Political will or death: White House hesitation costs Ukraine billions in military aid

RU

A race against time

As Ukraine fights for its survival on the battlefield, the county’s future continues to depend on the outcome of political maneuvering in Washington, DC. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the United States has remained Ukraine’s single largest supplier of military aid. But as America approaches the end of its current fiscal year, Washington’s ability to continue that support is being called into question.

At issue is a key provision of the United States Code that has allowed the country’s Department of Defense to supply Ukraine with tens of billions worth of military aid.

While the administration of President Biden speaks of the urgent need for Congress to authorize a continuation of that aid, the current predicament is actually one of their own creation. The dysfunction of the U.S. Congress should come as no surprise to the President, a veteran of the Senate. His administration continues to gamble Ukraine’s future by creating the conditions in which last minute requests must be made just in order to keep the aid pipeline open. This is not the first time poor political planning in Washington threatens the supply of aid and ammunition to Kyiv, and it likely won’t be the last.

Section 506 of the Foreign Assistance Act, better known as Presidential Drawdown Authority, allows the U.S. president, in an emergency, to direct “the drawdown of defense articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense…of an aggregate value of not to exceed $100 million in any fiscal year.” $100 million worth of equipment is of course not very much, so Congress, at the Joe Biden’s request, has increased that ceiling on five separate occasions since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Most recently, in the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024, it was raised to $7.8 billion for Fiscal Year 2024. Since signing that legislation in April, President Biden has directed new drawdowns worth $1.875 billion, pursuant to that authority. That leaves $5.925 billion available for the rest of the fiscal year. However, once the clock strikes midnight on Oct. 1, Fiscal Year 2025 will begin, the authority for the previous fiscal year will expire, and the default ceiling of $100 million will come back into effect.

This is obviously an undesirable outcome, but it is not one without precedent. At the end of Fiscal Year 2022, the Biden Administration allowed over $2 billion in Drawdown Authority to expire, despite calls from Congressional Republicans to utilize all of it. The amount allowed to expire was approximately 25% of the total that had been approved in the May 2022 Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act. In the autumn of 2022, Ukraine was in a race against time, launching simultaneous offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson to drive Russian forces back before they could mobilize reinforcements, and before poor weather would put an end to maneuver operations. Though both offensives enjoyed success, had Ukraine received an additional $2 billion worth of ammunition and equipment at that time, Kyiv’s forces could have made even more territorial progress while simultaneously keeping the Russians off balance.

Special provisions

The current situation is even worse. A staggering 76% of the authority approved by Congress stands to expire in a few weeks time. The Biden Administration requested $7 billion in Drawdown Authority for Fiscal Year 2024, and Congress approved $7.8 billion — with the intention that it would be used. Instead, the administration has needlessly rationed the Drawdown Authority aid packages to Ukraine. The newly directed drawdowns since April have averaged just $200 million each, whereas during Fiscal Year 2023 the figure was around $600 million.

Ukraine’s needs today are certainly not three times less than they were a year ago — if anything, they have grown. With $7.8 billion approved at the end of April, Ukraine could have been provided with $1 billion worth of equipment per month, and that still wouldn’t have exhausted all the available authority.

The Biden Administration, in an attempt to avoid a repeat of September 2022, has asked Congress to prevent the remaining $5.925 billion from expiring. The specific request is for Congress to amend the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act (USSAA), 2024 to authorize the $7.8 billion in Drawdown Authority across both Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025. This would prevent the expiry of the remaining $5.925 billion and leave it available throughout Fiscal Year 2025 — either until it is exhausted, or until Congress amends Section 506 again.

The request was submitted as part of a package sent to Congress by the Office of Management and Budget for continuing resolution “anomalies.” Having not yet passed appropriations acts to fund the government for Fiscal Year 2025, Congress will need to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded. While most lawmakers will likely opt to vote for the continuing resolution (rather than force a shutdown of the government just before an election), these votes are always contentious. It is still a possibility that the continuing resolution could be defeated, and the administration’s request to have this amendment included might not be granted.

Tactics but no strategy

This raises the question: why did they not request that this provision be included in USSAA to begin with? In the spring it was obvious that extending the funding deadline would be a problem come September, and when they were drafting the bill, Congress could have avoided this problem by including language authorizing the $7.8 billion in both years.

With the war in its third year, a greater emphasis on long term planning is essential, and yet the Biden Administration has continued to make things up as they go along. They refused to commit to a clear strategy until Congress finally mandated that they present one — a directive that was long ignored before the White House ultimately submitted it three months late.

It is not a coincidence that the report — fully hidden behind classification, in contravention of the law — was handed in only after the administration had run down the clock and submitted their continuing resolution anomalies request. Pursuant to the authorized and appropriated aid, the report requires them to provide Congress with specific details on the security assistance being provided to Ukraine and how that assistance will enable Ukraine to defeat Russia. Such an assessment, if written honestly and in good faith, would repudiate the Biden Administration’s current pattern of delivering the bare minimum amount of support to Ukraine.

A couple of $200 million Drawdown packages per month is not enough to even sustain the Ukrainian military’s defensive operations, let alone to enable Kyiv to undertake large-scale offensive operations. Given that the 2023 counter offensive was backed by drawdowns worth, on average, $600 million each, it will likely take even more than that for Ukraine to achieve more decisive success on the battlefield going forward.

With available security assistance resources constrained, some level of rationing will need to continue. In a worst-case scenario — one in which the $5.925 billion expires unused — there would still be a few billion available in “restored” Drawdown Authority available from a recalculation of the drawdowns of the previous two fiscal years. This authority, having already been notified to Congress, does not expire, and would allow drawdowns to continue at the current pace into the new calendar year.

This mechanism also provides the administration a backup plan if Congress does not extend the $5.925 billion into the next fiscal year, as once they notify Congress of a drawdown, there is no time limit on its completion. The equipment does not have to be delivered immediately. While Ukraine would certainly benefit from a large delivery of aid now, the administration’s likely course of action in this scenario would be to announce the drawdown of all $5.925 billion, then gradually deliver the equipment to Ukraine over a prolonged period.

Even with these authorities intact though, they still need to last for as long as it takes Congress to pass a sixth Ukraine supplemental appropriation act to provide for continued support through 2025. Given that the next president will not be inaugurated until the end of January, the current authorities need to last until at least the end of March in order to allow for the next Congress to negotiate with the new administration before drafting and, ultimately, passing the legislation.

This means Ukraine will likely continue to receive less aid than it needs if it is to maintain a credible defense. Kyiv’s list of unfulfilled requirements continues to far exceed the resources available to meet them, unfortunately. The Biden Administration has compounded this problem by making extremely poor use of the aid approved by Congress.

Comprehensive assistance

As discussed in a previous piece, Raytheon could have been contracted with Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funds to deliver new PATRIOT fire units for Ukraine, but the Department of Defense has shown no interest in this. USAI is intended to fund long term procurement objectives like air defense, but it has also been used to fund shorter term acquisitions. The Department of Defense has used it to secure Soviet pattern ammunition for Ukraine in the past, for example. In this regard, it could be used to help address shortcomings in what the United States is able to supply Ukraine from its own stocks via the Drawdown Authority.

The Czech initiative to procure artillery ammunition from global suppliers would benefit greatly from some additional funds, but the U.S. government has made no commitments to help finance this project. Lack of ammunition for the weapons they already have remains the Ukrainian military’s biggest material problem — and yet there does not seem to be any real sense of urgency around this reality in the White House or Pentagon. There is over $4 billion in USAI funds that remain available until the end of the next fiscal year, and even a fraction of that could deliver a large amount of artillery ammunition to Ukraine in a shorter time frame.

Beyond artillery ammunition and air defense, Ukraine simply needs more of everything. Conventional war cannot be fought on a shoestring budget. There has been a tendency to look at assistance to Ukraine through the lens of different individual capabilities, rather than what their entire armed forces require to fully equip itself. No single system or collection of systems, whether it be air defense, artillery, armor, aircraft, or long-range strike, is going to win them the war.

The Capability Coalitions, formed under the auspices of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, are a useful mechanism to further Ukraine’s military capabilities more holistically, but the scale of assistance being delivered by all donors, not just the United States, continues to come up short. Donations of key systems are measured in the dozens or hundreds — thousands will be required if Ukraine is to decisively win. Solving that problem will unfortunately remain out of reach for the short term, but the next administration in Washington will need to realistically consider how much they must request the next Congress to approve. At minimum, it should be $24 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority, $60-$70 billion in replacement funding, and $24 billion between USAI & Foreign Military Financing.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces certainly have their own shortcomings — in organization, training and command, to name a few — but these factors are beyond the control of Western leaders. What Ukraine’s supporters can control is the amount of material we deliver to them. As winter approaches, the short-term objective should be to put Russian logistics under as much stress as possible. President Biden has the opportunity to lead by example by lifting all restrictions on Ukraine’s use of donated weapons and delivering a substantial quantity of additional missiles.

A combination of GMLRS, ATACMS, and JASSM cruise missiles can deal a serious blow to Russian forces if they are used together in large number in a sustained campaign over the autumn and winter. With the United States prioritizing offensive firepower, the Europeans, lacking in that category, should focus on reconstituting Ukrainian ground units for offensive operations in advance of next summer. Now is the time to begin this process.

All hands on deck

As an addition to the Capability Coalitions, countries could individually or collectively adopt a Ukrainian brigade and commit to fully training and equipping it with everything it needs.

Europe, Canada, Australia, and other countries may soon find themselves in the position of having to pull even more weight though. While U.S. aid to Ukraine will surely continue in the short term, the outcome of this November’s election will have significant ramifications for the trajectory of the war.

Former President Trump seems convinced that he can quickly negotiate a deal to end the fighting, but it is difficult to see how that would be to Kyiv’s long-term benefit when Russia still occupies so much of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. Vice President Harris represents a continuity of the Biden Administration’s policies. She has consistently refused to explain what her own policy agenda might entail and continues to defend the current administration’s record. While this predictability is reassuring to an extent, Ukraine still cannot win the war if it continues to receive only the bare minimum amount of support required to prevent a Russian breakthrough.

In either case, it will be incumbent both upon America’s allies and the bipartisan Congressional majority supporting Ukraine to convince the next President that Ukraine must be supported decisively.

The best way to end the war quickly — and on favorable terms for Ukraine — is to deliver military assistance in much larger quantities. The silver lining is that as we head into 2025, the production ramp-up for some key munitions, like 155mm shells, will start delivering much more substantially. The necessary weapons will be available. The only question, as always, is whether the political will exists to get them into the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.