Many of the 21 House Republicans, however, don’t see it that way. They’ve swallowed a cocktail of isolationism, defeatism, partisan paranoia, and Russian disinformation. Here are the main pillars of their reasoning:

America has no responsibilities in the world. “The United States has no legal or moral obligation to come to Ukraine’s aid,” says Rosendale. Biggs and Gosar also oppose America’s commitment to Article 5 of the NATO charter, which obliges each member state to defend the others. Gaetz and Massie oppose financial support, not just military assistance, to Ukraine and other eastern European countries. Gaetz calls these countries “welfare cases.” Massie says we should scrap NATO because “Americans are done subsidizing socialism.”

America should worry about its own borders, not Ukraine’s. This is the most popular theme among the 21 Republican resisters. In mid-February, when Biden sent troops to Europe to protect NATO allies from a possible Russian attack, Miller scoffed: “Biden wants U.S. troops to defend Ukraine’s border instead of our own.” A week later, on the eve of the invasion, Bishop said the U.S. should focus on the Mexican border instead of getting “distracted” and “absorbed in the predicament of Ukraine.”

Russia is powerful, so America should retreat. The resisters fret that Putin would punish the West’s sanctions with “drastic measures,” that America should accept Russia’s domination of its neighbors, that we shouldn’t send “money and weaponry to Ukraine to fight a war they cannot possibly win,” and that instead we should “take NATO membership for Ukraine off the table” to appease the Kremlin.