Thank God House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to pull it off. By the grace of the almighty, and not a small amount of tactical political skill on his part, Johnson got a military aid package for our most beleaguered allies — Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — passed out of the House. Setting aside for just a moment it took an unconscionably long time to get there, it did mark a rare moment in Washington, D.C. — the government doing what it is supposed to do It functioned (momentarily) as it was intended, in pursuit of its primary and most legitimate function — providing for the defense of the realm. And even knocking around TikTok for an added cherry on top.

The long-overdue package provides substantial assistance for our allies, two of whom are in shooting wars with two of our most dangerous adversaries, and one which lives perpetually in the shadow of potential invasion by our other most dangerous adversary. The package consists of four separate bills; the one for Ukraine provides some $60 billion of military aid, $23 billion of which is to go toward replenishing U.S. weapons and ammunition stocks. Israel’s bill provides them with $26 billion in aid, some of which, yes, will go to humanitarian aid in Gaza, but the bulk of which does things like restocking the Israel Defense Force’s supply of air defense missiles, of the kind that so successfully humiliated the Iranian armed forces two weekends ago. Another $8 billion is going toward the defense of Taiwan and to bolster security in the Indo-Pacific in general.

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As a clever little punctuation, a fourth bill requires the sale of TikTok, and pays for a good chunk of the Ukrainian aid by selling off seized Russian assets.

There is little serious question among serious people as to the need for these aid bills. Israel is in the middle of fighting a proxy war with Iran, in the course of fighting a defensive war against a rabid Iranian-backed terrorist pseudo-state in her backyard. This is the same Iran that has been the chief destabilizing power in the Middle East for more than four decades. It is the junior partner in a marriage from hell with Russia, which a few thousand miles to the north has Ukraine on the ropes. Taiwan is watching that particular enterprise with the intensity one devotes to something that bears existential repercussion should it go wrong. The other China, the communist one, is watching with equal intent.

And all of them, along with the rest of the world, are watching the United States to see how we respond. Despite the Biden administrations best efforts, the U.S. is still the world’s foremost power; we couldn’t ignore those three regions if we wanted to, out of a sense of simple self-preservation. You don’t want the U.S. to be the “world’s policeman?” Fine. Who then? Because there will always be a country, or a group of countries, that will fulfill that role — the Romans, the Spanish, England, America — and in the case where that role is abdicated, someone will fill the vacuum. Do we want Russia or China (or both) to have that level of geopolitical hegemony?

Speaker Johnson doesn’t, evidently. He seems to understand providing for the nation’s security is a complex matter in the nuclear age. Johnson, uncharacteristically for most in today’s Washington, showed some guts. He presides over a razor-thin majority in one chamber of Congress, with a Democratic president and a rebellious Jacobite faction nipping at his ankles. He risked his speakership to accept Democratic votes to get the aid packages passed. And what a bloody shame he should have to rely on a handful of Democrats to be the realist, hawkish adults in the room.

The GOP’s nascent isolationist “Code Pink Wing” is no longer simply a mildly irritating amusement. Their slovenliness on national security risks making them as dangerous as their far-left counterparts, or those appeasement-minded Democrats of the Cold War for whom the Soviet Union could apparently do no wrong, and who routinely labelled Ronald Reagan a “warmonger.”

Johnson showed the country something this week. He demonstrated real leadership, worthy of his position, the kind of leadership we are sorely short of — and tend now to even reject — in government. With luck, and a bit of help, he can hopefully stave off a challenge from that handful of Republicans who may yet prove to be their party’s worst enemies, in the course of coddling America’s.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.