258 - At Long Last! But is Our Aid to Ukraine in Time to Counter Putin?
The Wages of Political Delay
Six months in a two-year old war is a long, desperate, stretch to deprive an ally of the reinforcements that are absolutely necessary for it to defend itself, and us, against a much larger, better resourced, and palpably relentlessly dangerous enemy.
Speaker Mike Robinson finally got it, and got it evangelically, hoping to go down in history as a man on the right side of major global issues. Or so he said. Influenced, he said, by intelligence briefings given to him over and over by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense, he finally discovered what he should have known all along (during the months and months of delay and deflection): that Representatives Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Tom Massie were all obstructionists with political agendas that denied America's security self-interests and our moral obligation to help Ukraine save itself and save freedom everywhere.
But is Johnson's pilgrimage to a metaphorical Jerusalem in time? Or has his and Republican slow walking of military assistance to Ukraine come too late? Can the ammunition-short, exhausted, troops on the Ukrainian side of a 600-mile confrontational line against the Russians hold out a little longer until cannon shells, air-defense missiles, aircraft, and basic supplies like stretchers and spare parts finally arrive?
Using North Korean artillery ammunition, the Russians have gained 139 square miles of Ukrainian territory this winter. This spring they are advancing hourly on hilltop Chasiv Yar west of Bakhmut and in the Kharkiv region, and threatening to make a serious breakthrough northwest of Avdiivka, which they took in February. The Russians have brought 315,000 fresh soldiers to the front.
The Pentagon says that it can begin sending supplies to Ukraine as early as today. It positioned equipment months ago in countries close to Ukraine but has not been permitted to disburse what Ukraine desperately required to hold off the Russians, thanks to Johnson's prolonged and very delayed Damascene conversion.
Likely first to be transferred to the Ukrainian will be ammunition for American previously gifted M777 howitzers and other big guns. An M777 can hit targets up to 25 miles away with the appropriate ammunition. Precision rockets that can travel longer distances will be handed to the Ukrainian forces. The Pentagon's forward logistical hubs may also be able to replenish Ukrainian's short- and medium-range air defense systems, possibly including missiles capable of intercepting the barrage of ballistic missiles that the Russians have been using so effectively in recent weeks to riddle Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
Shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missiles will soon be on their way from bases in Germany. So will be Javelin anti-tank guided missiles to stop Russian armored advances. Rockets for long range artillery should arrive. But Patriot air-defense systems are in short supply and may be much slower to appear to defend vulnerable cities in Ukraine.
Parts for damaged American tanks, armored vehicles, and other forward equipment of warfare will also be forthcoming -- at last. So will drones, mortars, radios, electronic jamming equipment, and everything else that winning this very modern war will take. Fortunately, too, the Pentagon last month secretly transferred its longest-range (190 mile) firing assembly and the Ukrainians used it effectively against targets in Crimea and the Donbas. More of the same is on the way.
Ukraine also needs more sophisticated air defense systems to prevent the Kremlin from continuing trying to pulverize its cities. The Russians seek to break the back of Ukraine's popular morale, a collapse of hope that Ukraine has largely avoided until now. But Russian successes in the air and the kind of missile strikes that endanger civilian lives are becoming more common and more deadly. Even if the right American materiel arrives soon, not everything Ukraine needs will be instantly available; the Russians know that.
Fortunately, finally funding aid for Ukraine should also open the assistance coffers of Ukraine's European allies. Now that Johnson has relented, various Czech, British, French, Swedish, and even German initiatives will now go forward. They may supply very long range howitzers and missile launching assemblages, air defense installations, aircraft, and shells -- all or any of which will enable Ukraine to bolster its weakened defenses against the restored battalions of Russia.
No matter how quickly American quartermasters are able to refurbish Ukraine's depleted armory, it will be days and more likely weeks before the deliveries that the Republicans have retarded can begin to make a significant difference on the fighting front. Meanwhile, the Russians will redouble their attacks on various vulnerable salients, hoping to break through the Ukrainian lines before the American materiel arrives. Johnson and his fellow Republican Congresspersons must be debited with every Ukrainian life lost, even for every square mile surrendered, because of their tardy and labored response to Ukraine's real needs.
If, and it is a very big if, Ukraine can now hold on reasonably well for a few months, its air force will soon receive a few F-16s and a handful of Ukrainian pilots will be ready to fly them to gain a long overdue ability to take control of Ukraine's airspace. That could be a game changer. But the delay in backing Ukraine has been enormously costly and we cannot know now, and probably not for months, how damaged Ukraine is as a result of the Republican caterwauling.
Paul Krugman makes the further very important point that all the aid that we have given so far to Ukraine amounts to less than 0.0025 percent of U. S. GDP whereas the initial Lend Lease assistance that helped keep Britain from being overrun in 1941 by Hitler's Germany equaled about 10 percent of American GDP at the time. (And extreme right-wing Republicans of the day opposed Lend Lease bitterly, but President Roosevelt had enough Democratic votes to prevail -- and to save Britain. The same kinds of backward-motivated political maneuverings that could have lost World War II still exist and endanger Ukraine.)
Krugman also points out that all of Trump's claims that the U.S. taxpayer is funding Ukraine excessively and that Europe is not doing its share are wholly false. Europe has already -- even after this week's vote for the Ukraine-Israel package -- done far more than have we. "Notably, many though not all European nations are spending substantially more in support of Ukraine as a percentage of G.D.P. than we are."
The question is whether even the $61 billion that has just been appropriated will be enough, and be spent quickly enough, to keep Putin from rampaging toward Kyiv and sustaining Ukraine's remarkable opposition to a much larger, nastier, China-backed foe. Johnson wanted to be on the right side of history. We’ll see in the next months whether he made it, or not.