Romney, who lost the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama as the Republican Party’s nominee, made his comments during a visit on Tuesday to Utah-based defense contractor Strider Technologies, Russia Today reported.
He argued that the best way for the US to mitigate the security threat posed by China is to ensure that Russia is defeated in Ukraine.
“Russia being weakened weakens their ally China,” Romney said. “And by the way, being able to take an amount that equals about 5% of our military budget . . . to help the Ukrainians is about the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done.”
While American forces have been spared bloodshed – at least officially – Ukrainian troops haven’t been as fortunate.
An estimated 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Kyiv began a counteroffensive operation in early June, according to an August 4 estimate by the Russian Defense Ministry.
Since the conflict began in February 2022, Ukraine has lost 400,000 troops, former Pentagon senior advisor Douglas Macgregor, a retired US Army colonel, said last week in an interview with Tucker Carlson.
Nevertheless, Romney claimed that the US effort to hurt Moscow through a proxy combatant has been successful, sending a message to Chinese leaders and to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has previously argued that Russia is a “geopolitical adversary” and is the “only real ally” of China.
“A weakened Russia is a good thing,” Romney said. “It tells China to rethink its territorial ambition. It tells Russia, perhaps most importantly, that the Putin vision of re-establishing the Russian empire and grabbing the old former Soviet Republics that that’s not something that’s going to work.”
RHM/PR