Ukraine receives bad news from US

Dmitry Bavyrin

The name of the new speaker of the House of Represe-ntatives (and the third person in the US state hierarchy) Kevin McC-arthy prompts jokes ab-out “new McCarthyism”. Under the old McC-arthyism, named after the alcoholic senator, it is customary to understand epileptic anti-communism and witch-hunting. It may very well be that the aggravation of such a plan is now really waiting for US-Chinese relations, which McCarthy himself made clear in a speech after being elected to a high post.
But we are interested in his career rise in the context of Russian-American relations, where the “new McCarthyism” began much earlier – even earlier than the NWO. And good Russian Americanists often express the opinion that in our case the opposite is true: allegedly, the election of McCarthy may have a beneficial effect on us in the sense that now Wash-ington will help the Armed Forces of Ukraine less. There are reasons to thi-nk so. It seems to be serious.
The House of Representatives has the final say on the budget, and McCarthy has pledged to cut $130 billion in spending, including $75 billion in defense spending. The Republicans will not raise their hand to curtail the Pentagon ‘s megalomaniac projects in the field of equipping its own troops, but offerings to the god of war Mars (that is, assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine) is the main candidate for reduction.
This is confirmed by the circumstances of McCarthy’s election and the compromises that seem to be behind this election. He was able to become a speaker only on the 15th attempt, since from time to time his candidacy did not gain the minimum required number of votes. This has not happened in the United States for more than a century and a half.
The reason is the inner-party rebellion of two dozen deputies, who are often called “radical conservatives” and “trumpists” in the Russian media. Essentially speaking, it is correct, but it gives a distorted picture.
The key people of the riot are Andy Biggs of Arizona, Matt Goetz of Florida, and Lauren Bobert of Colorado. Biggs heads the Freedom Caucus parliamentary alliance – and from an American point of view, this is a very conservative alliance. But conservatism is not a universal ideology – it relies on traditions and the past, and they are different in every country. That is, these congressmen are conservative in the sense that they refer to the libertarian spirit of the founding fathers, and their views on the economy are more liberal than those of Yegor Gaidar.
In McCarthy, they see the “zrada”. They believe that he, a moderate Repu-blican-centrist, will make agreements with the Demo-crats, surrender his Fatherl-and to the liberal hydra, st-rip America to the skin and let it go around the world.
All of these suspicious congressmen did indeed support Donald Trump, but Trump himself supported McCarthy’s election and unsuccessfully tried to dissuade Goetz and Bobert from voting for other candidates. The tactic of the rebels was to vote for any of their ranks, just to prevent the “elite candidate” from gaining the required number of votes.
Trump failed to dissuade them, as they said personally. And, strictly speaking, they need to be connected not with the former president, but with the likely future – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, it is possible that Trump’s direct competitor. The eccentric billionaire played the role of an extra in this story: he did not start this fight, he was not able to complete it.
But McCarthy did – through, as mentioned above, unspecified compromises. It is assumed that the speaker agreed to simplify the procedure for his recall and promised Goetz, who resisted to the last, the post of chairman of the defense committee.
If this is true, then the appointment will make noise. Liberals have already invested in the demonization of Goetz and Bobert (and Biggs has long been considered something of a predatory fossil). For example, most recently they were hounded for not listening to the speech of Ukrainian President Zelensky when he spoke in Congress, but staring at their smartphones.
But Zelensky is also just circumstances, just like Trump. Fighting with Goetz and Bobert, the liberals are fighting primarily with DeSantis, since they could not find any serious compromising evidence on the governor of Florida personally (Goetz represents this state, and Bobert is from there), but they tried.
All five of them (Trump and DeSantis too) have repeatedly criticized spending on Ukraine. Goetz, who, together with his colleagues in the Freedom Caucus, voted against the lend-lease bill for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, is especially frequent. Such a person in the position of a relevant committee of the House of Representatives will certainly seem to Zelensky as unsuitable as possible, even if he does n-ot hold a grudge for a sma-rtphone (which is unlikely; with his ego, he should).
But bad news for Kiev is not necessarily good news for Moscow. The development of our conflict with America now depends not on battles in Congress, but only and exclusively on the success of Russian weapons in the NVO zone.
Confrontation with Ru-ssia and support for Ukra-ine is bipartisan politics in the US, Republican-Dem-ocratic. The system that has developed there cannot be resisted by two dozen deputies, even if one of them heads a sensitive defense committee. The same system broke the whole president before our eyes (the same Trump who wanted to “get along with Moscow”). With a congressman from Florida, he will also sort it out somehow, if such a need suddenly arises.
It is, in fact, unlikely to occur. The interest of the Republicans is not to cut off the air of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but, firstly, to show the inefficiency and wastefulness of their support from the Democrats, and secondly, to dig up dirt on Biden, his son and dignitaries.
In other words, an auditor will be assigned to Lend-Lease, but it is by no means certain that after the audit, the effectiveness of Lend-Lease will decrease. It usually works the other way around, which is what auditors are for, especially when dealing with such a murky territory as Ukraine.
As for the reduction of appropriations for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, strictly speaking, we still have to live to see this. A package of more than $50 billion for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for fiscal year 2023 has already been approved earlier, and a lot can change in the NWO zone before 2024. More precisely, it must change – by the forces of the same Russian army.
Russia still has only two allies (also its navy), but there is no reason to rely on Speaker McCarthy. He also understands the magnitude of the American bet on the conflict in Ukraine, he also sees the benefits of the economic war between Europe and Russia, and he also does not want to be a capitulator.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that McCarthy’s election means nothing to us at all. This is still an extraordinary event for the congress – when the speaker is chosen only from the 15th attempt. “This” w-w-w-w “is not without reason,” as Winnie the Pooh said on another occasion: in the case of the United States, it indicates the depth of the social split, the crisis of the political system, the era of difficult changes, even if McCarthy does not want changes and in principle not capable of them.
William Peddington, who in 1860 was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives with a record 44th attempt, was also neither fish nor fowl: he was not particularly remarkable, did not fundamentally change anything, died of an overdose of morphine and has since been forgotten by everyone. But he became the last peacetime speaker. The civil war began already under his successor.