Scott Ritter offers a two minute take on Lend-Lease’s WW2 origins.
A quick scour of the top search results on “Ukraine Lend Lease” gets me to articles that go nowhere near explaining the mechanics of this iteration of Lend-Lease. I wonder why?
However, an article in The Warzone goes some way into it and provides some interesting food for thought.
To start, S.3522 is one of several pieces of legislation crafted to address the crisis in Ukraine. A memo dated April 29 from the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service cites three other laws already enacted up until that point that had, at least in part, addressed support for Ukraine. Interestingly, if you look closely, all of these, including the recently passed Lend-Lease bill, were first introduced between December of 2021 and mid-February 2022 – all before Russia actually launched its assault on Ukraine. This hasn’t been a matter of sluggish Congressional reaction reflecting last-minute political opportunism or skepticism about providing help from the outset. Instead, the legislative history of all these bills shows that members of the House and Senate were trying to lay the legislative groundwork well in advance of potential Administration requests.
And this is the actual genius of the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act. Even if the exemption of certain lease provisions isn’t going to do anything that existing authorities don’t already cover, invoking the memory of Lend-Lease is an entirely different issue. Frankly, nobody will wax poetic about the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act. It’s impossible to rally people around particular provisions of Chapter 32 of Title 22 of the U.S. Code. But Lend-Lease is a term that is ingrained in the American story.
So even if the letter of these laws isn’t, in the final analysis, going to be especially dramatic, it’s the spirit of the law that’s vital here. It’s worth remembering Napoleon’s assertion that morale is three times more important than physical aspects of warfare. The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act hits the exact right note in spirit. Achieving something other legislative proposals have not, it has set the proper tone for the conversation. The clear decision of the American people, as represented in Congress, to put the power of American industrial might, guided by Ukrainian hands, into the fight against Russian aggression.
The Drive/The Warzone: New Ukraine Military Aid Bill Isn’t Your Grandfather’s Lend-Lease Act
Ukraine: Lend-Lease