A Congressional Fight Against Isolationism

The For Country Caucus wants Congress to take a bigger role in foreign policy.

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Rep. Tony Gonzales walks down the steps of the Capitol. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

With today marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, whether Western backers will remain steadfast in supporting Ukraine is becoming a bigger question. Last week Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, joined by 10 other House Republicans, introduced a “Ukraine Fatigue” resolution calling for an end to U.S. support to the embattled country.

Enter the For Country Caucus, a bipartisan group of veterans that since 2019 has met twice a month to workshop ways Congress can reclaim its role in crafting America’s foreign policy and national security agenda. The war in Ukraine has reinvigorated that effort. 

“We often punt to the executive branch and expect the executive branch to cover all these issues abroad, and then when they fail at that, shoot holes in them. I think this caucus in particular can be a leader,” Rep. Tony Gonzales, a 20-year Navy veteran and the Republican co-chair of the For Country Caucus, said in an interview. “If you’re gonna wait on the White House to deliver, you’re going to be waiting a long time.”

The working group of about 30 lawmakers—many of whom are also members of the House Armed Services Committee—has found its groove in advancing pragmatic, bipartisan legislation through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The 2022 defense bill included For Country Caucus-backed measures bolstering U.S. resilience against cyberattacks, supporting America’s at-risk allies after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and requiring the Pentagon to review its posture in the Arctic, among other initiatives. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    How can something that hasn’t expended any effort on your part or otherwise inconvenienced you in any way cause fatigue? I can understand why Ukrainians would be fatigued by the war. What exactly is causing fatigue in these Republican congressmen and congresswomen? Is it “having to hear about Ukraine every day,” I wonder? Well, they could, you know, tune out of the news rather than whining about how tired it’s making them. What a ridiculous argument.

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    John.Rogers

    I'm very sympathetic to "Ukraine Fatigue" efforts. Not because we're doing too much. The west, the USA is doing too little. We're dragging this out while body bags and rubble continue to pile up in Ukraine. Perhaps we should have just built up Fortress NATO leaving Ukraine to fall quickly to Russia, despite security guarantees made decades ago. We didn't. We entered a proxy war. No mistake we're at war. Fight war to win or don't fight at all. Dragging this conflagration out isn't good for Ukraine, it isn't good for the Western European economies. End it by fighting to win or don't bother fighting all, it's a waste of blood and treasure.

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  3. Jaybrown

    Good for the For Country Caucus. It is nice to realize that there really are some adults in the room.

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    BrettH

    Nice piece, thanks Charlotte. As a fellow vet, these folks get it.

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  5. Trichwages

    I posted this on another TD article, but I think this might be its proper home so sharing again.
    —————-
    REPOST: Great column. Read something recently that resonated with me Re: Congress. This could be a good place to share it. The link is not paywalled.

    “When people in intractable conflict sit down and listen to each other under the right conditions, they make surprising discoveries. ”

    Full Article: https://wapo.st/3xPyI5L

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  6. Trichwages

    “Bipartisanship isn’t just the best way to win legislative victories, “it’s the only way,” and “ We might disagree a lot between each other, but one of the things that we learned in service is that you have to find that common ground. It might be 10 percent of the time, it might be 20 percent of the time, but that’s what we’ve been sent to Washington to do and that’s what we’re dedicated to accomplishing.”

    That is what governing is all about.

    Nice article.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Rlritt

    Because those four congress people don't run to the press every other day making incediary comments. And no one in congress listens to them anyway. If they had tried o force Pelossi to agree to the things McCarthy agreed to, she'd have skewered them. Those four women have no support among the rest of the congress. Where as the Republicans have put Boebart, Greene and Gaetz on pedestals. Green has the more power in Congress than McCarthy.

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    Rajeev

    As long as the Democrats have at least close to a majority in each chamber, the overall congressional votes will always be there to sustain efforts in Ukraine and Taiwan or whatever country is threatened next. However, the issue with the Republican party is not that there aren't congressional members that will act similarly, it's that their base has been and is really tilting passionately against foreign military support or entanglements. More and more of the grassroots voters believe more in Tucker Carlson & J.D. Vance than in John Bolton or Mitch McConnell. Add in the resurgence of Donald Trump that is about to happen and it is very likely that the candidate that emerges, Trump or otherwise, will sound more like Matt Gaetz on ukraine than Liz Cheney.

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  9. Jack H Wolf

    I found an interesting article in the New Yorker on Ukraine that looks at whether there is a plausible way out. It cant be capitulation to the Kremlin, but the author has some ideas:
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/how-the-war-in-ukraine-ends

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  10. Avatar photo
    Mike B

    Glad to see some pushback against the anti-Ukraine voices, which have been steadily growing louder and more numerous.

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