Since Mike Johnson and other top Republicans (to say nothing of the Orange Menace) are reportedly taking bribes from Russian agents, to the point of committing high treason against the United States and giving aid and comfort to an American state enemy, there’s of course been a lot of attention paid to end-runs around the historically corrupt, incompetent, obstructionist GQP traitors in Congress. MNPundit had a great diary on this recently, on the indirect supplies to Ukraine through Greece (and likely Turkey and other countries). And all this is likely tip of the iceberg—between lend lease and various ways of “creative accounting” to cut costs in the Pentagon budget (since storage and maintenance of stocks are so expensive), and previous laws and practices since at least the Korean War and Vietnam, American Presidents have a lot of latitude to give funds and supplies to clear US allies in urgent cases, especially in the obvious just-war case of self-defense against a foreign aggressor (Putin’s Russia) that’s also directly threatening the United States and the American people and the whole international order our own trade depends on. This power hasn’t always been used wisely or productively in US interventions (as we saw in Iraq and Libya), but under an intelligent and tough-minded President like joe Biden, it’s an important tool to get through the GOP’s obstructionist bullshit and take necessary steps to protect the international order and free world.
And on that point of “creative accounting” (the good kind), Forbes has a follow up story to that excellent piece that MNPundit’s diary dove into. David Axe is one of the best investigative reporters for the magazine, and he’s dug up more information about the “Excess Defense Articles” act, that the article points out gives wide legal authority for military transfers of hardware and ammo—which can also be very broadly defined as excess and able to be transferred, with bonus of saving US taxpayers money by cutting down on the costs of storage and maintenance. And, with the exit from the War in Afghanistan and (mostly) from the rest of the Middle East, and still very high Defense budgets, there is a lot of excess military hardware that can be supplied to Ukraine and reduce our costs to boot. Axe pulls no punches in savaging Republican traitors for their pro-Russian treason (Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave at his party’s betrayal of the country). The top rated comment on the site is a keeper: “Putin needs to understand that whatever Iran and N Korea can come up with, we will always have more. Let's start acting like the most powerful nation in the world that we are.” A loud amen to that, especially in a case like this.
We’ll admit we’re not experts on this subject, as there’s obviously a lot of bureaucracy and procedures with this and almost certain a lot else going on behind the scenes with military supplies and other maneuvers we may not be aware of. (There may even be a lot of this excess articles transfer going on already, fog of war and that) But if this option has been under-utilized, it’s useful to draw more attention to it. and act on it now on a massive scale. The legacy media has been absolute shit in a lot of its Ukraine reporting, another result of Putin’s general media and social media hacks and bots spreading disinformation that less diligent journalists have been falling for, but there’s also been some good reporting on how devastating and exhausting the damage has been to Russia, why it’s imperative for the US (for self interest as much as defending the democratic world against a Hitler-esque dictator) to keep up the brutal pressure on Putin’s Russia to the point that things start breaking.
And they are, for ex. with more reports on how the Russian public (despite Putin’s repression and threats to dissidents) is fast losing patience with Putin’s bullshit, especially with prices of basics surging throughout Russia (to ruinous levels by some measures) and sizable cities like Podolsk going without heat even with sub-zero temperatures in the winter due to shortages and delivery failures. All while other Russian cities suffer outages of heating, water and electricity in the dead of winter. The Russian military is struggling to fill quotas and getting desperate enough to rely on mercenaries, young and esp educated Russians are leaving the country in droves to avoid quotas (even escaping to Brazil and Argentina with its own serious problems) and Russia is running so short on key arms and ammo it’s been relying on North Korean purchases at inflated prices that don’t even hit their targets well. Putin’s Russia in other words was already teetering even before his murders of Prigozhin and Navalny, two popular figures within Russia as much outside of it and now his army is stuck with demoralized conscripts and reluctant mercenaries forced into suicidal frontal assaults that gain them temporary Pyrrhic victories at best. Avdiivka is so bombed out it’s a death trap for Russian garrisons with few if any buildings for cover, and vulnerable to artillery attacks and drones.
And Putin’s Russia truly is isolated, outside of North Korea and Belarus under “Little Putin” Lukashenko it has virtually no friends or allies despite the stupid gas-lighting in some media about a “pro Russian” block--similar to the media’s stupidity about how there just has to be a “horse race” even with a literally fascist GOP (and not just from Trump) and Democrats utterly crushing Republicans repeatedly in ballot initiatives and special elections. The rest of the world whether friend or foe, has no interest in encouraging a new imperial scramble that would cripple the international order and trade to point of plunging the world into another Great Depression (and even Iran, itself desperately in need of revenue, has been taking payments for its Shahed drones in gold, at much higher prices than thought). China pays lip service due to the natural resources from Siberia but ruthlessly negotiates sharp discounts that with the pipeline fires, often force Russia into exporting them nearly at cost or even at losses that tie up Russian manpower, and also pushing an energy and industrial policy that’s making current history rhyme up with the 1980’s.
The fall of the USSR came about from the heavy costs of the Soviet-Afghan war and Chernobyl, but there was also a critical push (one of the things Ronald Reagan truly did get right) by a US-Saudi policy to pump out a surplus of oil to drop oil prices and strip the Soviet Union of desperately needed revenue. Now Russia is stuck in another and even costlier quagmire but with oil prices facing an even more sustained decline, a big reason being China’s historically massive focus on solar panels, electric vehicles and other renewables—with our own efforts here stymied by asinine Republican obstructionism—that’s led to record growth in renewable sources. Very popular within China (and their own local elections) but also globally and pushed partially by Chinese investment overseas. The old saw about a mystery wrapped inside an enigma has sometimes been applied to Russia but it’s more appropriate to China, and while they may not be an ally for their own reasons they’ve developed a predatory stance towards Russia that like Saudi Arabia’s massive oil-pumping in the 1980’s, is grinding away at the price of oil that Russia (losing more and more of its tech workforce every week) is more desperately relying on. And Russia’s Urals crude is now on the cusp of heading even lower.
What it all adds up to is a clear strategic necessity by any calculation: the need to get more arms and support to Ukraine, as fast as possible in any way we can. Despite the claims about Russia being willing to sacrifice a full generation on the east Ukraine front-lines their ability to wage a war of attrition is being eaten away at every day, esp with the fact they’re waging an aggressive offensive war with a population that doesn’t want to become cannon feed for the dumb ambitions of an insecure leader obsessed with being a knock-off Peter the Great complete with cringey pictures shirtless on a horse (shows what this war is really about, other than the Ukrainian pipelines and wheat). Democrats are in the right in political strategy, geo-strategic calculation and global ethics to get ruthless with Republicans here and take every step possible to aid the defenders, as a failure would be infinitely more costly for the United States even in short run with the collapse of global trade from a new imperial scrambling. In addition to growing international aid and volunteers from across the world aiding Ukraine’s defense, our arms and ammo are of great importance, and right now they’re basically rotting in warehouses and costing American taxpayers billions of dollars just to maintain. The Republicans are going ahead with their sham impeachments regardless of what President Biden and Democrats do so there’s little value in worrying about that either way—the modern GOP is an enemy of the American people and the free world, and it’s important to press forward regardless of their obstructionism and incompetence. We should absolutely continue to move aggressively on the bills in Congress, including if necessary moving ahead with the combined border and military aid bill (bring it up again every single week) that’s been splitting the Republicans apart as even Fox News and their own conservative press realizes how dumb it is to let Trump tank a border bill that gives them practically all their own priorities. But the laws already on the books, and previous policies and expansions of Presidential power and commander in chief, give a lot of flexibility that we should take every step to use and take advantage of.