Ukraine’s most important ally may be the US Naval Academy’s admissions dept.

(Originally published April 19 in “What in the World“) The Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, will put a bill reviving the flow of American military aid to Ukraine up for a vote, hoping to finally overcome his own party’s opposition to it—after reversing his own opposition to it.

After sending Ukraine $44.9 billion in weapons that slowly rose in range and effectiveness—from Stingers, howitzers and Himars rocket launchers, to Patriot missiles, Abrams battle tanks and F-16s—House Republicans pulled the plug last December just after the White House approved handing Kyiv long-range U.S. Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms (now destroying Russian targets in Crimea). The party’s far-right wanted to hold Ukraine’s aid hostage to its domestic agenda, notably stemming the flow of immigrants across the southern U.S. border.

Republicans also groused belatedly about the lack of accountability around where U.S. weapons were going as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pursued a crackdown last fall against military corruption that felled his own defense minister. And as Putin calculated, Americans became bored with Ukraine and its rising price tag last summer when Kyiv’s long-delayed spring counteroffensive fizzled. Then in October, Hamas attacked Israel, and Ukraine was swept quickly off the front page by events in Gaza and the expanding war in the Middle East.

But the war in Ukraine hasn’t ended. The Republican move sent Ukraine’s other allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization scurrying to keep Ukraine supplied with what is already a dangerously low global stockpile of artillery. That enabled other defense contractors to gain an edge in supplying Ukraine and demonstrating their battlefield prowess. War in Gaza made things even worse, as Israel started using artillery there that had been bound for Ukraine. In the meantime, Ukraine’s forces have come even closer to running out of ammo, enabling invading Russian forces to inch forward even as their own ammo shortages keep both sides locked in a deadly stalemate. Now it’s Russia that’s expected to launch a big summer offensive.

What’s changed on Capitol Hill? Republican opposition to Ukrainian assistance never squared well with its hawkish instincts, even if its leader, former President Donald Trump, has a predilection to support Russian President Vladimir Putin’s case in Ukraine. And holding up aid to Ukraine was also holding up weapons to protect Taiwan from potential invasion by China, which both Republicans and Democrats agree is America’s No.1 foe.

Zelensky has been playing his own cards, too. As observed in this space before, once you start arming a proxy, the proxy to some extent drives the relationship, since their actions become your actions, their provocations become your provocations, and their defeat, with or without your weapons, becomes your defeat. Pulling the plug isn’t an option. Escalation is inevitable.

So, when the White House wouldn’t give him the long-range attack drones he wanted for fear of provoking Putin into attacking NATO or going nuclear, Zelensky stepped up development of Ukraine’s own drones. Now, Ukrainian drones are proving capable of hitting Russian targets as far away as Siberia. And Kyiv is ignoring the White House’s requests for it to stop attacking targets in Russia. Zelensky’s message to Washington is clear: give me weapons to drive out the Russians or I will keep taking the fight to Putin.

But the biggest factor in clearing the Republic logjam to U.S. aid to Ukraine may be personal. Johnson’s own son starts at the U.S. Naval Academy later this year, meaning that if Russia wins in Ukraine, Johnson Jr. could be deployed in the European theater facing down what NATO increasingly fears would be an invasion of the Baltics. A continued proxy fight in Ukraine is preferable to an American parent than a full-fledged war in which U.S. troops have to honor America’s commitment to defending its NATO allies. Or as Johnson put it: “This is a live fire exercise for me, as it is for so many American families. This is not a game. It’s not a joke. We can’t play politics on this. We have to do the right thing.”