As Congress prepares to pass a major Ukraine spending package, possibly by Friday, Jon Tester, Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense chairman, said it’s important the funding is accounted for and adequate.
Congress is poised to authorize $14 billion in support for Ukraine, this on top of the $1.75 billion spent in the last 12 months. Lawmakers have included the spending in an omnibus bill needed to fund the U.S. Government through September. Barring a short extension, the omnibus needs to pass by midnight Friday to avoid a federal government shutdown.
“I can tell you right now, the money that’s going into defense is very robust. One of my concerns is making sure that we’re going to have the capability to get, from a defense standpoint, the weapons to where they need to go within Ukraine, and making sure that we have the ability to make sure that the money is not wasted,” Tester said.
The Montana Democrat recalled that in his first years in office Congress was authorizing trunk loads of money for the Iraq War with little assurance of how the money would be spent. Spending has to be purposeful in Ukraine, Tester said, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine being the largest military action on the European continent since World War II.
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Spending for Ukraine is $4 billion more than what the Biden administration requested in a March 2 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Defense spending included in the supplemental package for Ukraine is $6.25 billion, of which $2.2 billion covers personnel and operations cost for the next seven months.
The accountability is grounded in the inspector general evaluating defense spending no later than 120 days after the bill is passed. The secretary of defense is also required to give congress 30 days notice before drawing on a $3.5 billion fund to replenish DOD stocks of the weaponry, military training and services. Already, there has been $1.75 billion spent on Ukraine using presidential drawdown authority.
The remaining aid is plumbed through government departments ranging from agriculture to energy.
Tester said it is understood that if Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin doesn’t back off the Ukraine invasion, then the conflict is likely to continue for years. The longest spending deadlines in the aid package extend into 2024.
The response by the United States and its European allies, grounded in sanctions against Russia, will take the time to play out, said Don Loranger, a retired Air Force major general, and specialist in U.S. national security. The success will depend on the willingness of U.S. citizens to sacrifice for as long as those sanctions last.
“I’m very proud of the fact that we have been able to orchestrate, a number of Nations, NATO nations and others, and commercial enterprises, to respond in a very strong way to oppose what Putin’s trying to do in the Ukraine,” Loranger said. “The challenge will be our willingness and courage to do it going forward. Every indication is that we can pull this off, but it’s not going to be easy.”
Loranger, directs the Defense Critical Language and Culture Program at the Mansfield Center on the University of Montana campus. It’s an intensive training program for the U.S. military and other Department of Defense personnel. He is a former military fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, a 30-year veteran, a commander of the Iraqi no-fly zone that protected the local population, particularly the Kurds, from Saddam Hussein’s forces after the Gulf War. Loranger also directed “Provide Promise” a years-long airlift that delivered supplies to more than 300,000 people in war-isolated Sarajevo and East Bosnia.
Among the challenges the United States will face is the mixing and matching of crises, Loranger said. Conflating the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for example, with security of the U.S. border with Mexico, or pipeline infrastructure.
Americans are going to have to make sacrifices to accommodate supply shortages related to sanctions, Loranger said. It’s the kind of sacrifice not seen since World War II.
“They went through all kinds of depravations, besides fighting the war,” Loranger said. “That took great strength from this country to do. I hope we still get that.”
