John Jefferson
Pro-Ukraine aid lawmakers have learned their lesson. As the allotment for new weapons in the $61 billion Ukraine aid package is set to drain out by January, machinations are in play to get more to Kyiv without the kind of political debate that overtook Congress this year.
One might be wondering how Ukraine blew through almost $61 billion from April. But the whole idea that Washington was giving the Zelensky government that much was wrong to begin with.
According to Mark Cancian, probably the most astute chronicler of current arms spending by the federal government today, most of the $61 billion—passed by Congress in April after months of wrangling and opposition by Republicans—is being spent in the United States, not Ukraine.
In his May paper with co-writer Chris H. Park for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Cancian wrote:
Despite images of “pallets of cash” being sent to Ukraine, about 72 percent of this money overall and 86 percent of the military aid will be spent in the United States. The reason for this high percentage is that weapons going to Ukraine are produced in U.S. factories, payments to U.S. service members are mostly spent in the United States, and even some piece of the humanitarian aid is spent in the United States. The major element of funding going to Ukraine is the economic support to the Ukrainian government, which the World Bank handles.
According to the CSIS analysts, of the $25 billion for direct military weapons assistance to Ukraine in the package, only $13.4 billion was to replenish U.S. stockpiles and send new weapons under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). In fact, only about half of that was earmarked for weapons to be sent to Ukraine; the rest was to bolster DoD stockpiles.
The rest of the $25 billion was for grants and loans for Ukraine to purchase weapons under the Foreign Military Financing program, and “enhancing the (U.S.) defense industrial base to increase production capabilities and develop more advanced weapons and munitions,” according to Cancian and Park.
The rest of the $61 billion—about $36 billion—allows the U.S. to buy weapons for Ukraine on the global market when it can, gives money to Ukraine to enter into contracts with U.S. arms manufacturers, and funds the necessary training of Ukrainians on new weapons systems. The rest is very non-Ukraine military related, including economic and humanitarian aid for Kyiv, funding for the heightened U.S. military presence in Europe, and U.S. research and development.
While the aid under the PDA can get to the front lines rather fast because they are weapons that already exist in the stockpiles—like cluster munitions, Bradley fighting vehicles, and ATACM missiles—the more advance missile defense, like the NASAMs are more limited, said Cancian. Moreover, anything Ukraine contracts directly with U.S. defense companies could take months if not years to fulfill. Good for the arms industry, not so much for Ukrainians on the front lines.
All this to say is that the money is running out fast to get weapons to Ukraine to fight a war it has recently taken directly to the Russians in their own territory by way of Kursk. The Ukrainian military is burning through U.S. supplied weapons in order to escalate and at the same time deflect relentless barrages of incoming from the Russian military in retaliation. Will more weapons even help?
While aid supporters like Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) say “Ukraine has shown, if we give them the resources, they’ll fight for their own country very effectively,” others insist that more weapons cannot make up for the lack of manpower and a solid strategy.
“The cautious answer is ‘probably not,’” says Nicolai Petro, professor of international politics at the University of Rhode Island and author of The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach us About Conflict Resolution. “The Kursk incursion is very telling in this regard. Touted as a bold and innovative move, it has bolstered morale at the cost of undermining the defenses of Ukraine’s frontlines in Donbass.”
“I’m afraid there is no Wunderwaffe in anyone’s arsenal that can overcome that sort of strategic blunder,” he told TAC.
Michael DiMino, the public policy manager for Defense Priorities who wrote a brief detailing how aid would not be a silver bullet for Ukraine success against Russia, told TAC that “aid alone is far less important than other factors like manpower, capacity to generate combat power, military leadership, intelligence, and national-level decision making.”
Nevertheless, if you are one of the voices pledging to help Ukraine achieve total victory over the Russians for “as long as it takes,” you are looking for ways to assure more funding after this latest tranche dries up. And there seems to be a lot going on in this regard.
Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have floated the idea of codifying the bilateral security agreement reached by the Biden Administration and Zelensky’s government this past June, which, if passed by Congress, would require enormous sums of annual expenditures to provide, according to the White House announcement, “provision of defense articles and services, combined military maneuvers and exercises, increased defense industrial cooperation consistent with applicable agreements and arrangements between the Parties,” among a litany of other cooperative activities and arrangements.
This might be similar, some say, to the agreement the U.S. has with Israel for which it gives Israel $3.8 billion in military aid, and would make up for the fact that Ukraine will likely not be a member of NATO, at least not anytime soon.
“Bipartisan support for Ukraine is critical to American interests, and we will do whatever we can in 2024 to build on these successes and secure additional future military aid necessary to tain the momentum,” Blumenthal and Graham said in a statement last month after their sixth visit to Ukraine.
But given the fight that a faction of Republicans put up to oppose the $61 billion that passed in April, what are the chances that something like that, or another supplemental, which the Atlantic Council suggests Graham and Blumenthal may also instigate, could pass before the year is through?
The chances are slim, says Punchbowl News. Rather than try to ram new money through, or risk what might happen if Trump takes another term in office (he says often that he does not endorse carte blanche for Zelensky’s war effort) some GOP senators are already suggesting tweaking the existing Pentagon authorities in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to allow for more aid that way.
That massive policy bill, which is typically upwards of 1,000 pages, dictates all military spending for the next year, and has to be passed by the end of the session in December. It would be easier to quietly change the language to keep weapons flowing rather than a stand-alone package.
On Aug. 12, Punchbowl News said lawmakers were keenly aware of the truncated legislative session and that not much would get done until after the elections:
“What we don’t want to have is a lapse,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, told us. …Tillis’ goal of extending the runway for the current aid package could be met by tweaking existing Pentagon authorities that would give the Biden administration more flexibility to continue sending weapons to Ukraine, potentially by drawing from other funding streams or expanding presidential drawdown authority.
Democratic leadership is already on board. “I’ll work with whoever to get that done,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told Punchbowl.
Doug Klain at the Atlantic Council suggested there may be less opposition to this than the April package because Republicans who were then worried about getting dinged for supporting more aid to Ukraine won their primaries this year.
“Every single member of Congress who voted for the April 2024 supplemental aid package won their primary election,” he wrote. “The importance of this cannot be overstated. These primary results will likely quell the fears among Republicans that supporting Ukraine could derail their political careers.”
Notably, amendments this June to the 2025 NDAA, which would cut off foreign military sales funding for Ukraine (Rep. Paul Gosar, R-AZ) and eliminate aid to Ukraine completely (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA), overwhelmingly failed the House in bipartisan votes.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be dissent. First of all, lawmakers like Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), who successfully got an amendment to the Ukraine Aid bill that required the administration to provide a Ukraine war strategy (to include a diplomatic pathway for ending the war) within 45 days of getting the funding cleared, might have something to say if another package is proposed or new funding streams suddenly open up. That’s because the administration blew that mandate off, and has yet to issue a strategy to Congress since that deadline came and went in June.
Davidson successfully passed a new amendment to the 2025 NDAA that requires the same thing of the administration—this time before the money is appropriated. But this would still have to be passed by the Senate or added in conference before it means anything.
Senators like Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY), may be of assistance, as would J.D. Vance (R-OH), who is Trump’s vice presidential running mate, as he has made it clear he would not support further unconditional aid. He voted against the April package and would still play an active role after the November election.
“I do not think that it is in America’s interest to continue to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine,” Vance said during a speech in May, adding “we’ve done more than our fair share.”
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