By Greg Sargent
Columnist
Today at 11:32 a.m. EDT
Listen to article
4 min
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wrenching speech to Congress on Wednesday artfully combined lavish praise for the U.S. response to the Russian invasion with emotional appeals for more assistance that were carefully aimed at firing up the collective U.S. conscience.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
Zelensky invoked many touchstones in the positive story the United States tells itself about its triumphs over adversity and progression toward realizing its founding ideals — Pearl Harbor, Martin Luther King Jr., Sept. 11 — to persuade Americans that the Ukrainian freedom struggle is our freedom struggle.
In perhaps the most powerful moment, Zelensky aired video of the horrors Russia is inflicting on the Ukrainian people, followed by the stark words: “Close the sky over Ukraine.” Addressing President Biden directly in halting English, Zelensky said: “Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.”
In so doing, Zelensky reiterated his call for the United States and its allies to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, and again demanded new shipments of fighter jets, which the administration has been reluctant to deliver.
This is already being portrayed as an effort to shame Biden into plunging deeper into the conflict. But in a way, both men are right.
Zelensky is unquestionably right that the United States and its allies could do more. Yet Biden is also right to be proceeding with extreme caution, and media coverage that obscures the complexities of that calculus is not exactly enhancing the long term prospects for humanity.
“It was heartbreaking,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told me of Zelensky’s speech. “I don’t know how any member of Congress walks out of there without thinking about what more the United States can do.”
Zelensky’s dramatic elevation of the stakes is “not hyperbole,” Murphy said. “This is the most significant challenge to the post-World War II order in our lifetimes, and we should treat it that way."
Yet Murphy noted a complication. On one hand, Zelensky should demand as much military aid as possible, Murphy said, because “he has an obligation” to press the United States and its allies to “make the maximalist commitment to save his country.”
On the other, Murphy pointed out, “it’s not in the world’s best interests for this conflict to spill over into a European-wide war," or to see “direct conflict between the United States and Russia for the first time in history.”
The Biden administration has argued that Zelensky’s requests — for a no-fly zone and Polish jet fighters — risk being seen as overt acts of war against Russia. U.S. intelligence warns of “Russian escalation against NATO” and a “high risk scenario.”
Despite Zelensky’s speech, Murphy says, a no-fly zone will likely continue to be a nonstarter for both parties. “A no-fly zone is the United States declaring war against Russia,” Murphy told me.
Murphy also argued that the administration, having managed the crisis exceptionally so far, should be given the benefit of the doubt on which weapons to supply. But he suggested Zelensky’s speech would encourage lawmakers to “outflank the president” in calls for military aid.
“I don’t think that’s a helpful dynamic to Ukraine or the world,” Murphy said. The administration is announcing $1 billion in new assistance to Ukraine, but calls for more will grow louder.
Here’s the larger context. At a time when the United States and its allies are attempting a fiendishly difficult balance — between aiding Ukraine and inflicting sanctions on Russia without provoking World War III — the pressure on Biden to overreach is intense from the media, from Republicans and from certain foreign policy voices.
Media questioning of the White House is largely posed from a hawkish direction. As a darkly comic video posted by the Intercept shows, much reporter questioning demands to know why Biden hasn’t agreed to Ukrainian demands for a no-fly zone and other weaponry.
In some cases, questions echo GOP talking points: One reporter asked whether Biden is “showing enough strength against Putin.” Similarly, a New York Times piece intoned that if Biden doesn’t honor Zelensky’s demands, it could open him up to GOP charges that he’s “soft on Russia” and treated that argument respectfully.
This sort of thing lets Republicans get away with calling for more “toughness” without accounting for the obvious world-historical downside risks of too much “toughness.” This effectively launders bad-faith posturing and confuses the debate with simplistic framing rather than illuminating its complexities and trade-offs.
Max Bergmann, a foreign policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, points out that this “irresponsible” bias toward hawkishness reflects how much memories of the Cold War have faded.
“The concept of a potential nuclear escalation is foreign to everybody,” Bergmann told me. This makes it easier, he said, for the media and analysts to “argue that the U.S. should militarily intervene."
Now, Bergmann said, “we have to be very nervous about how this could escalate.” Bergmann noted that twin assumptions animating much current discourse — Putin is “a madman,” yet we can somehow escalate without him using nuclear weapons — is “absurd.”
Biden may be uniquely equipped for this moment, as someone who “experienced the Cold War," Bergmann said. "That’s when he became a senator.”
A great deal is riding on that being right. To the degree that the administration and lawmakers avoid letting pressure color decision-making, it can only be all the better.
Columnist
Today at 11:32 a.m. EDT
Listen to article
4 min
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wrenching speech to Congress on Wednesday artfully combined lavish praise for the U.S. response to the Russian invasion with emotional appeals for more assistance that were carefully aimed at firing up the collective U.S. conscience.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
Zelensky invoked many touchstones in the positive story the United States tells itself about its triumphs over adversity and progression toward realizing its founding ideals — Pearl Harbor, Martin Luther King Jr., Sept. 11 — to persuade Americans that the Ukrainian freedom struggle is our freedom struggle.
In perhaps the most powerful moment, Zelensky aired video of the horrors Russia is inflicting on the Ukrainian people, followed by the stark words: “Close the sky over Ukraine.” Addressing President Biden directly in halting English, Zelensky said: “Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.”
In so doing, Zelensky reiterated his call for the United States and its allies to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, and again demanded new shipments of fighter jets, which the administration has been reluctant to deliver.
This is already being portrayed as an effort to shame Biden into plunging deeper into the conflict. But in a way, both men are right.
Zelensky is unquestionably right that the United States and its allies could do more. Yet Biden is also right to be proceeding with extreme caution, and media coverage that obscures the complexities of that calculus is not exactly enhancing the long term prospects for humanity.
“It was heartbreaking,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told me of Zelensky’s speech. “I don’t know how any member of Congress walks out of there without thinking about what more the United States can do.”
Zelensky’s dramatic elevation of the stakes is “not hyperbole,” Murphy said. “This is the most significant challenge to the post-World War II order in our lifetimes, and we should treat it that way."
Yet Murphy noted a complication. On one hand, Zelensky should demand as much military aid as possible, Murphy said, because “he has an obligation” to press the United States and its allies to “make the maximalist commitment to save his country.”
On the other, Murphy pointed out, “it’s not in the world’s best interests for this conflict to spill over into a European-wide war," or to see “direct conflict between the United States and Russia for the first time in history.”
The Biden administration has argued that Zelensky’s requests — for a no-fly zone and Polish jet fighters — risk being seen as overt acts of war against Russia. U.S. intelligence warns of “Russian escalation against NATO” and a “high risk scenario.”
Despite Zelensky’s speech, Murphy says, a no-fly zone will likely continue to be a nonstarter for both parties. “A no-fly zone is the United States declaring war against Russia,” Murphy told me.
Murphy also argued that the administration, having managed the crisis exceptionally so far, should be given the benefit of the doubt on which weapons to supply. But he suggested Zelensky’s speech would encourage lawmakers to “outflank the president” in calls for military aid.
“I don’t think that’s a helpful dynamic to Ukraine or the world,” Murphy said. The administration is announcing $1 billion in new assistance to Ukraine, but calls for more will grow louder.
Here’s the larger context. At a time when the United States and its allies are attempting a fiendishly difficult balance — between aiding Ukraine and inflicting sanctions on Russia without provoking World War III — the pressure on Biden to overreach is intense from the media, from Republicans and from certain foreign policy voices.
Media questioning of the White House is largely posed from a hawkish direction. As a darkly comic video posted by the Intercept shows, much reporter questioning demands to know why Biden hasn’t agreed to Ukrainian demands for a no-fly zone and other weaponry.
In some cases, questions echo GOP talking points: One reporter asked whether Biden is “showing enough strength against Putin.” Similarly, a New York Times piece intoned that if Biden doesn’t honor Zelensky’s demands, it could open him up to GOP charges that he’s “soft on Russia” and treated that argument respectfully.
This sort of thing lets Republicans get away with calling for more “toughness” without accounting for the obvious world-historical downside risks of too much “toughness.” This effectively launders bad-faith posturing and confuses the debate with simplistic framing rather than illuminating its complexities and trade-offs.
Max Bergmann, a foreign policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, points out that this “irresponsible” bias toward hawkishness reflects how much memories of the Cold War have faded.
“The concept of a potential nuclear escalation is foreign to everybody,” Bergmann told me. This makes it easier, he said, for the media and analysts to “argue that the U.S. should militarily intervene."
Now, Bergmann said, “we have to be very nervous about how this could escalate.” Bergmann noted that twin assumptions animating much current discourse — Putin is “a madman,” yet we can somehow escalate without him using nuclear weapons — is “absurd.”
Biden may be uniquely equipped for this moment, as someone who “experienced the Cold War," Bergmann said. "That’s when he became a senator.”
A great deal is riding on that being right. To the degree that the administration and lawmakers avoid letting pressure color decision-making, it can only be all the better.
