Why Republicans are sceptical about funding Ukraine

When US policy-makers supported Nato expansion in the 1990s, it was widely believed that America, as the sole remaining superpower, could impose its will and leadership across the globe. ‘An American century’, ‘indispensable nation’, ‘the unipolar moment’, ‘benign hegemony’ – these became the new buzz-words of Washington’s political class.

The rhetoric turned bellicose after 9/11, when outrage over the terrorist attacks, together with the mental habits of global supremacy and American exceptionalism, gave US leaders a clear, overriding sense of mission and purpose. Hillary Clinton reflected this notion of the country’s omni-potence as secretary of state in 2010 when she declared that ‘it is in our DNA’ to believe ‘there are no limits on what is possible or what can be achieved’.

However, the lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan – not to mention Libya, Syria and now Ukraine – is that, as powerful as the US is, international politics imposes very real limits on its power and influence, and that aspirations should match resources. All the more so at a time when the US spends only around 3 per cent of its GDP on defence – it spent 6 per cent during the Reagan years – and interest payments on the national debt will soon surpass defence spending.

Call it the Walter Lippmann rule after the distinguished 20th-century intellectual, who emphasised the need to make sure that ends and means are in balance: a point often lost on Washington bureaucrats and thinktankers. By wilfully ignoring this principle, US foreign-policy establishment types have opened a huge gap between America’s global pretensions and its ability to finance them.

The Lippmann rule probably did not inspire Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ mantra, but it is (of all people) the former president, supported by many congressional Republicans, who instinctively recognises the limits to power.