The West must not repeat in Ukraine the mistakes that led to World War II 

Not since Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Joseph Kennedy and Father Coughlin extolled the virtues of Adolph Hitler in the 1930s and ’40s have so many influential Americans sided with a major foreign adversary, as is happening today with Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

Television commentator Tucker Carlson has often demeaned the U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine, calling it a scam backed by a “propaganda campaign designed to convince Americans to take sides in this conflict, a conflict that has strictly speaking nothing to do with them.” It reminds one of Neville Chamberlain calling Nazi Germany’s pending invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938 a matter for “a faraway country of which we know nothing.” 

Carlson’s pro-Putin views are widely disseminated on Russian television. Last week, in what was billed as an “interview,” he basically granted Vladimir Putin two free hours to disseminate his propaganda. Carlson did not ask about imprisoned dissident Alexei Navalny or Putin’s record of political assassinations. He explained later that “Every leader kills people, including my leader. … Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people.” Within days, Navalny was dead in a remote Siberian prison, two years after another assassination attempt failed. 

The sequence of events prompted former Rep. Liz Cheny (R-Wyo.) to address Carlson on X, saying, “This is what Putin’s Russia is, And you are Putin’s useful idiot.” 

Carlson’s — and thus, Putin’s — views are echoed in both Houses of the U.S. Congress. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville opposes further U.S. funding to help Ukraine as a wasteful exercise in futility. “At the end of the day, it’s a junior high team playing a college team. They can’t win. … We can throw all the money we want to, but unless we send NATO and our troops over — which we’re not going to do if I’ve got anything to do with it — then there’s no chance.” 

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, an avid Donald Trump acolyte, expresses the same message of defeatism, arguing that the latest aid package is not going to fundamentally change the reality on the battlefield. “I think what’s reasonable to accomplish is some negotiated peace.” 

Most of those in the House and Senate who oppose further aid to Ukraine are simply reflecting the self-serving wishes of Trump himself, notwithstanding their own national security convictions. The former president recently declared that the mutual defense commitment under Article 5 — “an attack against one is an attack against all” — is void for those member NATO nations who have not yet increased their defense investments to 2 percent. Russian aggressors “should do whatever the hell they want” without concern for U.S. intervention. 

The shame of such a statement coming from a former president and candidate for return to the office is unprecedented in American history. But it was shared in the United States Senate the next day. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a long-time national security hawk who had strongly favored arming Ukraine, explained why he suddenly reversed his position of support for a bipartisan package of aid that included many of the significant enhancements of southern border security long sought by Republicans. “I talked to President Trump today, and he’s dead set against this package. … He thinks that we should make packages like this a loan, not a gift.” 

But Trump revealed his real motivation in opposing the bilateral compromise: “A Border Deal now would be another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats. They need it politically.” 

On one national security issue after another, whether it is Ukraine or what Republicans have called an “invasion” on the U.S. southern border, Trump is serving his own political interests, and those of Putin, the leader he deeply admires and whose absolute power he envies. 

When he boasts that he will ”end the Ukraine war in 24 hours,” Putin knows that means Trump will cut off aid to Ukraine and force it to stand down; Putin has made it clear he has no intention of surrendering the territory he seized in two major bites over a 10-year period. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it, “If Russia stops fighting, the war ends. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends.” 

Even Elbridge Colby, a respected strategic analyst who served in the Trump administration and helped formulate its transformative policy toward China, argues against the Biden pledge to help defend Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” “The war is not going very well […] and we are heading probably toward stalemate at best. The key here is for the Europeans to step up […] and have more realistic policy than the triumphalist liberalism that the administration and some Republicans have advocated for the last two years.”  

The view validates the perception of Putin and other aggressors that U.S. will is destined to flag, even when Americans are not fighting and dying. It reflects the national frustration with another “forever war” like Afghanistan which both Trump and Biden vowed to end — and did, catastrophically. 

The solution to the malaise over Ukraine, however, is not to curtail Western aid and weaken Ukraine’s will and ability to resist Russia’s aggression, but to finally provide all it needs to win. 

China, and Iran and North Korea are all making their own plans based on the success or failure of Ukraine and the West. 

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010.