Pretty big deal- and yes a pretty huge escalation. This means that Ukraine can get a huge amount of arms support from the US. Passed unanimously in the senate. 10 republicans (usual suspects) voted against.
…
"The U.S. House gave final passage Thursday to legislation that would streamline a World War II-era military lend-lease program to more quickly provide Ukraine and other Eastern European countries with American equipment to fight the Russian invasion.
The measure, which passed by an overwhelming 417-10 vote, now goes to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law.
Biden is expected to sign the bill into law, giving the administration greater leeway to send military equipment to Ukraine and neighboring allies in Eastern Europe.
“It is a real moment in history that we are back on this House floor supporting lend-lease,” said Rep. French Hill, R-Ark.
The congressman said he hoped the “Churchillian idea” would end delays in shipping aid to Ukraine, much the way the original law sped help to Britain fighting Adolf Hitler’s Germany in World War II."
This is technically a huge escalation in our support.
This takes away any means of plausible deniability, which is how the US and the USSR got around obvious issues supplying their respective allied groups in the more “questionable” Cold War conflicts like Angola.
This essentially means that the Ukrainians could purchase the latest in American technology. Which is a problem. I had no issues with us giving them older Soviet jets and tanks in our Allied inventory, but this bill essentially means that they could purchase storage quality M1A1 Abrams tanks.
And I don’t like the idea of how the Russians will feel about seeing a very modern American tank blowing holes through their T-90s. It’s not a good look; any deniability is out the window with that. Or their troops being strafed by F-16s.
The previous level of support was working and it gave us reasonable claims for “denial.” Not in the true sense, but in that complicated geopolitical speak that both the US and the Russians used during the Cold War.
It is, with the added issue of atomic weapons.
Putin can’t just be allowed to blackmail the world though.
And since we are for looking out for the interests of the world, did we coordinate this venture with the other industrial powers of the world so that we are not in this alone? Are they paying equivalent amounts comparable to their abilities?
No, he can’t. But we aren’t giving ourselves or the Russians a way to save face with this move.
We are committing ourselves in a way that we weren’t before. Before we could argue plausible deniability on why T-72s and MiG-29s were popping up in Ukraine’s inventory out of nowhere.
We can’t use that saving face maneuver if we are selling them modernized F-16s and M1A1 Abrams.
We can only hope that the rumors of Putin’s bad health are true and that he is not long for this world, because the likelihood that he will back down on his own is slim.