Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

For months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has waited and watched,
hoping for a fracturing of the remarkable Washington consensus built by
President Joe Biden on the need to do everything it takes to defend
democracy in Ukraine.

Now, at last, the first cracks may be appearing.

There is no sign that the $18 billion US pipeline of military aid that has
helped Ukraine drive back Russia's onslaught is immediately in danger. But
the stirrings of political opposition to an endless US role in the war are
growing on both sides of the aisle just two weeks before the November
midterms.

Even the slightest hint of a softening of American resolve could comfort
Putin as the Kremlin strongman prepares to inflict a painful winter on
Ukrainian civilians and Europeans reliant on Russian gas.

https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/47554102/how-rising-skepticism-of-us-ukraine-aid-plays-into-putins-hands

In what can only be described as a political debacle on Tuesday,
progressive Democrats published, then withdrew, a letter initially signed
in June that called on the White House to match its effort to arm Ukraine
with a strong diplomatic effort to engage Russia and seek a ceasefire.
This came days after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the possible
next speaker, warned that Kyiv could not expect a "blank check" on aid if
the GOP is in charge next year.

Ex-President Donald Trump, a possible future Republican candidate, has,
meanwhile, been complaining about the cost of supporting a government
locked in a struggle with his hero, Putin, and that he dragged into his
first impeachment by using military aid in a coercion scheme.

It's clear that a bipartisan consensus for aiding Ukraine still exists in
Washington. But the rumblings that Biden's hardline on Russia may not
always enjoy near unanimous support came at an especially sensitive time
as the West seeks to discredit Russia's latest round of nuclear rhetoric
-- a warning that Kyiv could use a dirty bomb. The claims have led to
high-level talks between US and Russian military chiefs and are widely
being interpreted as either more scare tactics or perhaps an attempt by
Moscow to create a false flag operation that could be used as a pretext
for its own use of weapons of mass destruction.

Seeking to highlight US and Western commitment to Ukraine amid the
political chatter, Biden delivered a fresh warning on Tuesday against the
use of smaller-yield nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.

"Let me just say: Russia would be making an incredibly serious mistake for
it to use a tactical nuclear weapon," Biden told reporters after he was
asked whether Russia was preparing to use a dirty bomb. "I'm not
guaranteeing you that it's a false flag operation yet, don't know, but it
would be a serious, serious mistake."

The President's comments were a reminder that the maneuvering in
Washington over Ukraine aid is taking place in a critical context, with
anxiety still acute over a possible escalation of the war that could spill
over into direct US-Russia hostilities and put the world on a disastrous
path toward a full-on nuclear escalation.

This is why signs of fraying political resolve in the United States, and
in some allied nations, are so significant. They could convince Putin that
a war of attrition over the winter could sooner or later cause fatigue in
the West and therefore weaken Ukraine's ability to fight.

Questions that need to be asked

And yet some of the questions raised by those who are cautious about the
US stance are relevant and important. A foreign policy operation that
lines up the United States against its former Cold War foe and nuclear
rival must be constantly evaluated and justified by the President, given
the cost and risks.

The fact that there is no diplomatic track in the conflict -- Biden has
several times mused privately that he doesn't know what Putin's
"off-ramps" might be -- is worthy of discussion and, potentially, testing
in contacts with Moscow. And at a time of raging inflation and economic
hardship in the United States, it is incumbent on the administration and
its supporters to demonstrate to American taxpayers why a war on the edge
of Europe is sucking up billions in public money, even if it's not as if
Ukraine currently has the "blank check" McCarthy mentioned.

The risk, though, is that such debates still play into the hands of Putin,
who has already demonstrated his capacity to exploit and widen US
political divides with his election-meddling scheme in 2016 and the hold
he had over Trump, even getting him to denounce US intelligence agencies
in a joint news conference.

Sooner or later, the political jousting in Washington over how long the US
should stay involved in arming Ukraine -- and how much it would cost --
will stumble on the critical questions that could decide the war and could
be the motivation for Putin's frequent escalation of nuclear rhetoric that
raises the stakes.

Is the West as dedicated as Putin, whose political survival may depend on
victory or at least not losing, to prevailing in Ukraine? And is it really
willing to enter into a dangerous cycle of escalation that could risk
wider nuclear war to do so?

Political drama on both sides of the aisle

It is with these questions lingering that the drama over a letter signed
by 30 progressives played out on Tuesday. Most of the members did not
endorse releasing the letter this week, and some said they wouldn't have
signed it now given the grave turn the war has taken in recent days. The
anger over the letter caused Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the head of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus, to withdraw the letter, saying it was
drafted months ago and released by staff without vetting.

The episode did not just threaten to expose vulnerable lawmakers just two
weeks before an election in which Democrats increasingly fear they will
lose the House. It could give McCarthy cover in a future Congress to argue
that opposition to Biden's multi-billion dollar arms packages is not just
a Republican preoccupation.

And while the letter was withdrawn, some of its sentiments could boil up
again.

The letter said that lawmakers were under no illusions about the
difficulty in engaging Russia, given its "outrageous and illegal invasion
of Ukraine." But it added: "If there is a way to end the war while
preserving a free and independent Ukraine, it is America's responsibility
to pursue every diplomatic avenue to support such a solution that is
acceptable to the people of Ukraine."

The problem, however, is that the terms that Russia has set for any peace
deal involve locking in its battlefield gains. Now that it has illegally
annexed several Ukrainian regions, any preconditions that Putin would set
would be impossible for Kyiv to agree to. And rolling back such positions
would deal the Russian leader the defeat he is desperate to avoid. So
while the idea of talking might seem appealing, it's not clear how the US
could shift the calculus of either side. And Biden has repeatedly insisted
he will not negotiate over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's head,
as Putin would like.

One progressive Democrat, Rep. Ro Khanna of California, told CNN's Bianna
Golodryga that he did not support the decision to pull back the letter.

"I think the letter was common sense," Khanna said. "I support making sure
we arm Ukraine and provide arms to Ukraine and continue to fund it, but I
also believe that the President, as he said, we are at a risk of nuclear
war."

"Don't you think our counterpart should be talking to Russia? Of course
they should to be sure that it doesn't escalate."

There is also a risk that diplomacy at this stage could offer Putin a
prize for the human carnage he perpetrated in Ukraine.

"There is moral and strategic peril in sitting down with Putin too early.
It risks legitimizing his crimes and handing over parts of Ukraine to
Russia in an agreement that Putin won't even honor," Democratic Sen. Chris
Murphy of Connecticut wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.

"Sometimes, a bully must be shown the limits of his power before diplomacy
can work."

One thing that the drama over the Democratic letter on Ukraine did achieve
was to show that while support for Ukraine is bipartisan, anxiety about
the war is too, even if the skeptics are a smaller group so far.

What a Republican House could mean for Ukraine

The prospect of a House more squarely in Trump's ideological image after
the midterm elections and of more GOP senators who share his "America
First" worldview will worry the administration.

"I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they're not going
to write a blank check to Ukraine," McCarthy said in an interview with
Punchbowl News last week, which was seized upon by Democrats.

But it did not necessarily mean the California lawmaker was determined to
cut off aid. He may simply have been creating some political room for
himself in the knowledge of the sensitivity of the issue in his pro-Trump
party. In theory, a speaker McCarthy would be able to pass a Ukraine
funding bill by using both Republican and Democratic votes.