/1496878265138806784
* John Kerry’s Iraq War flip-flop can be found here: “Kerry discusses $87 billion comment”, CNN, 9/30/2004, at https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/30/kerry.comment/
* “Josh Hawley’s U-Turn on Military Aid to Ukraine”, John McCormack, National Review Online, 3/1/2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/03/josh-hawleys-u-turn-on-military-aid-to-ukraine/?utm_source=recirc-&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first
* US congressional actions to restrict and prohibit military actions in Indochina can be found here: “Congressional Restrictions on U.S. Military Operations in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Somalia, and Kosovo: Funding and Non-Funding Approaches”, Congressional Research Service, 1/16/2007, at https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/RL33803.pdf
* Excellent piece on Russia’s losses and failures in the Ukraine War: “Russia’s Winter Offensive Is Criminally Incompetent”, Mark Antonio Wright, National Review Online, 3/1/2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/russias-winter-offensive-is-criminally-incompetent/?utm_source=recirc-&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=second