More than two-and-a-half years into the war in Ukraine, the American tab continues to run up while the American people grow increasingly conflicted over our support. A Pew Research survey finds Americans are now about evenly divided overall on whether the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine against Russia, with 48% saying yes and 49% no. But there is a much more stark divide when the question is broken down along party lines. Just 36% of Republicans believe we have a responsibility to help Ukraine, while 63% of Democrats say we do.
When it comes to the amount of aid the U.S. is providing to Ukraine---now totaling at least $175 billion, including some for questionable purposes---the public is also divided largely along party lines. Nearly one-third of Americans overall think we are sending too much aid to Ukraine, but that includes about half of Republicans, as opposed to only about 1-in-8 Democrats. Nearly two-thirds of Democrats believe we're either providing the right amount of assistance to Ukraine, or not enough.
This growing chasm over Ukraine is happening against the backdrop of the presidential election, which will decide U.S. policy toward Ukraine going forward. Robert Greenway, national defense director for the Heritage Foundation, tells Fox Business the billions dumped into the conflict by the Biden-Harris administration have failed to weaken or deter Russia. "Russia's economy is growing (at a rate) greater than ours, their trade balance is in the black, and they're reconstituting their military as a result of that," he says. "It does appear, unless we see a new strategy from the president or real leadership, that this conflict will continue, and it will have an incredible cost on the people of Ukraine, and frankly the American taxpayer."
Greenway believes there is unlikely to be any real change in the war under the current Biden-Harris policy. "We need to apply real, genuine economic pressure (on Russia), they've got to feel the pain, they've got to pay a price for it," he tells Fox. "Secondly, there has to be a real, tangible military threat, and a leader in Washington that has respect and fear in Moscow. We saw that under President Trump, we have not seen that under President Biden."