Pressures on Allied Support of Ukraine
David E. Johnson on the RAND blog raises the question of how long can the U.S. and its allies “afford the massive transfer of weapons to the Ukrainians, lest they jeopardize the readiness of their own militaries? When does the arsenal of democracy shift to the arsenal for self?”
“The contributions by the United States and Ukraine’s other supporters have been immense,” Johnson notes. “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said that as of mid-April approximately 60,000 anti-tank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons went to Ukraine.” And there’s more on the way.
“This is not unlike the pushback to President Franklin Roosevelt’s March 1941 Lend Lease policy that rushed U.S. materiel support to Great Britain and the Soviet Union, including aircraft and warships. Arguably, this assistance kept the besieged British in the war.”
War brings stark choices. For Ukraine and its allies, this is one of them.