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us foreign policy
After Oval Office Meltdown, Trump Cuts Off All US Military Aid to Ukraine
"Let's be clear—this is not about bringing peace," argued Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal. "Donald Trump is siding with Russia, Putin, and dictators across the world over our allies and the defense of democracy."
Mar 04, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump late Monday ordered a suspension of all American military assistance to Ukraine after his conduct in a televised meeting with the war-torn country's president in the Oval Office last week sparked international dismay and outrage.
Trump's decision reportedly impacts over $1 billion worth of weaponry and ammunition that was set to be delivered to Ukraine, which has been under attack by invading Russian forces since February 2022. The U.S. has provided more than $65 billion in military aid to Ukraine during the full-scale Russian assault, according to State Department figures.
The Associated Press noted Monday that the U.S. president's move "comes some five years after Trump held up congressionally authorized assistance to Ukraine as he sought to pressure [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into Joe Biden, then a Democratic presidential candidate."
"The moment led to Trump's first impeachment," the news outlet observed.
Democratic members of Congress argued that Trump's aid cutoff amounts to another instance of the U.S. president unlawfully withholding spending approved by lawmakers—and rejected the White House's claim that the move was motivated by a genuine desire for peace.
"Let's be clear—this is not about bringing peace," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who faced backlash in late 2022 over her handling of a Congressional Progressive Caucus letter urging the Biden administration to "seriously explore all possible avenues, including direct engagement with Russia, to reduce harm and support Ukraine in achieving a peaceful settlement."
"Donald Trump is siding with Russia, Putin, and dictators across the world over our allies and the defense of democracy," Jayapal said Monday. "This is a shameful day in American history."
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that "if President Trump was truly concerned with securing a just and sustainable peace deal for Ukraine, he wouldn't have conceded every piece of leverage the United States, our allies, and Ukraine held before even beginning negotiations."
"He wouldn't be siding with an authoritarian responsible for war crimes," Meeks continued. "And he certainly wouldn't be forcing Ukraine into surrender, while claiming it's a deal. Instead, he would have continued U.S. support for Ukraine to put it in the best possible position to secure a peace deal for Russia's illegal and unjustified war against it."
"Ukraine is left with impossible choices: fight a losing war without U.S. support, or submit to economic vassalage under the very powers that prolonged its suffering."
Trump's decision to suspend U.S. aid to Ukraine, which the Kremlin welcomed, came after Zelenskyy said in the wake of the Oval Office meeting that "an agreement to end the war is still very, very far away."
"The peace that we foresee in the future must be just, honest, and most importantly, sustainable," added Zelenskyy, who has demanded security guarantees from the West as part of any diplomatic resolution with Russia.
Trump, who is pushing for U.S. control of Ukraine's mineral wealth, responded furiously to Zelenskyy's comment, calling it "the worst statement that could have been made."
Trump's Oval Office blow-up and subsequent aid suspension led some to lament missed opportunities for diplomacy under U.S. President Joe Biden.
"It would have been better for Ukraine—and the world—if Biden had pursued diplomacy much earlier," said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "But the Blob and the Democratic centrists shut down even any whisper of diplomacy."
Aída Chávez, communications director and policy adviser at Just Foreign Policy, argued in a recent column for The Intercept that "Trump's demand for 'payback' from Ukraine—treating the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II as if it's some unappreciated favor—presents U.S. foreign policy in its most naked form."
"As a result of the West's refusal to seriously consider diplomacy," Chávez added, "Ukraine is left with impossible choices: fight a losing war without U.S. support, or submit to economic vassalage under the very powers that prolonged its suffering."
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Mehdi Hasan Warns Bigots Like the One Who Attacked Him Could Soon 'Be in Charge of US Foreign Policy'
If Donald Trump wins next week's election, the journalist said, violent racists "will be emboldened like never before."
Oct 31, 2024
Journalist Mehdi Hasan responded at length Wednesday to a bigoted attack he faced from a fellow CNN panelist earlier this week, warning that the kinds of people who would incite violence against a Palestinian rights advocate on live television could soon be in charge of U.S. foreign policy if Republican nominee Donald Trump wins the November 5 election.
Hasan, the founder of Zeteo, said he has never in 25 years of working in media "been so stunned" as he was when Ryan Girdusky—a right-wing commentator and Trump supporter—said that "I hope your beeper doesn't go off" after Hasan expressed support for Palestinian rights.
Girdusky's remark, which referenced a mid-September Israeli attack in Lebanon and Syria that killed dozens of people—including children—underscored "how bold these MAGA Republicans have become in their racism," Hasan said in his video response Wednesday.
While welcoming CNN's decision to ban Girdusky from the network, Hasan warned that such bigots "will be emboldened like never before" if Trump defeats Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in next week's election.
"They won't just be running their mouths on TV panels against public figures like me," said Hasan. "They'll be at your kids' school gate. They'll be at your grocery store. They'll be in your subway car proudly and shamelessly saying this stuff to you, too. They'll also be in charge of U.S. foreign policy, egging on Israel to do more beeper attacks, even more acts of terror, egging on Trump and [Republican vice presidential nominee JD] Vance to be more racist, more violent both at home and abroad."
Watch Hasan's full response:
"As shocked and stunned as I was, there was no way I was going to let him say that to me, unchallenged."
My response to the racism & incitement on Monday, to a CNN pro-Trump panelist telling me: “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off," because I said I supported Palestinian rights. pic.twitter.com/GJCAC1vAKd
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 30, 2024
Hasan called the November 5 contest between Trump and Harris "the most consequential election of our lifetimes" and said that "genocide is on the ballot," criticizing the Democratic vice president for refusing to distance herself from President Joe Biden's unwavering support for Israel's assault on Gaza.
"But also, fascism plus genocide is on the ballot," said Hasan, pointing to Trump's authoritarian ambitions and open support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Trump praised for "doing a good job" in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 43,000 people in just over a year—a majority of them women, children, and elderly.
"I'm in no mood to explain myself to the racists and bullies," Hasan said Wednesday. "But I will continue to speak out, I will continue to do the work, and so should you."
Author and activist Naomi Klein voiced agreement with Hasan's analysis of the dire state of U.S. politics and his warning that the situation could deteriorate further, writing on social media: "Some claim things cannot get worse. They absolutely can."
"Look to any country where the prisons are bursting with political prisoners. There is no shame in voting against even worse," Klein wrote. "Fascists triumph when we lose our capacity to think strategically."
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From Vietnam to Ukraine: Asking Good Questions About Bad Wars
The establishment keeps coming up with convenient answers, but always to the wrong question.
Aug 11, 2024
In her final moments, Getrude Stein is rumored to have asked, “What is the answer?” No reply came from those gathered around her. She followed up with the retort, “but what is the question?”
The maximalist impulse toward Ukraine is approaching its final act in a similarly unenviable state. It, too, is on its deathbed, and it faces what increasingly resembles a crisis of meaning, fueled not by insufficient resources or flagging political will but by an ill-defined theory of victory.
There could never be perfect unanimity in what was a U.S.-led coalition of around 50 nations, but it can be surmised that the initial goal was to enable Ukraine, through a combination of military aid, sanctions, and diplomatic pressure, to decisively degrade and potentially defeat the Russian military. It became clear around the latter half of 2023 — though it must be said that many observers sounded the alarm bells a good while earlier — that some of the presumptions behind this approach were untenable.
Yet, three years in, this approach remains the dominant paradigm for framing the war in the absence of any clearly articulated alternative strategy.
Despite previous experiences with Russian countermeasures against HIMARS and other Western-supplied systems, the belief persists that Ukraine can tilt the balance of forces in its favor if supplied with the right equipment. Last year, it was Leopard tanks and Patriot missile systems. Now, it’s F-16s. Then there is the larger and more important question of the goals for which these weapons should be used.
Recent assessments urging Ukraine to shift to a defense posture represent a welcome departure from the proposition, thoroughly invalidated by the experience of the failed 2023 counteroffensive, that Ukraine’s military wields the offensive power necessary to expel Russian forces from all of its internationally recognized territory. Such calls reflect the realities of a conflict that has reaffirmed Carl von Clausewitz’s time-tested contention that defense is the stronger form of war and, if heeded much earlier, may perhaps have registered as sound advice.
But this approach unfortunately does not go far enough in acknowledging the severity of factors — military, political, economic, and demographic — working against Ukraine on and off the battlefield. Manpower and firepower are the two currencies with which victory in Ukraine is to be bought — Ukraine’s military faces dire, growing deficits of both. The country is roiled by a demographic downward spiral that will require a generational, whole-of-society effort to redress even if the war was to end today.
Moreover, recent data shows the Ukrainian population’s ironclad unity behind its government’s war aims has all but dissipated, introducing new and unwelcome domestic pressures from which the Zelensky government considered itself immune. A plurality of Ukrainians now favor initiating peace talks with Russia, a measure that has been functionally banned by the Zelensky administration.
There is a sense in which these proposed defensive strategies are even more fraught than earlier maximalist plans — which peaked in popularity following successful Ukrainian advances in late 2022 — to win the war by dealing a crushing blow to the Russians through lightning offensive maneuvers. The “knockout punch” theory of Ukrainian victory, wrongheaded as it turned out to be, can at least be merited with recognizing and seeking to work within the constraints posed by time.
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Invalid emailEnter your emailTalk of a defensive strategy tries to buy Kyiv time it likely doesn’t have, tapping resources it and its Western partners can ill afford, to achieve an end that has yet to be adequately defined. It is, in form and function, an exercise in whistling past the graveyard.
The war cannot be placed in autopilot, as it were, simply by postponing offensive operations and investing in defense. The problem is not only a stark asymmetry in latent power between Russia and Ukraine, but also and especially the asymmetry of vital interests and escalatory potential between Russia and Ukraine’s Western partners.
Yet the debate over whether or not the trends working against Ukraine can be slowed elides a more fundamental question: slowed to what end? If the intention is to buy more time, what is the time for? Is it to prepare for another large-scale counteroffensive to knock Russia out of the war; to slowly defeat Russia in a war of attrition; or to raise costs on Russia such that the Kremlin agrees to negotiations on reasonably propitious terms for Ukraine and the West?
The first two are hardly more realistic than the cavalier assumptions that underpinned the ill-fated 2023 counteroffensive. The latter is dubious at best in light of the trends discussed above.
Recent coverage of the war has captured with harrowing clarity the challenges confronting Ukraine. But this widespread acknowledgement still appears to be obscured behind a wall of political and military assumptions that have not been updated since the latter half of 2022. Too much of the thinking on Ukraine is caught up in refining, adapting, and justifying a dwindling set of tactical measures rather than articulating a realistic end state that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and advances U.S. interests.
More military aid to Ukraine and additional sanctions on Russia are all too often treated as goals in of themselves rather than as instruments used to shape outcomes on the strategic level.
The American experience has always been underwritten by a kind of decentralized techno-optimism enabling a uniquely entrepreneurial, solution-oriented culture which has made the U.S. a global innovation leader. But this technocratic spirit, though a great boon in all manner of commercial and scientific enterprises, can become a major liability in more obscurantist matters of statecraft, geopolitics, and military strategy.
America’s trademark technical prowess, personified by the brashly confident Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, failed to pierce the fog of war in Vietnam because it proceeded from strategically unsound assumptions about the conflict’s broader dynamics and refused to correct course at key junctures.
The variables at play in Ukraine are undoubtedly quite different, but the potential folly — wading knee deep into a protracted conflict without a realistic theory of victory — is much the same, and the stakes are similarly high.
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