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Senate passage in February of a $95 billion aid bill (with funds for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan) may be remembered someday as the last gasp of traditional hawkish Republicanism. Mitch McConnell, in his final months as GOP Senate leader, delivered 22 Republicans on the bipartisan vote as the retiring Mitt Romney declared in a floor speech, “If we fail to help Ukraine, we will be known not as our fathers and mothers were—the greatest generation—but as the worst generation.”

Two months later, the worst generation is alive and well and living in Congress. In a startling move—especially coming from a prominent Republican—Mike Turner, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN Sunday, “We see directly coming from Russia … communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.” Needless to say, it is not the Democrats who are mouthing Putin’s platitudes.

If, charitably, there is a logic to the GOP position, it is that America should abandon Old Europe to pivot to battling China in the New Asia. The obvious problem with this glib reasoning is that Beijing just might notice that America is slamming the door on Ukraine two years after Putin’s unprovoked invasion. The security of Taiwan (which is a major U.S. source of semiconductor chips) depends on China believing that Washington would keep its implicit promises to come to defense of the island. Deterrence disappears if America’s word is worthless.