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Midterms and Foreign Policy: Blank Check for More War in Ukraine?

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Reuters reports: “Ukraine expects $4.8 bln in external financing in November — finance minister.”

MELVIN GOODMAN, goody789@verizon.net
Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. He was an analyst at the CIA for 24 years. His books include Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider’s Account of the Politics of Intelligence and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism.

He just wrote the piece “The Midterm Elections And American Foreign Policy,” which states: “The midterms will affect Biden’s agenda for Ukraine, particularly the ability to continue the current pace of military assistance to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Since the war began nearly nine months ago, the Biden administration has authorized and the Congress has approved more than $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. McCarthy has already stated that a Republican-led House would be unwilling to approve ‘blank check’ assistance to Ukraine. …

“Continuing the war could lead to an expanded conflict that involves the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), particularly the United States, and could lead to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. ….

“It is time to talk. Ironically, it is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who has been the most outspoken about getting to the negotiating table. It is wrong for the military adviser to the president to go public with policy advocacy, but in this case his ideas deserve a sounding within the National Security Council.

“The Biden administration also must reassess the twin pillars of U.S. policy in the Middle East since the 1940s: Israel and Saudi Arabia. …

“Two decades of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan should have led to a period of soul-searching; instead we are dealing with the madness of the dual containment of Russia and China.”