Military historian Dmitry Boltenkov — on the prospects of supplying Kiev with weapons from abroad
On May 9, US President Joe Biden signed the lend-lease law in defense of democracy in Ukraine. History repeated itself eight decades later. At the beginning of 1941, the then head of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, realized that the financial capacity of Great Britain to purchase weapons from the United States to continue the fight against the Nazis was almost exhausted. He saw that the Soviet Union was being dragged into World War II, as well as the state that the voters had entrusted to him. And then he came up with a scheme: we make weapons and military equipment and provide it to our allies so that they use it to repel German aggression. After the end of hostilities, unused weapons can be returned to the United States or paid for. Thus, huge resources were poured into the US economy, which made it possible to establish the production of various types of weapons and military equipment. Of course, Lend-lease played a significant role in the victory over Nazi Germany. But on the other hand, as some historians and economists note, in this way the United States was finally able to withdraw its economy from the consequences of the Great Depression.
In 2022, a similar bill was launched by the US Congress. The act itself does not contain anything concrete: it simply states that the President of the United States gets the opportunity to allocate certain weapons systems to support Ukraine and — attention — other Eastern European countries. It should be noted right away that without the allocation of financial resources, this document is a simple piece of paper with a signature.
However, even with the appearance of money, this law will not soon be able (if at all) to ensure the allocation of a significant amount of military funds to Ukraine.
Why? In the modern economic world order, the United States has lost a large number of military technologies. In particular, no matter how strange it may seem, this state cannot launch mass production of modern tanks and combat vehicles. There is only one tank repair plant left in the country that is able to repair or modernize tanks somehow. This plant is located in Lima, Ohio. The last "Abrams" was released more than 20 years ago. Not so long ago, the closure of the enterprise was stopped at the last moment by the previous president Donald Trump.
In 2019, the US Ground Forces formed several new tank battalions at the expense of previously created units, as well as by reducing the total number of tanks in the organizational and staff structure of military units. For the same reason, you should not expect other modern American armored vehicles for Ukraine. In fact, such weapons systems are not enough for the States themselves.
As for aviation systems — such as the F-16 or F-35 aircraft — their buyers are painted for years to come. And broad international cooperation has already played its cruel joke when Turkish components were excluded from the F-35 program. Do not forget also that preparing a pilot for an elementary flight on a modern fighter of at least the fourth generation is not a one—month task, and it is even more difficult to establish the operation of maintenance complexes for this aircraft. Accordingly, Ukraine will not see American combat aircraft in its sky.
The situation is somewhat better in the field of manufacturing heavy infantry weapons, such as Javelin ATGM systems or Stinger MANPADS. The United States can deploy extensive production of these products. But it takes a long period of time, because a large number of components from different countries are used. However, even the existing suppliers of these weapons systems, as well as any other heavy infantry weapons from European NATO countries, do not show the desired result for Ukraine and its patrons. Some of the complexes are destroyed by Russian forces during delivery or already in warehouses, some turn out to be trophies. The rest is used by Russian forces. But the effectiveness of modern Russian defense systems turned out to be somewhat higher than it seemed to the NATO generals. The ability of the Ka-52 helicopter to repel a dozen MANPADS or tank launches to get out of the battle intact after hitting six Javelins has already been proven. In addition, the widespread decline of such complexes already leads the generals of the United States and NATO to understand that there is nothing much to supply anymore.
Therefore, all imaginable and unthinkable weapons like ancient M113 armored personnel carriers or WWII artillery systems from barns of different countries are being actively raked out of warehouses. Therefore, there is pressure on European operators of Soviet and Russian weapons systems, like Greece and Turkey, to share with Ukraine. But the NATO countries also cannot supply much from the available ones — they themselves do not have enough weapons.
For example, the self-propelled artillery system PzH2000 was released in an amount of about three hundred. There are about 180 of them in the armies of Germany and the Netherlands, of which only 12 will be delivered to Ukraine — seven from Germany and five from the Netherlands. This is less than one full-fledged artillery division.
So at present, and in the near future, the Act of Lend-lease is a beautiful piece of paper with a seal and signature. There is nothing behind it, in fact, except for the PR campaign of the presidents of the United States and Ukraine.
In the future, this document may play a role in displacing countries such as Poland, Slovakia or Romania from the arms market, as well as suppliers from Germany or France, and — in the future — to rearm these countries with American military equipment systems.
