The United States, after months of delay, sent $95 billion in military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Much of the holdup, apparently, was to virtue signal about U.S. border issues. Any Republicans who truly wished to scrutinize the aid package should have better examined the recent behavior of the recipients and then questioned whether it might be contrary to U.S. security interests.
At first, congressional Republicans held up the aid to seek more border security funding. When the Biden administration agreed to much of what they wanted, Republicans continued delaying because Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump preferred to keep border security as an election issue. Eventually, House Speaker Mike Johnson allowed a vote on the bill without border concessions.
Meanwhile, contrary to U.S. wishes, Ukraine is now using drones to attack oil facilities deep in Russia. Although they’ve so far avoided triggering a major increase in world oil prices by striking refineries (so that Russia has to export more crude oil), this nevertheless should have led to more caution about providing other long-range weapons. It did not, as the United States recently sent a longer-range version of........