McConnell warns GOP isolationists not to forget lessons of WWII

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is warning isolationists within his party on the 80th anniversary of D-Day not to forget the hard-won lessons of World War II and not to fall prey to “the delusion that regional conflicts have no consequences” for the United States.

McConnell marked the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France with a New York Times op-ed that lauded the “immense sacrifice” of American troops who stormed the Omaha and Utah beaches and scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc to capture German gun emplacements.

And he used the occasion to remind his fellow Americans and Republicans that GOP isolationists such as then-Sen. Robert Taft (R-Ohio) opposed the Lend-Lease Act and wanted to keep the United States neutral at the outset of the war.

While many lawmakers in both parties have traveled to Normandy, France, to celebrate the anniversary of D-Day, McConnell noted: “We forget how influential isolationists persuaded millions of Americans that the fate of allies and partners mattered little to our own security and prosperity.”

“We gloss over the powerful political forces that downplayed growing danger, resisted providing assistance to allies and partners, and tried to limit America’s ability to defend its national interests,” he wrote in the Times.

The Senate GOP leader, who plans to step down from his leadership role at the end of the year, says he will make it a priority to take on isolationists within his own party and to push for the rebuilding of the nation’s defense industrial base.

McConnell for months has warned about what he calls “the rise of a new axis of authoritarians made up of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.”

And he warned that new-wave isolationists in the Republican Party today are putting America’s national security interests at risk by arguing the war in Ukraine and other conflicts are not vital national security interests.

“Here at home, we face problems of our own. Some vocal corners of the American right are trying to resurrect the discredited brand of prewar isolationism and deny the basic value of the alliance system that has kept the postwar peace,” he wrote in the Times.

He said “this dangerous proposition” by voices on the right rivals what he called “the American left’s longstanding allergy to military spending in its potential to make America less safe.”

“It should not take another catastrophic attack like Pearl Harbor to wake today’s isolationists from the delusion that regional conflicts have no consequences for the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation. With global power comes global interests and global responsibilities,” he warned, reprising arguments he has made on the Senate floor and elsewhere in recent months.

McConnell endorsed a plan unveiled last week by Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to increase defense spending by $55 billion in fiscal 2025 and bring it from 2.9 percent to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over the next five to seven years.

He pointed out that in 1941, President Roosevelt “justified a belated increase in military spending” to 5.5 percent of GDP but that it would ultimately reach 37 percent of GDP by the end of the war.

“Deterring conflict today costs less than fighting it tomorrow,” he argued.

“Rebuilding the arsenal of democracy would demonstrate to America’s allies and adversaries alike that our commitment to the stable order of international peace and prosperity is rock-solid,” he wrote. “Nothing else will suffice. Not a desperate pursuit of nuclear diplomacy with Iran, the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism. Not cabinet junkets to Beijing in pursuit of common ground on climate policy.”

McConnell wrote that 80 years ago America and its Allies fought because it had to and the victory in Europe served as the underpinning of Western peace and security ever since.

“Today, the better part of valor is to build credible defenses before they are necessary and demonstrate American leadership before it is doubted any further,” he declared.