Tanks for Ukraine. A Day Late and a Dollar Short Again? But It Could be Worse.

Ukraine is, at last, getting some tanks.  But consider how long it took for everybody to agree, and it’s going to what even longer for them to finally get delivered.  How much more could Ukraine have accomplished if they had gotten the tanks earlier.  But then, that seems to have been the story all along.  We’re always giving Ukraine weapons three or four months (or longer) after we should have.  We seem to be giving enough weapons to Ukraine so they can stop Russia from winning, but we never give them enough to actually get this war over with. 

There are lots of reasons people give for not giving Ukraine more weapons (and capabilities).  I’ll address two of them.  The first is that Vladimir Putin might escalate to nuclear weapons.  If that is the determining factor, then maybe we ought to stop giving any weapons to Ukraine, because otherwise we are just fighting to the last Ukrainian, without ever giving them a chance to win.  Is that fair?

Second, some say we can’t give weapons to Ukraine.  We need them for the next war.  Well, Ukraine is the war that is going on; we need to do what we need to get this one over.  But at the same time, let’s start building more weapons – now.  Congress should appropriate more money – now.  The Administration should enter into long-term contracts with defense contractors – now.  We can do this – if we want to.  The question is how many people want to.

Still, for all the complaints I have, Joe Biden is doing a pretty good job on Ukraine.  While he could be doing better, the possibilities for doing worse are immense.  Consider some of them:

1. What would Donald Trump have done if he had been re-elected?  Of course, nobody ever knows what President Trump would do, though it is possible, if Trump was president, Putin might not have invaded Ukraine.  Instead, he would have waited for Trump to destroy NATO from the inside and then just walked into Kiev, along with Tallin, Riga, and Vilnius.

2. What if Biden had followed an Afghanistan-withdrawal-style approach?  Ukraine could have been a disaster, too.  (Fortunately, he didn’t.)

3. What if Elizabeth Warren had gotten the Democratic presidential nomination 2020 and then won in November – or even Bernie Sanders, for heaven’s sake.  Can you seriously see a President Sanders doing anything to help Ukraine?

4. What if a Republican like George W. Bush had been president?  Democrats in Congress are supporting Biden, but would they have supported a George W. Bush-like president?  Consider, for example, Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dick Durbin.  I’m not sure there has been a Democratic president he hasn’t supported on this kind of issue and a Republican president he hasn’t opposed.  On the other hand, while Republicans have supported President Biden so far on Ukraine, might some of that support start to waver as the 2024 presidential race heats up?  A GWB-like Republican president might not have to worry so much about Republican support, but, as I said, he might have to worry about Democratic support.

5. Finally, what would Barack Obama have done if he were president today?  He didn’t do diddly-squat back in 2014.  Would he have done any more today?