Ukraine is suddenly close to getting a big new supply of U.S. weapons
After six months of stasis, Congress approves votes Saturday
The U.S. Congress has taken a long-awaited leap toward rearming Ukraine, setting up votes Saturday that will have sprawling international consequences.
An informal coalition of like-minded lawmakers from both parties in Washington stuck together and busted through a procedural barricade that had been blocking a vote for months.
It happened after the Republican Speaker Mike Johnson took a career-threatening gamble: he declared himself willing to risk the wrath of the far right and its threats to oust him.
"History judges us for what we do," Johnson said earlier this week.
"[This is] a critical time on the world stage. I could make a selfish decision and do something that's different. But I am doing here what I believe to be the right thing."
After more than six months of stasis, he gave the House of Representatives a chance to weigh in Friday. When it finally did, the initial result was overwhelming, with three-quarters agreeing to advance the package.
Four bills headed for final vote
Now four bills that arm American allies and sanction U.S. rivals are scheduled for final votes in that chamber on Saturday afternoon.
The bills would supply weapons to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, sanction Iran, Hamas and Russia, and potentially ban the popular social media site, TikTok.
"The world has been watching," said Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts who worked on the legislation.
"Our allies have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the GOP to get their act together.… The Ukrainian people have suffered as a result," he said. "This Republican delay has helped Putin and hurt Ukraine."
This 316-94 vote suggests the bills have enough support to pass the House, then the Senate, and become law. Adoption is not guaranteed, but highly likely.
The package actually received slightly more votes from the minority Democrats than from Republicans, something that rarely happens in Congress.
Democrats have made clear they are ready to do something they didn't for the last ousted speaker, Kevin McCarthy: vote to help Johnson keep his job.
That offer proved critical.
The Speaker had flinched at allowing a vote amid threats from his own side. Some pro-Trump lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene are vitriolic in their opposition to aiding Ukraine, and have threatened to dump Johnson.
She has called Johnson a mini-tyrant. Others on the right have more articulately cited their concerns about the legislation.
"How long are we putting America last?" said one Republican opponent, Ralph Norman, who was unsuccessful at blocking the bills at committee. "It's something I can't live with."
What's in the bills: Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, TikTok
The House will now vote Saturday on four separate bills worth $95 billion US.
Nearly two-thirds of that money — over $60 billion — will go to resupplying Ukraine through 2024. It also pushes the president to hand Ukraine U.S.-made long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, and includes other economic assistance.
A number of Democrats opposed the vote over its Israel component: it includes a mix of defensive weapons, like replenishing Israel's missile-shield systems, and offensive weapons including artillery.
In an effort to address criticism on the left, there are billions earmarked for humanitarian relief, including for Gaza. Some Republicans tried and failed to strip that from the package.
There's $8 billion for U.S. allies in Asia, especially Taiwan, mostly for weapons and naval infrastructure.
Then finally there's an omnibus bill, called the Peace Through Strength Act, which allows the U.S. to seize Russian government-held assets in the U.S., sell them, and send the profits to Ukraine.
It also reintroduces a crackdown on TikTok that had already passed the House. The bill has been relaxed slightly to give the app's Chinese owner several extra months to sell it before the app would be blocked in the U.S.
The argument against the bills
One Republican opponent of these bills warned that seizing Russian-held assets could rebound against the U.S.
The U.S. is saddled with historic levels of debt and needs countries to buy assets, like bonds and treasury bills, to avoid skyrocketing interest rates, said Thomas Massie.
Massie expressed fear that less-friendly countries will start balking at purchasing U.S. assets.
That points to another argument against these bills: that unlike when the U.S. was the world's uncontested superpower, it is no longer in a position to give allies this many weapons.
The U.S. has neither the money, nor the military means, critics say, to handle so many security threats unfolding simultaneously in different places, from Asia to Eastern Europe.
This month, the cost of servicing the U.S. national debt exceeded the country's military spending. And military production is creaky to boot.
Plagued by chronic delays, the U.S. ship-building industry is capable of producing one ship for every 230 built in China. As for artillery, Russia is producing three times more shells than the U.S. and Europe combined; the U.S. makes only 10 per cent of the 350,000 shells per month that Ukraine has called its bare minimum need.
A Trump-aligned Republican senator wrote a piece in the New York Times arguing that the U.S. should be prodding Ukraine to scale back its ambitions: to dig defensive ditches, lay down land mines, and negotiate the best ceasefire it can with Russia.
"Ukraine's challenge is not the [Republican Party]; it's math," wrote Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. "Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war."
One analyst offered two arguments for the bills: To help Ukraine achieve an equitable peace settlement, and to reassure other democratic allies who fear Russia, China and North Korea.
Without new U.S. supplies, Ukraine's defences are at risk of collapse, making it harder to negotiate fair terms, said Mark Cancian, a retired marine and defence department official.
Such a disaster would reverberate elsewhere, he said.
"The stakes are very high," Cancian, an expert on military budgeting at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CBC News.
"A Ukrainian collapse would just be bad. Not just for Ukraine … but the signal that it sends to other [U.S. allies] like Taiwan … [and] South Korea or Japan.
"If the message they receive is, 'the United States will get tired of defending you,' that's when they might decide to get nuclear weapons."
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