Max Boot on Trump, Putin and Blocked Ukraine Aid

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And next to Ukraine. As we’ve mentioned, a much-needed lifeline for the beleaguered nation came from the E.U. today, but no such help from Washington, where congressional Republicans under pressure from Donald Trump are holding up a bipartisan deal on the southern border that’s linked to Ukraine Aid. Our next guest warns this is a dangerous miscalculation. The Washington Post National Security columnist, Max Boot, telling Walter Isaacson that protecting Ukraine also protects the United States and its allies.

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WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. and Max Boot. Welcome back to the show.

MAX BOOT, NATIONAL SECURITY COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Good to be back.

ISAACSON: You know, the Ukraine counteroffensive against Russia this past year seems, to me at least, to be a disappointment. It gathered some territory, but then it was offset. It seems too that this means it could go on for five, 10 more years back and forth like this. Why should Americans continue to pay for this war if it’s not going to be resolved?

BOOT: Well, Walter, I think this war is actually the best investment we have made in our own national security since the end of the Cold War. We’re spending less than 5 percent of our defense budget. And in return, the Ukrainian armed forces are decimating the Russian armed forces. The Russians have lost about two-thirds of their pre-war tank inventory. They have suffered more than 300,000 casualties. So, this is directly decreasing the threat to our NATO allies and to the United States. And it’s also upholding the principles of liberalism, democracy, and the rule of law that we have stood for since World War II. It would set a horrible precedent for the world if Russia were to get away with its unprovoked aggression, that would be a green light for China to attack Taiwan, for North Korea to attack South Korea. We don’t want to live in that kind of world. The Ukrainians are fighting for our values with a small amount of aid. We are helping them to keep their nation intact. And even though their counteroffensive failed, Russia has also failed in its attempt to destroy Ukraine. 80 percent of Ukrainian territory remains in Ukrainian hands. The country continues to function. It’s a liberal democracy. It is very much in our moral and strategic interest to continue helping Ukraine to defend itself without risking a single American soldier.

ISAACSON: And you said, the Russians haven’t been able to capture much territory, the Ukrainians haven’t. We seem almost to be frozen in place within a hundred kilometers of the line we have now. Why can’t we get to a truce or a ceasefire in place?

BOOT: Well, Putin has shown no interest in genuine peace negotiations and a widespread speculation as he is waiting to see if Donald Trump wins the November election. Because Trump is very hostile to Ukraine. Very friendly to Putin. He actually just recently said that he was the apple of Putin’s eye. This is the Republican presidential nominee, soon to be. So, Putin has no incentive to negotiate as long as he thinks that Trump will come along and cut off Ukraine. And in fact, right now — even though it’s Joe Biden in office and not Trump, right now, the Republicans in the House are, in fact, cutting off Ukraine. And so, that takes away any incentive for Putin to make any kind of concessions because he thinks that if he just holds on, he can win this war. And you know, unless there is a change of course in Washington, he may well be proven correct.

ISAACSON: And so, what happens if the Republicans in the House of Representatives don’t approve this mixed aid package? You said at one point that it would — I think you said something like it would make you ashamed to be an American.

BOOT: It would make me ashamed to be American. Cutting off Ukraine right now would be the exact equivalent of cutting off Great Britain from American aid in 1940, when the British were standing alone against the Nazis. And remember, a lot of people wanted to do that, including the Republican Party. They were actually adhering to an America first foreign policy before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, that America first foreign policy is back, and I don’t think that exemplifies the best of America. The best of America is standing for our allies and helping to protect them from unprovoked aggression. And we need to continue doing that. If we don’t do that, Ukraine could very well lose the war. Probably not this year, but certainly within a few years from now. And I think that will leave us ashamed to be Americans and it will — if the Republicans are responsible for cutting off aid to Ukraine, they’re going to have ownership of this geopolitical catastrophe.

ISAACSON: At the moment, the Senate is pretty close to negotiating a deal, Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, many Republican as well as the Democrats, that would tie this aid to border security, to a much stricter southern border with Mexico’s security plan. You wrote, whatever genius in the congressional Republican caucus decided to condition aid to Ukraine on the passage of a comprehensive immigration overhaul deserves a medal, from the Kremlin. Why is it so bad to say, hey, we want to secure our border if we’re going to be paying for a continuation of this war in Ukraine?

BOOT: Well, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to secure our border, but the two situations are not linked. We are not being invaded by the Mexican army. We’re dealing with a lot of migrants at our southern border. That is completely different from the situation that Ukraine is facing with the Russian invasion. And I don’t mind linking the two if it’s possible to get agreement on a border deal. But remember, Walter, there has not been a comprehensive immigration bill passed through Congress since Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s. And now, we’re seeing why it’s so hard to do that because even though Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have made a lot of progress on a compromised bill, Trump is saying that it needs to fail, because essentially, Trump cares more about holding onto the border as an election issue than he cares about actually controlling the issue. And so, the odds are that the House Republican caucus will tank the immigration compromise in the Senate. The question then becomes, what happens to aid to Ukraine? And also, by the way, aid to Israel and Taiwan, is that going to get a separate up or down vote or not? And it’s imperative that Congress delink these two issues so that even if there is gridlock and immigration, Ukraine can’t wait for us to settle our differences. They need aid right now. They are under attack right now. Ukrainians are dying every single day. They need our help desperately.

ISAACSON: You said that Trump looks upon Putin, talks about the apple of my eye. Tell me what you think would happen if Trump is restored to the presidency.

BOOT: I think it would be a catastrophe for America and the world. I think this would really be a return to the pre-Pearl Harbor foreign policy of isolationism that we eschewed after World War II. Every single American president from FDR on has believed that America has to exercise global leadership. The only exception is Donald Trump, who adopts the slogan of America first. That was also used by the isolationist of the pre-Pearl Harbor period. So, it’s very hard to predict exactly what Trump will do because he is mercurial and unpredictable and capable of going off in multiple different, often contradictory directions. But he has been pretty clear about that he is a big fan of Vladimir Putin. He is not a big fan of Zelenskyy or Ukraine. He’s constantly talked about destroying NATO. About taking America out of NATO. He’s even said that he may not defend Taiwan. So, I think all of those things put together should be a very loud alarm bell, that if voters care about exercising American global leadership, if voters care about trying to safeguard the American led global order that is — has existed since 1945, they need to vote for Biden rather than Trump, because Trump has nothing but hostility to the Pax Americana.

ISAACSON: You say that as somebody who I always identified as being, I would say center right, and probably more Republican in your sympathies. So, you now think people should vote for Biden?

BOOT: Of course. I mean, I — you know, to talk about my own history, Walter, I mean, I was a lifelong Republican, foreign policy adviser to John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Marco Rubio. The very first time I ever voted for a Democrat was in 2016 when I voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. But the day after Trump won the election, I re-registered as an independent, because I was not comfortable with where the Republican Party was going, and I’m far less comfortable today than I was in 2016. It’s very alarming to see what was once a conservative party turning into this ethno nationalist populist party of grievance and xenophobia and isolationism. I think for a Trump-led party to come to power would be a catastrophe. Whereas on the other hand, if it was Nikki Haley, I would sleep completely soundly at night, because even though I disagree with Haley on a bunch of things, I don’t think she wants to destroy U.S. democracy. I don’t think she wants to destroy U. S. foreign policy, but Trump, I fear, does.

ISAACSON: You have a biography of Ronald Reagan coming out later this year, partly biography and partly an analysis of all of his policies. And he was, in your book, a very conservative leader. How did the party get diverted or changed by Trump to — from being a conservative party to, I think, you called it ethno nationalist?

BOOT: Right. Ethno nationalist party. I mean, that’s a long story that really dates back to the 1960s. And I think — you know, to sum it up very briefly, I think the Republican Party has always had conservative elements, but it’s also had these ethno nationalist, populist elements, which were a lot of the grassroots. And, you know, up until recently, Republican leaders did not cater to that far right base. They sometimes threw red meat to them during the course of political campaigns, as Ronald Reagan and many others did, but they tended to govern in a much more centrist and responsible fashion, making deals with Democrats and basically upholding U.S. international leadership. Trump is the exception.

ISAACSON: Well, wait. Let’s talk about Reagan then, because what would Reagan be doing in this situation, do you think?

BOOT: I mean, you know, Ronald Reagan was the guy who believed in funding freedom fighters to fight against the evil empire. I mean, it would be a no brainer for him, I think, to support the people of Ukraine in their resistance against Russia. That’s a traditional Republican foreign policy. What Trump is advocating is something very, very different.

ISAACSON: President Biden just cut off new liquefied natural gas, LNG exports from the United States, or new facilities that would do it, or he put it on pause. It seems to me that’s a gift, in some ways, to Putin and a blow to our European allies. What do you make of that?

BOOT: Well, I mean, I think we’re still, you know, pumping more oil and gas today than we ever have in our history and more than any other country ever has, I believe in U.S. history. So, you know, I think Biden needs to find the balancing act between preserving our short-term economic security and doing something about the long-term threat of global warming, and I think that’s the balance he’s trying to seek, but I don’t think this is going to be a huge benefit to Russia because we’re already pumping a lot of oil and the price of oil is already pretty low in the world market. And our sanctions are biting Russia, although not as much as we would like.

ISAACSON: Our sanctions are biting Russia, you say, but Russia’s economy seems to be doing just fine. How come our sanctions aren’t working?

BOOT: Well, it’s — the Russian economy continues to function, but they have very high inflation, much higher than ours. And they’ve basically gone to a military wartime flooding where they’re devoting most of their economy or increasing the large share of their economy. And certainly, most of — you know, most of their government budget to defense production and the military. And you could certainly keep that up —

ISAACSON: But by doing so, they’re being able to produce more munitions than we are. In other words, their ammunition flow and production is higher than what we’re doing for Ukraine. Isn’t this going to be not a pretty sight if this thing keeps going on?

BOOT: Well, they are — I mean, they are certainly managing to rev up their ammunition production, but they’re not able to produce what they need either. I mean, they’re having to buy from Iran and North Korea, the only rogue states that are willing to sell weapons to them. And between the United States and Europe, we are also ramping up our ammunition production, artillery production, all kinds of weapons production. I think we certainly have the — I mean, the U.S. and Europe are many, many times larger than Russia in terms of economies, in terms of population. We certainly have the potential to outproduce the Russian economy. And, I think, certainly keep Ukraine able to defend itself as long as the United States continues to provide the aid that we’ve been providing.

ISAACSON: You’ve also written a book on proxy wars, small wars. And we’re seeing this play out in the Middle East now, just in the past week, three American soldiers killed by, I think — I guess I would say they’re proxy forces in Syria that are somewhat proxies of Iran, and even with Hamas, Hezbollah, and others, they’re partly supported, at least, by Iran, and it seems like a proxy war there. Should we retaliate, we, meaning the United States? Should the U.S. retaliate against Iran or is that something you really don’t do in this type of situations?

BOOT: Well, I think President Biden has to walk a very fine line. I think he does need to retaliate because, you know, I think the Iranian-backed militias crossed a red line by killing three American soldiers, and this is just one of about 160 attacks on U.S. bases in the region since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th. So, I think President Biden does need to retaliate. But at the same time, I think he’s very cognizant that he doesn’t want to get into a war with Iran. That would not be in anybody’s interest. And so, I don’t think he’s going to pay attention to these uber hawks, like Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn, who are saying, you know, bomb Tehran. I think that would be a little bit unhinged and very, very dangerous. But clearly, we need to also send a strong message to Iran that they can’t attack us forces or their proxies can attack U.S. forces with impunity. And so, I’m sure that President Biden and his military and foreign policy advisers are looking at target sets that they can after to send that message to Iran without getting into an escalatory spiral that would produce a massive war that nobody wants.

ISAACSON: Yes, I always think of you as very much a realist in foreign policy, and it seems that these days were violating the grand principle of realism, which is not to fight on too many fronts and not to have our adversaries end up joining together against us. And yet, we’re doing that when we’re pushing against Russia, pushing against China, and now pushing against Iran. And they’re all becoming closer to each other. Do you think we’re making a major strategic error in foreign policy? And if so, should we be opening up to China or Iran, and try to not have our adversaries all grouped against us?

BOOT: Well, you know, I would not actually say that all of our adversaries are grouped against us. There are some overlapping interests between Iran, China, and Russia, but they’re not close allies. And in fact, I think the Biden administration has done a pretty good job over the last year of improving relations with China. And as you can see, China is not providing weapons to Russia in Ukraine. I think that’s hugely important. And China seems to have adopted a somewhat more conciliatory approach to the U.S. and the West, and I think that’s a positive thing. So, I think we should certainly try to ratchet down tensions where we can. It’s hard. You know, there’s no way to ratchet down tensions with Russia as long as they continue to invade an innocent country next door. It’s very hard to ratchet down tensions with Iran as long as their proxies are attacking U.S. forces. Certainly, we should try to avoid getting embroiled in multiple conflicts. But remember, I mean, this is kind of the historic foreign policy of the United States, going back to 1945, is to try to preserve the peace in the key centers of global power, in Europe and East Asia and the Middle East. And so, I think we still have a vital role and indispensable role, as Madeline Albright said, in trying to uphold global order, and that’s not always easy and sometimes dangerous. But I think the far greater danger would be to abandon our internationalist role and retreat into the kind of pre-Pearl Harbor isolationism that Donald Trump seems to advocate.

ISAACSON: Max Boot, thank you so much for joining us.

BOOT: Thank you.