Sen. John Cornyn on Thursday warned of a reemerging East-West divide in Europe, citing an analysis of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the history of West’s relationship with Moscow under President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Cornyn, Texas Republican and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted that the invasion is “a relitigation of a titanic struggle we thought was over,” quoting an article titled “America is Afraid of War. Putin Knows It.”
The article was written by British journalist/historian Zoe Strimpel and published Thursday on former New York Times opinion editor Bari Wiess’ Substack website.
Ms. Strimpel writes in the piece that “the United States seems to have forgotten the point of waging, or threatening to wage war.”
“Peace is earned through strength,” she wrote. “We can’t ask for it. We can’t talk our way into it. We can’t simply impose (or lift) sanctions. We have to achieve it by threatening — credibly — to pummel into oblivion anyone who gets in the way.”
Mr. Cornyn apparently endorses Ms. Strimpel’s decidedly hawkish stance on the situation.
“There is only one country that can bring this relitigation to an immediate end and restore order not only to Ukraine but the whole of Europe,” Ms. Strimpel writes. “To do that, the United States would have to convince Putin that it is willing to go to war to protect Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. But no one believes it is.”
Republican lawmakers have criticized the Biden administration for projecting weakness, which they cite as a cause of Russia’s provocation. They also cite the calamitous drawdown in Afghanistan as a display of waning American resolve.
President Biden has announced a litany of sanctions in response to the Kremlin’s recognition of Moscow-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, and is expected to announce new penalties in response to the invasion. He has adamantly stated that U.S. troops will not intervene in Ukraine.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote from Zoe Strimpel’s article to Sen. John Cornyn.
• Joseph Clark can be reached at jclark@washingtontimes.com.
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