In the spring of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Washington DC seems haunted by the ghosts of history. The US Congress has passed the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 to expedite aid to Ukraine – just as Franklin D Roosevelt did, under the Lend-Lease Act, to the British empire, China and Greece in March 1941.
The sums of money being contemplated in Washington are enormous – a total of $47bn, the equivalent of one third of Ukraine’s prewar GDP. If it is approved by Congress, on top of other western aid, it will mean that we are financing nothing less than a total war.
However, history is complex – scratch the surface and the ambiguities multiply. What does invoking Lend-Lease really imply for the direction of US policy?
Presumably, the narrative is sustained by the promise that a good war fought against an evil regime will be won through the generous sponsorship of the United States. But to complete that narrative arc you have to keep winding the clock forward from Lend-Lease in March to the Atlantic charter in August 1941 and, by December, to Pearl Harbor and the US entry into the war. Providing aid to both China and the British empire, Lend-Lease was a crucial step in turning what was originally a separate Japanese war on China and a German war in Europe into a world war.
If the US Congress is now launching a new Lend-Lease programme, the question of whether escalation is part of the plan must come into consideration.
Adam Tooze
A valid question that the US administration seems to be purposefully avoiding. There are numerous signs of this hidden intent, from Biden’s comments labeling Putin a war criminal and saying that he should not remain in power; to the breakdown of communication channels between the US and Russia; to unnamed senior American officials leaking to the press that the US has provided intelligence allowing Ukrainians to target and kill Russian generals on the battlefield and strike the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet; to US senators openly calling it a proxy war against Russia. A common pattern to these public postures is declaring new ambitious targets, then quickly walking them back in future statements, but overall moving the goalposts further towards increased belligerence – a slippery slope not unlike what got the US tangled up in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The perceived weakness and disarray of the Russian offensive has seemingly emboldened the hawkish factions in US power circles to gamble on more aggressive moves (‘poking the bear’ if you like), callously ignoring the potentially disastrous consequences for Ukrainians – and potentially the whole Europe if a nuclear confrontation breaks out. But as usual, shortsighted American interests seem to prevail – on one side a military-industrial complex depending on perpetual war to produce and export weaponry, recently deprived of its Afghanistan cash-cow, on the other a President with lagging public support trying to look tough on Russia ahead of congressional elections.
I find this covert escalation worrying and reckless – and I’m obviously not alone, as some have called the current moment more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Public statements about intelligence sharing are fueling Putin’s paranoid narrative of NATO aggression; the more cornered and desperate he gets, the more likely to use weapons of mass destruction against Ukrainian forces or civilians. The initial cautious attitude seems to have faded away, leaving some voices to argue that we need not fear Russian nuclear armament, that some of it may be out of order – an absurd line of reasoning, since even a functioning fraction would suffice to level several major cities and instantly kills millions. Indeed, many seem to regard the ongoing hostilities as an entertaining blood sport, relentlessly cheering their chosen side, as if the casualties were insignificant and the victory assured.
Do I think it's a sensible policy? No. A sensible policy entails an effort to de-escalate, striving to freeze this conflict until better times. Putin is 70 years old. He'll go one way or another. It's better to outwait him and play the long game.
— Sergey Radchenko (@DrRadchenko) April 28, 2022
Coming back to this huge aid package for the war in Ukraine (never mind that its size is an order of magnitude larger than the climate package that barely made it through Congress last year, which tells you all you need to know about US’ priorities), another valid criticism is the lack of clear objectives and strategy to accompany it. The US is flooding money and weapons into a country riddled with corruption, with zero accountability over who and how is using them – have they learned nothing from previous engagements in Syria and Afghanistan, where US-made weapons ended up in the hands of the enemy? (rhetorical question, they obviously haven’t). At least in Ukraine the battle lines are clearly drawn compared to conflicts in the Middle East, but that doesn’t rule out Russian capturing American equipment.
Was there any consultation about the package with NATO partners? Apparently not – the Biden administration falling into old patterns of using NATO as extension of US foreign policy (as, again, in Afghanistan) instead of discussing common objectives with allies. What is even the ultimate goal of this military support? – or to put it otherwise, what does “winning” in Ukraine look like? Nobody seems to have a clear picture, making the above-mentioned ‘mission creep’ easier to pursue and more pernicious. Many prefer to hide behind the notion the Ukraine alone is entitled to define the war goals, which seems an easy cop-out to me – it the ‘West’ is providing such substantial support, surely it gets a say in the outcome. If Ukraine somehow manages to liberate its occupied territories, then decides to march onto Moscow to punish Putin, are we not allowed to ask them to stop?
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