Because aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan demonstrates all the US difficulties in foreign policy

The Foreign Aid Act from 95.3 billion dollars, first approved by the American Congress and then signed by US President Joe Biden, it reveals the unresolved issues of American foreign policy which, especially in the midst of the electoral campaign, burst into the center of the debate both in the buildings of the establishment and in the squares of the country.

Unlike what Biden declared – according to which with the validation of the aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan the United States would have managed to “send a message to the world about American leadership” – the logic and dynamics that allowed its launch do not prove the recomposition of the fault lines wedged between the sensitivities of the American political spectrum on the different role that America should hire in the world. Nor do they sanction the victory of a newfound bipartisan consensus on the need to support the defense of Ukrainian territory from the Russian offensive. In reality, and with good reason, only military support for Taiwan and the containment of China in the Indo-Pacific region remains shared.

For the rest, American politics remains deeply uncertain and internally divided on what the hierarchy should be among the strategic priorities that have emerged with the past, present and potential crisis theaters open at least from 24 February 2022.

First of all, it must be clarified that it is the question of the continuation of aid to Ukraine that has dominated the impasse that for months has fueled Western and Kiev fears about the real American will and ability to continue to support Ukraine’s military effort against the Russian invasion. The Biden administration has staked much of its credibility on supporting the Ukrainian cause “as long as necessary”. A support that, however, weakened due to the proven failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, when the military means and equipment available to the Ukrainian army were much greater than the current ones.

After more than two years of rhetoric based on the need to contain the Kremlin’s neo-imperialist aims disguised as a struggle between democracy and autocracy, not launching more aid would have revealed the decline of that idea of ​​America willing and capable of defending its hegemony in the sphere of influence par excellence, Europe, as well as radiating a soft power that is still attractive to allies, already increasingly skeptical about the future of the privileged relationship with Washington. Finding a solution for the White House, in short, was a must.

But this is also the decisive point: Americans are undecided about which ones they are their main security interests and alliances abroad. This is demonstrated by the diversification of the various majorities that voted for four different measures in the House of Representatives: one to allocate 60.8 billion dollars to Ukraine, one for 26.4 billion to Israel, one for 8.1 billion for the region of ‘Indo-Pacific and another that includes several provisions on the seizure of Russian assets, on fighting Fentanyl trafficking and on divesting from TikTok.

Faced with distinct bases of opposition to the various elements of the legislation that threatened to derail the package as a whole, the Speaker of the House, Republican Mike Johnson, in agreement with the White House, presented legislation “unpackaged” into various components in order to capture diverse coalitions of support among Democratic and Grand Old Party (GOP) lawmakers without allowing opposition to a single measure to undermine the entire bill. The measures approved together with the aid also include the law to force the Chinese company ByteDance to sell the social platform TikTok, which otherwise will be excluded from the national territory. This last measure, which responds to a Republican request and was added at Johnson’s request, was defined as “sweetening” by the American press, i.e. aimed at softening and obtaining greater consensus among the Republicans who were reluctant to provide further aid to Kiev. The most serious frictions on America’s future in the world, in fact, live within the GOP, a party undergoing profound identity transformation.

The current of Republicans against aid to Ukraine, first defined as the so-called “Trumpian rebels”, comes from the more isolationist and nationalist wing of the GOP. In other words, it is that of America First, which in recent years has gone from a marginal position to an increasingly participatory vision, also due to the ever-increasing probability that later became a certainty, that Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for the presidential elections next November.

It views China as the primary strategic threat and believes that extending security commitments in Europe while continuing to deal with containment of Moscow in Ukrainian territory diverts resources from building containment of Beijing ahead of a potential direct confrontation. This is why he is pushing for European states to become, if not independent in their defense capabilities, at least semi-autonomous. In other words, although the management of Europe’s atomic umbrella must remain in America’s hands, the countries of the Old Continent should take greater responsibility, paying for their own defense as recommended within NATO. Thus, the package for Ukraine passed because it was voted for by all Democrats (210) and 101 Republicans, while 112 Republicans voted against it. That is, the majority of Republicans opposed aid to Ukraine.

Those who voted in favor defined themselves as “Reagan Republicans”: in fact they are the establishment Republicans who lead figures such as the neocon Nikki Haley or the former vice president of the Trump administration Mike Pence himself. These adhere to the idea that the United States must maintain an internationalist and leadership approach in the world, but they also believe that the defense of American hegemony begins precisely with the maintenance of a Europe free from the Russian danger, also because inflicting a defeat on Moscow it would deal an indirect blow to Beijing itself.

In this sense, a few days ago Pence gave an interview to Euronews which offers a clear representation of this vision and the consequent internal split within the GOP: “I joined the Republican Party during the Reagan years. I believe (…) that America is the leader of the free world. (…) I believe there is a rising tide of Republican isolationism in my party. I have spoken out courageously against it and will continue to do so. Those who believe we must choose between solving our domestic problems, the crisis at the southern border, inflation, crime in our cities, and being leaders of the free world have a rather limited view of the greatest nation in the world. But I believe that the majority of the American people, in both political parties, support our allies and American leadership in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific (…) In the short term, I believe that Russian aggression represents a very real threat. In the long term there is no doubt, China represents the greatest strategic and economic threat, not only to the United States, but also to the West.”

On the opposite side, on the aid to IsraelHowever, the majority of Republicans voted “yes”, while 37 left-wing Democrats defected. The latter have declared that they are against unlimited and unconditional military supplies to Tel Aviv which could be used for the latest offensive of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, which they consider an excessively ferocious military campaign which has degenerated into a humanitarian catastrophe to the detriment of the people. Palestinian.

The 37 “no”, despite representing a break with the Washington’s ironclad support for the Jewish state, they did not reach the opposition bloc that the more progressives hoped to gather. Unlike the dynamics within the Republican Party, however, this is an opposition that still represents a minority of Democrats, although also in this case it reflects a division within the party between the establishment positions and the more progressive one represented by like Bernie Sanders or Rashida Tlaib.

The historic relationship between the USA and Israel is in fact not comparable to that with Ukraine: the first is a strategic alliance and in this sense so “pure” that it cannot be called into question even by the personalistic frost between the American and Israeli presidents, Benjamin Netanyahu. The second is not and is functional to the undying hostility between the spheres of influence of the two old Cold War blocs. Moreover. The massive Jewish diaspora and its pervasiveness in the political, economic and cultural life of the United States also makes it a domestic issue, as demonstrated by the recent protests on American university campuses (not comparable to our own).

In short, the last few days have been a fundamental step in the parliamentary dynamics of American politics because it reveals the persistent inconsistency and internal diatribe of the United States in identifying and finding an agreement on their foreign policy priorities. The face of the American crisis that will directly affect us most in the coming years.