GOP lawmakers are waiting on the White House to act on recommendations from top officials to send lethal defensive aid to Ukraine.
Russia has boosted Ukrainian separatists with weapons and fighters in the years-long conflict on the country’s eastern border. The Obama administration refused to give Ukraine defensive arms and opted instead for non-lethal aid and training.
But with the Kremlin’s continued failure to abide by ceasefire agreements and its destabilizing activities abroad, experts and lawmakers say, the present moment is a ripe opportunity to try to change Russian president Vladimir Putin’s calculus. The question remains whether the Trump administration—which has said it wants to improve relations with the Kremlin—will take it.
“That’s something that should be done right now, and I think it will be done,” said Oklahoma senator Jim Inhofe. He noted that the White House has a slow decision-making process.
“We run into this quite often with the White House,” he said. “It’s almost one thing at a time. It’s kind of like the way they are handling health care, then it goes to tax, then it goes to infrastructure.”
Arizona senator John McCain guessed that there’s internal discord on the decision.
“They have people in the White House who disagree with McMaster and Mattis,” McCain told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “Mattis and McMaster have already said we should do it.”
Pressed on who it is that disagrees, McCain responded, coyly: “Everybody knows who they are.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford told lawmakers Tuesday that he advised the administration to send defensive aid to Ukraine. He added that his team had been asking the White House about their a decision for a few weeks.
“In my judgment, from the military perspective, Ukraine needed additional capabilities to protect their sovereignty,” he said. “We just looked at it as a military gap that existed, that, if that gap was filled, it would increase the probability the Ukrainians could defend themselves.”
Mississippi senator Roger Wicker said at that hearing that the State Department and Department of Defense had also made affirmative recommendations. The Wall Street Journal reported in late July that both departments had presented the White House with a proposal for arming Ukraine.
The administration might make and implement the decision secretly.
“We have nothing to announce at this time, and we do not comment on internal deliberations,” a National Security Council official told TWS Wednesday.
Hannah Thoburn, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, noted that Congress only recently confirmed officials who are critical to the administration’s Ukraine policy.
“The policy on Ukraine is only now starting to take shape,” she said. “This kind of decision is not one that should be made quickly and without full comprehension of the situation in Ukraine, so I would not expect a decision on this question for some weeks or months.”
Those who support giving Ukraine lethal defensive aid say doing so would deter the Kremlin, while critics say that lethal aid could provoke Russia and trigger an escalation in the conflict.
“The purpose of providing defensive weapons is to help Ukraine protect its forces, reduce casualties, deter the Russians from carrying out further attacks by raising the costs of further aggression, and ultimately, to increase the pressure on Russia to negotiate seriously on implementing Minsk [ceasefire agreements],” Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, a fellow at the Atlantic Council and former NATO deputy secretary general, said at an event there last week.
Vershbow added that much of the equipment that Ukraine needs “isn’t technically lethal.”
“More advanced counter battery radars, armored vehicles, reconnaissance drones, and secure communications,” he said.
The most controversial potential piece of equipment, anti-tank weapons, would be deployed with Ukrainian troops positioned away from the front lines, per the Journal.
“Anti-tank weapons wouldn’t increase the Ukrainians’ potential to recapture territory, but they would help deter new Russian large-scale offensives by creating a greater risk of significant equipment losses and casualties,” said Vershbow.
Proponents also say that arming Ukraine would serve as a warning to Russia that any military moves against nearby NATO allies will not be tolerated.
“The forward defense of NATO, the forward defense of our interests, demands that we help Mr. Putin have a hard time in Donbas,” said John Herbst, the former Ambassador to Ukraine and now a director at the Atlantic Council.
