What US political chaos means for Putin’s war

Sam Hawley: Hi, I’m Sam Hawley, coming to you from Gadigal Land. This is ABC News Daily. Since Russia began its war 18 months ago, Ukraine has relied on tens of billions of dollars in military aid from the United States to give it a fighting chance. So what happens if that dries up? Well, it’s a live issue because of the chaos unfolding in US politics right now. This week, a bill to avert a government shutdown was passed by Congress, but funding for Ukraine was missing. Today, Michael Kimmage, a former State Department adviser during the Obama years and professor of history at the Catholic University of America, on what it means for the future of the war.

Michael the US government, it’s been on the brink of a shutdown again, but that was averted, of course, when Congress passed a temporary funding bill.

US Congress: On this vote, the ayes are 88. The nays are nine. Under the previous order, requiring 60 votes for the passage of this bill, the bill is passed.

Sam Hawley: Wow. US politics. It’s fascinating to watch from afar.

Michael Kimmage: Right? It doesn’t disappoint as far as drama is concerned. So the shutdown was averted, but the fallout from that, the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, lost his position – directly connected to the compromises he attempted to make.

ABC News: He lost the support of the hard right faction of the Republican Party this week after he made a last-ditch deal with Democrats to avert a partial government shutdown.

Michael Kimmage: So the House of Representatives is without a speaker and it’s sort of unclear who will be the next speaker. And in the course of this, funding for Ukraine was dropped by Congress, which is not the end of the story, but perhaps the beginning of a new story, which is very important to try to disentangle.

Sam Hawley: Yeah, of course. So this temporary funding bill was put in place, but missing from that bill was funding for Ukraine. Just explain further how that came about.

Michael Kimmage: Yeah, it’s an odd situation because the vast majority of members of Congress, vast majority of Republicans, and would imagine all Democrats, favour continued funding for Ukraine. But a small group has been able to, in effect, hijack the House of Representatives and to make this a precondition of going forward. And it’s sort of a quirk in a way of parliamentary procedure in the US. But it’s a pretty consequential quirk.

Sam Hawley: So who is this small group?

Michael Kimmage: Well, I think they range from about, you know, sort of 10 to 20 people. And they’re precisely the Republicans who brought down Speaker Kevin McCarthy. I suppose they could be described as the kind of robustly Trump wing of the Republican Party. You know, populists, far right. There’s not a perfect description of who they are, but they have been very outspoken in what they feel is government overreach and excessive spending. And if you connect this with the debates that have been going on in the Republican primaries, you get arguments from people like Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s running for president, that the money that’s been spent on Ukraine would have been better spent on the southern border.

Vivek Ramaswamy, US Republican presidential candidate: I refuse to use our own military resources to defend against an invasion across somebody else’s border when we should be using our own military to defend against the invasion across our own southern border in this country, the United States of America.

Michael Kimmage: So a kind of emphasis of domestic political issues or regional political issues in the Western Hemisphere above support for Ukraine. You know, you can say it’s a small group, and that’s true. But these opinions also resonate pretty widely throughout the Republican electorate.

Sam Hawley: Well, the president, Joe Biden, he’s been ensuring allies like Australia, the funding will flow again, that America is committed to ensuring Ukraine wins this war and the funding will be maintained.

Joe Biden, US President: And I want to assure our American allies and the American people and the people of Ukraine that you can count on our support. We will not walk away. The vast majority of both parties, I’ll say it again, Democrats and Republicans, Senate and House, support helping Ukraine and the brutal aggression that is being thrust upon them by Russia.

Sam Hawley: But, Michael, how can we be so sure?

Michael Kimmage: Well, I don’t think you can be sure of anything in a tumultuous political culture like the one that the US has. And it’s an electoral season. And of course, we have former President Trump waiting in the wings, who has very different views on Ukraine from President Biden. But I think that President Biden’s words are trustworthy up until November 2024. So although Congress is very important for funding, it’s not the only source of support. The White House does have its own resources. And of course, the Pentagon has its own resources as well, some of which can be mustered if Congress is falling back. And it’s not impossible that Congress could change course on this. That, too, is a pretty fluid situation. So at the same time that we need to acknowledge how significant this group is in Congress, and what they may in their terms achieve by obstructing support for Ukraine, they’re not all powerful and they’re only one piece of a very large government. So I think Biden’s words are credible.

Sam Hawley: Yeah. Okay. And as you mentioned, there will be an election next year. Donald Trump, of course, you’ve mentioned him, he’s vying for the presidency. And we know, don’t we, that he’s something of a fan of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, or he certainly has been in the past.

Donald Trump, former US President: Russia. They treated me so great. Putin even sent me a present, beautiful present with a beautiful note. I spoke to all of his people.

Michael Kimmage: Well, this is truly one of the most complicated subjects to to try to figure out. There is a long record of statements, of approving and admiring statements, from Trump about Vladimir Putin. And they continue in the last 20 months, which is to say, the last 20 months of the of the ongoing war.

Donald Trump, former US President: And I spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin, who could not have been nicer.

Donald Trump, former US President: It would be really nice if we got along with Russia.

Donald Trump, former US President: Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along, as an example, with Russia?

Donald Trump, former US President: So Putin is now saying its independent, a large section of Ukraine. I said, how smart is that? And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. They were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re going to keep peace, alright.

Michael Kimmage: It’s important, though, to emphasise that when Trump was president, it’s not as if Russia scored many victories. So no deal was struck over Crimea. The US didn’t pull out of the sanctions regime that the Obama administration had created for Russia. And in fact, it’s one of the most interesting data points of the Trump presidency, I would say: the Javelin missiles, the so-called lethal military assistance to Ukraine, was an initiative of the Trump White House, and those missiles were absolutely pivotal in the first couple of weeks and months of the war. So some of what Trump did actually boosted Ukraine’s defence and was quite a problem for Russia. But you’re entirely right about the statements that go in a very different direction. So which is the real Trump? I wouldn’t be able to say, but there are at least two Trumps on this question.

Sam Hawley: Oh, gosh, yes. Okay. In the end, of course, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he needs this aid from America. It is absolutely vital and from western allies, including Australia, of course. He recently toured the US trying to rally support. He spoke at the UN General Assembly.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine President: We have to stop it. We must act united to defeat the aggressor and focus all our capabilities and energy on addressing these challenges.

Sam Hawley: But Michael, it’s not just the US where there’s a pushback, is there? It’s rising in Europe, too.

Michael Kimmage: That’s, of course, very true. We had an election in Slovakia last week where the, in quotation marks, pro-Russian party came out ahead. It was not a sweeping victory, but it did emerge as the most successful party of that election. It’s not as if Slovakia is going to transform the European Union, but it’s a trend line. Of course, Hungary has from the beginning been quite sceptical about the war and has been looking for a way to terminate the war as quickly as possible. And you have polling data that suggests that 1 in 5 Germans is now voting for the AfD, which is a populist party in Germany, that not only would want to see Germany pull back from support for Ukraine, but would want to see Germany exit the NATO alliance. And it has a number of quite striking ideas about a different course for German foreign policy. You know, what qualifies or complicates this storyline somewhat is that you had elections a year ago, a year and a half ago in Sweden and in Italy, and the populist candidates and parties emerged ahead. When they came to power, they didn’t change the policy. So it’s one thing on the campaign trail to say we’ll do everything differently. And that is something that you hear in many different countries, including in the United States. Elected officials who do things differently toward Ukraine: that we haven’t seen yet. And to be honest, I would be surprised if we saw that in the next 6 to 12 months.

Sam Hawley: Alright. Well, Australia’s donated $790 million to Ukraine’s war effort, nothing compared to the more than 100 billion the Americans have put in. But would you expect that support from nations like Australia and others would fall away if the US doesn’t step up again?

Michael Kimmage: I don’t think that it would fall away from Australia. Of course Australia is far from the conflict, but there are many reasons why I think the war registers in Australia as a as a vital interest and I don’t think that Australia would need US leadership or US support to go in the direction that they’re going. I think that what would happen, were the US to pull back, is that the Germanys of this world, not to mention the kind of the Hungarys and the Italys, would be much more self-confident and comfortable about being sceptical and detached, and might start pressuring the Ukrainians for a negotiated settlement – and would point to the US as an example or as encouragement for that line of argument. But the fragmentation would be a real problem and it would make the coalition behind Ukraine a lot less effective.

Sam Hawley: Alright. So, Michael, as Putin watches this debate unfold, he’d be pretty happy, wouldn’t he? He wants Western support to fracture. It’s part of his long-game in Ukraine.

Michael Kimmage: This is absolutely correct. And it was Putin’s assessment from the beginning that support would wane. He may feel that some of this is coming true or he may feel that this is on the verge of happening. But from a practical standpoint, from Moscow and who knows how much Putin is a practical man. But from a practical standpoint, the aid is still flowing into Ukraine. There have been some very substantial strikes on the part of Ukraine in and around Crimea. Russia just had to withdraw large portions of its fleet from Crimea back to Novorossiysk in Russia. And it’s still very, very tough going for the Russian military. So, yes, I’m sure he’s rubbing his hands in anticipation of something. But the war goes on and it goes on in quite a punishing way for Russia.

Sam Hawley: But, Michael, what’s next? America is by far, of course, the biggest source of weapons for Ukraine. If Donald Trump was to win next year’s election in the US, what would that mean for the war?

Michael Kimmage: I don’t think that it would be a hard stop to US support for Ukraine. I’ll guess here, and of course with Donald Trump, it’s not an easy business to guess what this man will do or say. But I’ll guess that he would not be would not want to be the American president who owns defeat in Ukraine. The one thing I can most confidently predict with Trump, and I think it would not be good news for Ukraine, I don’t think it would be good news for Australia either, is that you would get unbelievably confusing messaging from Trump and the policy would just go in a dozen different directions. And so everybody would be, as we were between 2017 and 2021, just scratching their heads and trying to figure out what it all means. So whether he would pull out, whether he would harden the US approach to the war, I find a little bit difficult to say whether he would confuse the US approach to the war. I’m absolutely certain he would.

Donald Trump, former US President: Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It will be settled quickly. I will get the problem solved and I will get it solved in rapid order and it will take me no longer than one day. I know exactly what to say to each of them. I got along very well with them.

Sam Hawley: Michael Kimmage is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America and a senior non-resident associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The US President, Joe Biden, says he will make a major address soon to lobby for uninterrupted support for Ukraine. This episode was produced by Nell Whitehead, Bridget Fitzgerald and Anna John, who also did the mix. Our supervising producer is David Coady. Over the weekend, Catch this Week with James Glenday, where he’ll be looking at the Federal Government’s overhaul of the migration system. I’m Sam Hawley. ABC News Daily will be back again on Monday. Thanks for listening.