Ukraine ping
The issue isn’t even money. The way Biden is supplying Ukraine with weapons, if he could get away with it, he’d try to pull the same trick Truman did in starving the Nationalist government while pretending he was doing his best, by putting an absurd value on the equipment sent. Imagine the guy sending one M-16 rifle and assigning to it a value of $100b. That’s the kind of sleazy stunt he would pull if anyone weren’t looking. General Wedemeyer had Truman’s number, but being a soldier instead of chief executive, could do nothing about Truman’s policies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Coady_Wedemeyer#Postwar
[These had been promised by Lend-Lease, but not delivered and still charged to Chaing’s account. Thus, while the Nationalists had over 16,000 trucks virtually all of them were rendered inoperable, forcing his troops to march on foot. Ammunition shortages were also causing Nationalist divisions to lose battles, and Chaing’s troops were forced to scavenge abandoned American dumps because no deliveries had been made. Even worse, much surplus weaponry and ammunition in the Pacific was being destroyed rather than utilized, and Chiang’s government was charged exorbitant prices for what remained. For example, bazookas were sold to Greece at $3.65 apiece, while Chiang’s government had to pay $162. For rifles, the price difference was $5.10 and $51, respectively. Ammunition cost differences were similar, China being charged $85 for 1000 rifle rounds and $95 for 1000 machine gun rounds, compared to $4.55 and $4.58 elsewhere. Wedemeyer recommended an immediate correction of these deficiencies and sending leftover equipment to China rather than blowing it up.
Lacking confidence in the Nationalist government caused by Joseph Stilwell and George Marshall’s meddling, President Harry S. Truman not only rejected the recommendations in the report but also imposed an arms embargo against the Nationalist government]
So what Biden is doing is sending Ukraine equipment near their scrap dates as slowly as he can, instead of war-winning gear that will inflict on Putin a quick defeat so the war can end, much as Trump’s destruction of hundreds of Russian mercenaries ended Russian intrusions upon the US-supported Kurdish sector in Syria. Thereafter, US-Russian relations improved, as Putin understood that the US with Trump as president was not a power to be trifled with.
