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Andrew Harnik

U.S. allies had a collective freakout earlier this year when aid to Ukraine was stalled in Congress and former president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> threatened to let Russia “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/10/trump-nato-allies-russia/" target=_blank>do whatever the hell they want</a>” to NATO members that did not pay enough for their own defense.<b> </b>A European diplomat told me in March, “It is scary and should be scary.” After all, Europe had not faced the prospect of defending itself without significant help from the United States since 1945.

The passage of the $61 billion Ukraine aid bill in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2024/04/20/ukraine-israel-border-funding-house-vote/" target="_blank">both the House</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2024/04/23/senate-vote-tiktok-ban-ukraine-israel-aid/" target="_blank">Senate by large margins</a> should serve to soothe frayed nerves among U.S. allies — and not only in Europe. South Korea, Taiwan and Japan have also made clear that they are <a href="https://www.economist.com/asia/2024/03/07/what-the-war-in-ukraine-means-for-asia" target="_blank">very concerned</a> about the precedent that would be set if Russia were allowed to get away with unprovoked aggression. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergisspoke for many relieved allies when <a href="https://x.com/GLandsbergis/status/1781775190847877617" target="_blank">he wrote on X</a> after the House vote: “Historic decisions change history. Good to have you back, America.”

But is America back for good or only for now? There is no way to answer that question with any degree of confidence. And that, in turn, should give U.S. allies pause about whether they can still count on the United States.

While overwhelming majorities of both houses wound up backing aid to Ukraine, narrow majorities of Republicans opposed the bill <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2024/04/20/ukraine-israel-border-funding-house-vote/" target="_blank">in the House</a> and in the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/politics/senate-vote-foreign-aid-ukraine-israel-dg/index.html" target="_blank">first Senate vote</a> in February. (A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2024/04/23/senate-vote-tiktok-ban-ukraine-israel-aid/" target="_blank">clear majority of the Senate Republicans</a> approved the House bill last week when its passage was a foregone conclusion.)

Things might have worked out differently if House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had not discovered his inner <a href="https://www.senate.gov/senators/FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_Vandenberg.htm" target=_blank>Arthur Vandenberg</a>, channeling the Michigan Republican senator who turned from prewar isolationist into a leading supporter of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and NATO in the late 1940s. Imagine if hard-right Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who voted against Ukraine aid, were speaker; he might have prevented the bill from getting a floor vote, and Ukraine might have lost the war this year. Even in the Senate, there is cause for concern: Many of the GOP supporters of Ukraine aid are in the old guard led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), while younger, Trumpier Republicans such as J.D. Vance (Ohio) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) oppose it.

Agonizing as it was to get Ukraine aid through Congress, the $61 billion is likely to run out by the end of the year. That means another bill will be necessary in early 2025. If Trump wins in November, it is extremely unlikely that he will support such legislation. He keeps saying he would end the war <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/15/trump-peace-plan-ukraine-defeat/" target=_blank>in 24 hours</a>, which is widely assumed to imply that he will cut off Ukraine to force it to accept a lopsided deal that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has no intention of honoring. The U.S. presidential election could determine Ukraine’s fate — and Trump could easily win that election. Even if he doesn’t, aid to Ukraine will still be in jeopardy if Republicans control either house of Congress.

U.S. <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2024/04/south-korea-tries-to-trump-proof-the-alliance/" target=_blank>allies from Asia</a> to <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-debate/20240403-trump-proof-for-nato-alliance-looks-to-take-over-us-led-efforts-to-arm-ukraine" target=_blank>Europe are talking</a> about how to “Trump-proof” their alliances, but that will be very hard to do, given the carte blanche that U.S. presidents receive in foreign affairs. Congress did pass legislation to make it difficult for a president to pull out of NATO <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/politics/congress-trump-nato-what-matters/index.html" target=_blank>without congressional authorization</a>, but Trump wouldn’t have to formally leave the alliance to destroy it, as he could simply announce that he won’t defend deadbeat allies. That is, in fact, what Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/13/bolton-trump-2024-nato-00141160" target=_blank>predicts would happen</a> if the disgraced former president returns to office.

For decades, while there were sharp disagreements over specific foreign interventions such as the Vietnam and Iraq wars, there was an underlying, bipartisan consensus in U.S. politics that internationalism was in America’s interest. Between 1942 and 2016, right-wing isolationists had been almost entirely sidelined in U.S. politics, notwithstanding a brief outbreak of “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/george-mcgovern-come-home-america-july-4/" target=_blank>Come home, America</a>” isolationism on the left in the 1970s.

That has now changed, with Trump showing that it is hardly harmful — and may, in fact, be helpful — for a leading Republican politician to rail against U.S. allies and U.S. commitments overseas. Trump has single-handedly revived the phrase “America First,” which had been in well-deserved obloquy since Dec. 7, 1941. There are, alas, plenty of ambitious opportunists, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who are all too willing to abandon whatever Reaganite foreign policy principles they might once have possessed to pursue the political rewards of neo-isolationist positions like opposing aid to Ukraine.

So U.S. allies will have to make contingency plans on the assumption that America may no longer be there for them in the future. Indeed, that is already occurring: Canada and the European members of NATO raised their defense spending by <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_222664.htm" target="_blank">11 percent in 2023</a>, and Japan is raising its defense spending by <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/12/japan-approves-16-5-increase-in-defense-spending-for-fy2024/" target="_blank">16.5 percent</a> this year. But this may be only the start of a long-term shift away from the United States, with countries from <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2024/03/germany-debates-nuclear-weapons-again-but-now-its-different/" target="_blank">Germany</a> to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-south-korea-nuclear-arms-race-543e85e5e6832c50ba9dc26a91ef071b" target="_blank">South Korea</a> debating whether they can still count on the U.S. nuclear umbrella or whether they need to acquire their own nukes.

While it’s not necessary for U.S. allies to go nuclear quite yet, it is vitally important that they do more to strengthen their multilateral defense ties to be less dependent on the whims of Washington. In the cases of Japan and South Korea, that means continuing to enhance their nascent military and intelligence ties in the face of growing threats from China and North Korea. In the case of Europe, that means not only continuing to raise defense spending — the target should be the Cold War standard of <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/without-eu-rearmament-nato-set-itself-failure-war-ukraine/" target=_blank>3 to 5 percent</a> of GDP, not the current goal of 2 percent — but also deepening cooperation on both defense production and military operations.

The European Union took an important step forward in March by unveiling its first <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2024/03/08/understanding-eu-s-new-defense-industrial-strategy-pub-91937" target="_blank">defense industrial strategy</a>, but much more needs to be done. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/transforming-european-defense" target="_blank">noted in 2022</a>, “European armed forces suffer major redundancies, with 29 different types of destroyers, 17 types of main battle tanks, and 20 types of fighter planes, as compared to four, one, and six, respectively, for the United States.” European countries have always been too jealous of their own sovereignty to do more to pool their defense resources, but now — facing what one former European diplomat described to me as “the twin threats of Putin and Trump” — it’s time to prioritize survival over national sovereignty. As French President Emmanuel Macron <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/macron-on-europes-defense-we-are-not-equipped-to-face-the-risks/" target="_blank">said on Thursday</a>: “There is a risk our Europe could die. We are not equipped to face the risks.”

U.S. allies from Europe and Asia will be making a major mistake if they take the passage of the Ukraine aid bill as a signal that they don’t need to pursue greater strategic autonomy. They would be well advised to act as though the United States were, in fact, turning its back on the world — because there is a very real risk that could still happen.

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography, 2019

Named one of America's "Great Immigrants" by the Carnegie Corp., 2019

Named one of the 50 most influential Jewish Americans by the Forward, 2018

Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism, 2007

Named one the 50 most influential Americans in foreign policy by the World Affairs Council of America, 2004

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The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right

University of California at Berkeley, BA in history

Yale University, MA in history

Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in biography, he is the author of the forthcoming “Reagan: His Life and Legend.”

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The Ukraine aid vote helps, but U.S. allies’ complacency would be unwise

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