Eli Lake and Michael Brendan Dougherty
In May of last year, then-senator J.D. Vance delivered a speech on foreign policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. A politician’s speech at a Washington think tank conference is usually best ignored—and, at the time, there was little reason to pay special attention to this one.
But nine months on, Vance’s remarks look less like obscure Beltway pablum, and more like the blueprint for the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
Vance drew a distinction between perhaps the two most important conflicts in the world, arguing that support for Israel was in the U.S. national interest, but backing the fight for Ukraine was not. “It’s sort of weird that this town assumes that Israel and Ukraine are exactly the same,” he remarked. “They’re not, of course, and I think it’s important to analyze them in separate buckets.”
This distinction is now on full display, with President Donald Trump and Vance tearing into Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, while doubling down on the U.S. commitment to Israel.
But is it coherent to back Israel while opposing aid to Ukraine? Are these two conflicts fundamentally different—or are both about a democracy’s right to defend its sovereignty against existential threats? If Israel is worthy of continued U.S. support against Hamas and Iran, why not Ukraine against Russia?
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