As Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio enters the race for the White House as Donald Trump’s running mate, divisions are growing within the Republican Party over the U.S. foreign posture, particularly with regard to countering Russia.
The call to halt military aid to Ukraine reflects fundamental divisions within the party and a shift away from the Republican Party’s longstanding neocon foreign policy approach, which previously leaned heavily toward interventionist strategies.
Ronald Reagan famously advocated a “peace through strength” approach that relied on military force to maintain global stability, a policy that was adhered to by both the Bush and Bush administrations.
But the policies implemented by Republican leaders from the 1980s through the early 2000s encouraged the rise of a different approach within the Republican Party that had not been widely adopted since before World War II: isolationism.
Ronald Reagan famously challenged Mikhail Gorbachev on June 12, 1987, to bring down the Berlin Wall. (Getty Images)
Trump urges Europe to provide more aid to Ukraine, insists war with Russia never happened during his term
“I think this is a repudiation,” Victoria Coats, Trump’s former deputy national security adviser, told Fox News Digital, pointing to decades of wars in the Middle East. “It’s a repudiation of traditional establishment neoconservative positions that support military intervention to promote democracy.”
“I don’t think that was a winning formula,” she said, noting that many Republicans today, including Vance, agree.
In a speech at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Government in May, Vance made clear there are deep divisions within the Republican Party on foreign policy.
“We really have to move away from worn-out slogans,” Vance said. “Look at the past 40 years of American foreign policy and the disaster and the real results.”
“I think people are afraid to confront new arguments because they are afraid to confront their own failures over the past 40 years.”
In his speech, Vance made special mention of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a staunch supporter of Ukraine who joined the Senate in 1984, the year Vance was born.
“Almost every foreign policy position he’s taken has actually been wrong,” Vance argued.
Pressure from some Republicans to withdraw aid to Ukraine led to a six-month halt in military supplies to the war-torn country, highlighting how dependent Kiev is on the United States in its fight against Russia.
Former Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance applaud during the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (Reuters/Callahan O’Hare)
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While many Republicans see a Ukrainian victory over Moscow as a vital U.S. security interest, Vance and Trump also see it as a burden that Europe must bear.
Under President Trump, threats to cut off aid to Ukraine have caused anxiety among NATO allies, fuelling speculation that European security and even the alliance itself could be at risk.
Headlines this week have described “worrying,” “unsettling” and “nightmare” scenarios for Ukraine as Vance has spoken out against continued aid to Kiev and argued for a tougher stance on standing up to China.
“I believe we should end our support for the conflict in Ukraine,” Vance said in May. “I don’t believe it’s in the interest of the United States to continue to fund a war in Ukraine that is virtually never-ending.”
“My second criticism of the Ukraine war and our approach to it is that we are subsidizing European countries to do nothing.”
Ukrainian soldiers rest in their positions after fighting as Russia continues its offensive against Ukraine, near Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, May 11, 2023. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhiy Nuzhnenko via Reuters)
President Trump began by pushing NATO allies to meet their 2006 defense spending commitments, and as a result of the war in Ukraine, 23 of the 32 countries are now meeting the 2% of GDP threshold.
Not only have they met their targets, but some have begun contributing amounts far in excess of their original pledges: Poland has contributed 4.12 percent, Estonia, the United States, Latvia and Greece have all contributed more than 3 percent, and Lithuania has contributed 2.85 percent.
Despite progress in international defense efforts, there are fundamental divisions within the Republican Party regarding the U.S. relationship with NATO.
“They’ve done a great job, which is great,” said Coates, vice president of the Katherine Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation. “Unfortunately, they’re not big enough to actually make a difference.”
“We need economic powerhouses,” she added, pointing to Canada, the world’s 10th-largest economy, which still spends just 1.37 percent of its GDP on defense. “We can’t continue like this.”
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In this photo released by the German federal government, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center) talks with President Trump, seated to her right, during the G7 summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada, on June 9, 2018. (Jesko Denzel/German Federal Government via The Associated Press)
Experts agree that Trump is unlikely to withdraw from the NATO alliance entirely, but there are concerns he could weaken it by cutting aid to Ukraine or withdrawing US troops from Europe.
But while Vance argues that “the US cannot do everything” and should focus on the threat from China, Hal Brands, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC, argues that things are not that simple.
“The U.S.-China competition is not just a regional competition. It’s a global competition,” he said. “It also involves issues like control of advanced technology and the balance of military power.”
Brand, who is also the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, argued that the United States needs to maintain ties with Europe in order to use its influence to “cut off China’s access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing.”
“Even if we consider China a top U.S. policy priority, negotiations with China will not be effective without some degree of leverage that the transatlantic relationship provides,” he added.
There is growing concern among Republicans who advocate a broader U.S. international presence that it could lead to growing isolationism and pose a security threat.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands in Moscow, Russia, March 21, 2023. (Xie Huanzhi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“It’s all too easy to just assume that Europe will be fine if the U.S. leaves, but history actually does little to support that idea,” Brands said. “The tendency to distance oneself from the problems of other regions has been around for a long time, even before World War II.”
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It has long been argued that American reluctance to become involved in European affairs in the run-up to World War II allowed Adolf Hitler to carry out his ambitions with little check from the United States or its allies, Britain and France, ultimately causing great harm to the Allies.
“President Trump has said the United States should not get involved in Ukraine. There is an ocean between America and Europe.And it’s very reminiscent of the American involvement we heard from anti-interventionists in the 1930s.”
Vance rejects the “isolationist” label, saying in a speech at the Quincy Institute that he is “against sending money to other countries that we don’t have, or borrowing to send money to other countries, but to me that’s not isolationism.”
“It’s just fiscal conservatism.”
