https://reason.com/2024/04/25/enough/

Enough?

Liz Wolfe4.25.2024

(Volodymyr Tarasov/Ukrinform / Polaris/Newscom)

Cash infusion still not enough: Despite the $60 billion in Ukraine aid that was just authorized by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, U.S. government officials are quietly voicing their skepticism that this chunk of change will be effective at helping Ukraine beat Russia.

"Russia maintains a manpower and weapons advantage, and it would take a lot to reverse months and years of territorial losses," reported Politico. It's not just a question of winning or losing, in other words, but also whether Ukraine is able to seize back the parts of its territory that Russia had seized in years prior, like Crimea, or Donbas, which Russia seized at the start of the war in 2022. "There's lots of debate about what a winning endgame for Ukraine looks like at this point," a senior Democratic staffer in the Senate told Politico.

Meanwhile, lots of White House staffers claim that the aid package being stalled for as long as it was has resulted in massive Russian gains that will be even harder for Ukraine to make up for. "It's going to take some time for us to dig out of the hole that was created by six months of delay," saidJake Sullivan, the national security adviser.

But massive pressure was reportedly exerted by the White House in order to ensure the aid bill's passage. Per a Washington Post report, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.) was summoned to the Oval Office in late February—along with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.)—under the guise of discussing how to avoid a government shutdown. The meeting was actually "a plan to pressure Johnson to push through a Ukraine aid package that was deeply dividing House Republicans," per the Post.

The tradeoffs are awful no matter how you slice it. The White House, and the bipartisan consensus in favor of endlessly depleting America's coffers to pay for wars elsewhere, was able to get its way. But even if you were gunning for the right-wing flank of the GOP that was looking to cut foreign aid, it's also worth contending with the real tradeoffs that would come there, in terms of Ukraine struggling to defend itself from Russia's unjust invasion. European allies have come to its aid, yes, but it's an open question as to whether any of this will be enough.