Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) suggested during Tuesday night’s Republican Party presidential primary debate that the United States has a vested interest in “destroy[ing]” the armed forces of Russia to prevent it from having to send troops to defend a NATO ally.
Scott made the suggestion to “destroy, to the extent possible, the Russian military” in response to being asked if, were he currently president of the United States, he would approve more American taxpayers’ dollars to be spent on the military of Ukraine or “discontinue” America’s current support for the country.
Ukraine is nearing the two-year anniversary of a full-scale invasion of its territory by Russia, which announced a “special operation” to oust democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelensky in February 2022. Prior to that conflict, Russia invaded and colonized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 and continues to occupy it; extensive evidence indicates Russia also supported separatist militants engaging in conflict in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine for most of the past decade.
As of last week, the administration of President Joe Biden has given Ukraine $44.2 billion in military aid since February 2022.
Sen. Scott was one of five participants in Tuesday’s Republican Presidential Primary Debate, moderated by NBC News and the Republican Jewish Coalition and held in Miami, Florida. The frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary, former President Donald Trump, did not attend the event, holding a campaign rally in neighboring Hialeah, Florida, instead.
“If you were president, in the Oval Office today, would you sign off on more military funding for Ukraine or would you discontinue it?” NBC News anchor Kristen Welker asked.
Sen. Scott did not offer a clear yes or no response to the question but appeared to answer in the affirmative, as he made the case that a deteriorated Russian military was in the best interests of the United States.
“Bottom line is, we have to first have the level of accountability that allows the American people to understand where the resources have gone, number one,” he responded. “Number two: after we have that responsibility taken care of and accountability, then we have an opportunity to look at the overall strategy that helps us degrade the Russian military while we use our resources.”
“Frankly,” he asserted, “keeping our NATO partners safe from the Russian military is absolutely essential.”
“As you understand, Article 5 would require — to support and to defend NATO — our troops on the ground,” he noted. “The fastest way for us to eliminate that possibility is for us to destroy, to the extent possible, the Russian military. By doing so, we actually achieve the objective of keeping our military home and that’s good news.”
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the founding document of the NATO alliance, states that “an armed attack against one or more of them [NATO partners] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” It requires “individual or collective self-defense” in the face of such an attack. The United States is the only country to have ever invoked Article 5 — in response to the September 11, 2001, jihadist attacks on the American homeland.
Multiple Ukrainian governments have unsuccessfully attempted to join NATO and Zelensky has stated it is a top priority of his administration. While Ukraine does not belong to NATO, several of its neighbors do, including Poland, the three Baltic countries, and Finland. An attack on any such country by Russia could potentially result in the invocation of Article 5, which would require the United States to respond as if the attack had happened on U.S. soil and likely require American military action.
The ongoing Ukraine conflict has raised concerns around the world of a potential conflict between Russia and America, as both are nuclear powers (Ukraine once possessed nuclear weapons but denuclearized in exchange for vague “security guarantees” from Western nations). Openly operating to “destroy” Russia’s armed forces, as Sen. Scott suggested, could potentially trigger a Russian military response to America. Russian officials have already warned that tensions surrounding the Ukraine operation could increase the potential for the use of nuclear weapons.
“The natural consequence of the United States’ destructive policies is the deterioration in global security,” Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev told the Russian news agency Tass on Wednesday. “The risk that nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will be used is increasing. The international arms control regime has been undermined.”