The U.S. Senate has approved a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine, at a time when Americans are less and less convinced that their country should continue to maintain its position as the “world’s policeman.” One Hungarian expert Balazs Mártonffy, director of research at the John Lukacs Institute from the Eötvös József Research Centre at the National University of Kecskemét, said this stance is driven by the U.S.’s intractable battle with Russia.
“The United States is on a fixed track, as it is a stated policy of the Biden administration that Russia cannot win. That is what this package is about. The U.S. is so entrenched in this war that a possible defeat of Ukraine on the international stage could mean the defeat of the U.S.,” the expert said.
President Joe Biden is trying to portray this aid package as a win-win situation, as some of the money could boost the U.S. economy. The total package includes $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza, and nearly $5 billion for the Indo-Pacific region, namely Taiwan.
This is a complex package, but it is important to underline that it does not include the border protection package supplement to help stop illegal migration.
“It was (initially) pulled by the Republican Party because they claim it is not strong enough,” Mártonffy told Hungarian news portal Magyar Nemzet, but now that they passed it, some are questioning how Republican senators would back such a deal without any border security provisions.
“Perhaps the reason behind the Republicans’ acceptance of the deal was that they could not get a better deal. Or maybe by taking out the border aid and passing this package, they can put more pressure on them to pass (the border deal). But they may also be able to add to it with their advantage in the House of Representatives,” the Hungarian said.
The U.S. has already spent more than $100 billion to help Ukraine since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022. It is true that the war in Ukraine has been largely locked in a stalemate, but this huge amount of funding and weapons has also helped Ukraine avoid collapse.
U.S. President Joe Biden said that 90 percent of security assistance is spent in the U.S. to produce enough weapons, which will strengthen the U.S. economy. However, according to Mártonffy, polling is showing that Americans increasingly feel that it is time for the U.S. administration to address the country’s own problems.
There are growing voices in the United States that the Biden administration, with this decision, has once again put Ukraine ahead of the U.S. and that a war on another continent is more important than its own country. This could be a key point of contention in the upcoming elections.
“There is a general feeling in the Democratic Party that there is a diminishing sense among Americans that the country has a global policing role to play. But with the relative loss of power, with the rise of China, and the move towards a multipolar or bipolar world, the situation has changed,” says the expert.
He added that “there is a shift in the mindset of the average citizen to the idea that the U.S. should mind its own business and that, while it may have had a policing role in the past, it was also in the U.S’s interest. Now, these domestic interests come before global values.”
He also warned that the rush to get the aid to Ukraine may have to do with intelligence reports the public does not have access to, which may point to Ukrainian forces having a more difficult time at the front than the media is reporting.
“But it’s not known what intelligence they’ve got on how much Ukraine needs this aid,” Mártonffy said.
