Trump’s Ukraine weapons freeze is GOP
coalition management
The U.S. can’t meet all its global
commitments, and Trump is making political choices accordingly.
Jason Willick 4 July 2025
A few weeks ago, President Donald Trump devastated the anti-interventionists in his political base by not only condoning Israel’s assault on Iran but also ultimately joining with the U.S. Air Force. Traditional Republican advocates of muscular foreign policy exulted. But this week, Trump disappointed hawks by freezing shipments of key weapons to a different American ally, Ukraine, as it resists Russia’s invasion.
On their face, the two policies seem inconsistent. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin. The central challenge in American foreign policy today is that Washington’s defense commitments around the world exceed its military power. This is known as the “Lippmann gap,” for journalist Walter Lippmann, who popularized the concept in 1943.
The Lippmann gap pressures presidents to make trade-offs between competing foreign policy priorities. If they don’t, the gap will grow. For Trump, backing Israel to the hilt while leaving Ukraine more exposed has a clear — if brutal — political and strategic appeal.
The Pentagon might have frozen certain weapons shipments to Ukraine even if the Israel-Iran conflict hadn’t happened. But the proximity of the decisions underscores that conflicts in different regions can draw resources away from one another. The most precious commodity is air defense — the ability to shoot down incoming aircraft and missiles.
The Pentagon is reportedly halting the delivery of Patriot missiles to Ukraine, which relies on the U.S.-made weapons to defend its cities from Russian aerial attacks…..”
The Article goes on to explain the reason for making this tradeoff decision and you can read the WaPo article in its entirety at this link:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/04/ukraine-weapons-freeze-trump-israel/
The Old Colonel strongly disagrees with the Trump decision to stop or even to cut back on weapons shipments to the Ukraine, especially after we’ve already made an almost 80 year and multi-Trillion dollar investment in neutering first the old Soviet Union and now Russia. Now that we’ve got our surrogate Ukraine seriously reducing Russia as a threat to us, it’s NOT the time to let up on them. Hence, when the Old Colonel read this WaPo article, he immediately posted this below comment in the article’s comment section. The WaPo did have the good sense to make it one of the featured comments for the article.
The Old Colonel’s Washington Post Comment:
From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to now the United States has allocated $182.8 Billion in emergency funding for the region but has actually only disbursed $83.4 Billion in funding and equipment, some of which Ukraine will have to repay with added interest. When you consider the US spent $8 to $9 Trillion (with a “T” that doesn’t account for inflation) countering Russia/USSR during the Cold War, then the modest $83.4 Billion we’ve provided the Ukraine so far is pocket change. For that mere $83.4 Billion we have reduced the Russians to a fifth rate military power if you don’t count Nucs and even needing help from North Korea. What’s not to like? Estimates are we may eventually spend maybe ~$200B and that’s still a bargain. Personally, I’m in favor of continuing the fight to the last Ukrainian and I’m even in favor of having them begin a fight with China and maybe Iran and North Korea to decimate them too.
All that said, I do believe that former
CJCS GEN Milley pegged it right from the beginning that neither the Russians or
Ukrainians are going to win this and the only resolution will be negotiated.
Putin isn’t going to give in and lose face no matter what it takes and the
Ukrainians have slowed them down but will never defeat Russia. I think in the
end the Russians will keep Crimea and maybe a sliver of Eastern Ukraine. As for
Crimea, it was really historically part of Mother Russia and the USSR put it
under the Ukraine in about 1954 for ease of administration back when the
Ukraine was as much a part of the USSR as California is part of the US so they
will never give Crimea back.
Of emergency aid for Ukraine since 2022, Congress has allocated but NOT spent the following resources to the cause:
·
68% ($123.9
billion) to the Department of
Defense (DOD)
·
22% ($39.9 billion)
to the US Agency for
International Development (USAID)
·
6% ($11.6 billion)
to the State Department
·
4% ($7.4 billion)
to other agencies including the International Development Finance Corporation, Department of Health
and Human Services, Treasury,
and Department of Energy
