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This week at Hudson, Taiwan Legislative Yuan President You Si-kun said that international unity against Russian aggression deters Xi Jinping “from taking any reckless action,” echoing Hudson Distinguished Fellow Michael R. Pompeo’s comment that “the least costly way to move forward is to provide the Ukrainians with what they need now.”

Leading up to this weekend’s G7 meetings, Pompeo sat down with Center on Europe and Eurasia Director Peter Rough to discuss why aid to Ukraine is vital to the American national interest. Senator Ted Cruz also made the case that the Biden administration’s failure to deter Iran from aiding Russia harms global security in an event with Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East Director Michael Doran.

Key Insights

1. Aiding Ukraine puts America first. 

I completely get the fact that we should always put American interests first. . . . this impulse that underappreciates the benefits of American leadership in the world is buried in a faction of our conservative movement, and I think that's actually fine. What's not fine is misunderstanding and just counting the costs. So I don't know, $25, $30 billion of American equipment provided to the Ukrainians today. It's not nothing, that's real money for sure. The costs, had we not done that, would be multiples of that. And the cost of failure, the cost of Vladimir Putin sitting, not just in Kyiv, but in Warsaw, would be staggeringly bad for Americans, for every American family.

— Michael R. Pompeo

2.  The US and its NATO allies have the power to end the war.

I wish today we were providing real equipment, not just, “Here's a Patriot system. Here are seven HIMARS. Here's two and a half training crews. Here's a little bit of intelligence.” We should provide crushing [military aid] . . . We should end this thing. We have the capacity to provide them with the tools to stop the death of Ukrainian civilians. And instead, this drags on.

— Michael R. Pompeo

3. The Biden administration prioritizes reentering the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action over Ukrainian lives. 

I don't doubt that many people in the Biden administration want Ukraine to win this war. But even more so, they want to enter another nuclear deal with Iran. Those two interests are in direct conflict. And although Democrats now ostentatiously wear their Ukrainian pins on their lapels, the administration repeatedly declined to provide the lethal weaponry to enable Ukraine to prevail in the war, and simultaneously has been funding both sides of the war, has been flooding billions of dollars into Iran that goes into drones that the Russians use to kill Ukrainians. This is madness.

— Ted Cruz

4. Victory in Ukraine helps to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. 

I will yield to no one in the vigor with which we should stand up to China. But I'm here to tell you what happens in Ukraine matters intensely for China, and in particular for Taiwan. First year of the Biden administration, we saw Biden's catastrophic surrender to the Taliban and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving Americans behind, leaving our allies behind, utter incompetence. And every enemy of America watched what happened there very closely. At the time, I said, “The chances of Russia invading Ukraine have just risen tenfold.” At the time, I said, “The chances of China invading Taiwan have risen tenfold.”

— Ted Cruz

Quotes may be edited for clarity and length. 

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