How Long Will the Public Support Biden's Ukraine Policy?

Biden is likely asking for more than the public will be prepared to accept.

The president made a remarkable declaration at the NATO summit in Madrid this week:

Speaking at a news conference at the close of a NATO summit in Madrid, Mr. Biden said that Americans and the rest of the world would have to pay more for gasoline and energy as a price of containing Russian aggression. How long? “As long as it takes, so Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine,” he said.

Biden is likely asking for more than the public will be prepared to accept, and that will make his Ukraine policy difficult to sustain over the coming months and years. When Biden took office, he and his officials emphasized that they were going to make U.S. foreign policy work for the benefit of most Americans. The message now is that Americans should expect to pay a significant price for the sake of our government’s current policy in Ukraine. Instead of a “foreign policy for the middle class,” the message now is that conditions here will worsen for the foreseeable future and the public will just have to put up with it.