The Senate blocked aid for Ukraine. Now what?

AMERICA PRIDES itself as the world’s arsenal of democracy. Now the great arsenal is drying up because of political paralysis. Despite warnings that funds for Ukraine would run out by the end of the year, on December 6th Republicans in the Senate blocked a bill to provide emergency spending to support Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other national-security priorities.

What should be a bipartisan bill has become hostage to a deeply partisan issue. Even pro-Ukraine Republicans insist that, in exchange for approving the $111bn package, Democrats should agree to tough curbs on migration across America’s southern border. President Joe Biden admits that the border system is “broken” but has rejected Republican demands as “extreme”. Negotiations will go on. Yet if they run into 2024, as some in Congress fear, it will become ever harder to reach a deal in a feverish election season.

American arms packages to keep Ukraine fighting are shrinking fast (see left-hand chart). The main tool is the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the Pentagon to send allies weapons from its existing stocks, which are later refilled. The Pentagon in theory has about $5bn left in the PDA account, but less than $1bn in the pot to replenish weapons supplies. Top brass may be reluctant to give away more than they are allowed to buy back.

The PDA accounts for $25bn of the $44bn-worth of military aid supplied by America to Ukraine since the start of the war. Drawdowns peaked at more than $5bn in January, when America was arming Ukraine for a summer counter-offensive. The three-month average is at its lowest since February 2022. The other means of arming has been to buy weapons from companies under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, but such deliveries can take months or years.

The impact is being felt at the front. During the summer Ukrainian forces fired about 220,000-240,000 larger calibre shells (152mm and 155mm) each month, but the rate will soon fall to 80,000-90,000, says Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an American think-tank. Even these numbers are more than America and European countries are producing—roughly 28,000 and 25,000 each month, respectively.

American support is faltering as European countries have belatedly overtaken it. Total European commitments to Ukraine—from governments and European institutions—were €148bn ($160bn at current exchange rates), more than double America’s pledges of €71bn from the start of the war to October 31st, according to calculations by the Kiel Institute, a German think-tank.

Europeans are also ahead of America in military assistance. But crucially for the current war effort, America’s aid has all been short-term commitments. (The Europeans have also made long-term pledges.)  Immediate military aid from Europe still falls somewhat short of America.

Moreover, European countries will not meet their promise to supply 1m shells by March. There are also growing doubts about their ability to meet their promises. Slovakia has halted military supplies to Ukraine; Hungary is holding up a new tranche of EU aid worth €50bn; and Germany’s constitutional court has thrown the government’s budget into chaos. 

Russia, meanwhile, is outproducing the West in artillery shells, and has been boosted by ammunition from North Korea. Ukraine’s army is digging in to defend. Whether it can hold its lines now depends on the vagaries of Western politics. If America’s Congress cannot muster the will to keep helping, European support may well crumble, too.■