Congress to triple US military aid to Ukraine without the public’s consent
Speaking Security Newsletter | Advisory Note for Activists and Candidates, n°144 | 31 January 2022
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Situation
The House is planning to vote this week on a bill that'd provide a ton of military aid to Ukraine and unlock the option for Biden to enact severe sanctions on Russia. That bill is sponsored by Democratic leadership, but there’s a similar bill on the table written by Republicans.
Both parties are taking a hawkish approach and could ‘meet in the middle’ for a predictably hawkish compromise. Two of the main differences between the Democrats’ bill and the Republicans’ bill are the structure of the punitive sanctions on Russia and the military aid provided to Ukraine.
Regarding the latter, the Democrats’ bill has $500 million earmarked for military aid. The Republicans’ version authorizes an indefinite amount of military aid through the enhanced lend-lease arrangement that would give Biden privileged authority to lend (or lease) US military equipment to Ukraine without having to pay much mind to what Congress (or the US public) thinks about it.
Military aid is escalatory
Nothing about scaling up US military aid–especially this rapidly and substantially–creates better conditions for compromise and therefore conflict avoidance. Military aid comes with military advisors (troops). This contingency would be on top of the US military personnel already in-country (many of whom for the same reason), which increases the risk that the US gets drawn into conflict. Moreover, Russia’s concerned about NATO eastward expansion (as it has been for the last 30 years), and the new legislation would put US military aid to Ukraine higher than any country actually in NATO. At best, this military aid package will have no effect. Far from a silver bullet, it escalates tensions without any potential payoff.
Escalation, by the numbers
In the absence of compromise legislation, Democratic leadership will likely ram their own sanctions/military aid bill through both the House and Senate this week, as was recently reported by the Intercept.
The $500 million worth of military aid in this bill is designated as emergency supplemental funding, meaning it’s on top of the military aid Democrats plan on giving Ukraine through their FY2022 State Department bill, which already passed the House but hasn’t yet the Senate. The military budget Biden signed into law last month authorizes another $300 million in military aid through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (which is what it sounds like), and probably has another $15 million-ish through another Pentagon train-and-equip program, a projection based on the most recently-available data (the Pentagon doesn’t make the figures for this program public). Can’t forget about the $200 million in military aid Biden authorized himself, either, the final delivery of which was completed this month.
All told, with their latest bill, Democrats signal that they’re planning to authorize at least $1.2 billion in military aid to Ukraine for FY2022, or nearly triple of last year’s amount (itself a record high). That would put Ukraine just behind Egypt and Israel among the highest recipients of US military assistance. This is a major shift in US policy with potentially catastrophic consequences, made without any input from the public. This is ruling, not governing.
Thanks for your time,
Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)
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