David Cameron: Pass Ukraine funding for the sake of global security

I welcome the U.S. Senate passing the national security supplemental bill on Monday. This funding package before Congress, including support to Ukraine, matters greatly to UK and European security. I want to explain why.

I believe in our special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. Our partnership in defense of freedom. 

This is personal for me. My grandfather stormed the beaches of Normandy under covering fire from U.S. warships. And as prime minister, I ordered the U.K. military to join the U.S. in driving the Islamic State death cult out of Syria and Iraq. These were terrorists who had beheaded our citizens — British and American — in the desert. Together, we ensured they could never carry out such awful acts again. 

As foreign secretary, I am once again privileged to see how closely Britain, the U.S. and our allies work together in standing up for our freedom. We joined you in backing Israel after the horrors of Oct. 7. We joined you in strikes against Houthi militias seeking to disrupt freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. And we have joined together over the last two years to stand up for freedom in Ukraine. 

Since I last visited Washington before Christmas, Europe has proven its determination to stay the course. European states have provided more than half the support to Ukraine, with aid collectively totaling $170 billion to date. 

The European Union has just agreed on a €50 billion multi-year funding package of its own. Germany doubled its military aid to Ukraine last month. And Britain has become the first country to sign a bilateral security agreement with Kyiv — an example which we expect several partners to follow in the coming weeks. 

This assistance is making a difference. We have already destroyed almost half of Russia’s prewar military capacity, at the cost of less than 10 percent of any national defense budget.

It’s Vladimir Putin who should be fearing failure. Almost a quarter of his Black Sea fleet has been sunk. He’s suffered almost 300,000 dead and wounded — more in two years of fighting than the Soviet Union suffered in Afghanistan over a decade. Russia has witnessed its first attempted coup in three decades, and its first debt default in over a century. 

Now, we face a choice. A simple test.

On the one side is Putin, hoping to enlarge his empire simply by outlasting the West. He believes we are weak. He believes he can get away with the most shocking act of national aggression we have seen in our lifetimes. 

On the other side are all of us. We have the resources, the economic might, the expertise. Our economic strength outweighs Russia’s by a factor of around 25 to one. They are having to turn to Pyongyang for help. All we need to do is make our strength pay. The question is: Do we have the will? 

As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it. 

I want us all — U.S., U.K., European and other allies — to support Ukraine in fighting against completely unjustified aggression. It is hard to think of a clearer case of one country being invaded by another without the slightest justification.

I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force. 

I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression. 

I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Putin in 2008, when he invaded Georgia, or the uncertainty of the response in 2014, when he took Crimea and much of the Donbas — before coming back to cost us far more with his aggression in 2022. 

I want us to show the strength displayed since 2022, as the West has helped Ukrainians liberate half the territory seized by Putin, all without the loss of any NATO service personnel. 

We must all ask ourselves — who is watching? America is strong enough to both protect itself at home and recognize that threats in Europe or Asia affect its own security. I for one would like Beijing and Tehran to see that. 

We have proved that the dangers of escalation are illusory. Britain was the first to provide everything from anti-tank weapons to artillery to tanks and now long-range fires like Storm Shadow missiles. Each time Putin has rattled his saber about escalation — and each time it has been empty rhetoric. 

So let us do it.

It goes to the heart of what both sides of the aisle stand for. What both our countries stand for. We fight aggression. We stand up for freedom. We stick by our friends. We show this dangerous, uncertain world that we are unbending in our will. And we win.

David Cameron is the secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and former prime minister of the United Kingdom.