April 27, 2024 (EIRNS)—Chatham House (Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs) has published an essay arguing that the additional $61 billion that the U.S. has added to its war budget for Ukraine is fine, but calls for a more permanent arrangement by which Western funding of the Kyiv regime’s war machine will go on indefinitely, without concern for political considerations in the countries providing the funding. The obvious intent of the proposal is to “Trump-proof” military support to the Kyiv regime, though Donald Trump’s possible electoral victory in 2024 is never mentioned.
“Without a better plan for consistent aid delivery, sooner or later Ukraine will again find itself in a critical situation,” writes Olga Tokariuk, an Open Society University Network Academy Fellow in Chatham House’s Ukraine Forum, in a commentary posted yesterday. “It is a welcome development that the new U.S. bill acknowledges the need for more stable funding and calls for a ‘multi-year’ strategy with ‘specific and achievable objectives’ that hasten Ukrainian victory. However, U.S. support should not be overly relied upon. Europe must act too, using the time Ukraine has bought it to get serious about defense.”
Therefore, “A long-term, sustainable strategy that enables an uninterrupted flow of Western military aid, regardless of election cycles and political squabbles, must be developed by the U.S., Europe and Ukraine’s other allies,” Tokariuk argues. “Vital assistance should never again be a hostage of domestic politics.”
This, she says, “can be achieved by legislatively committing to funding Ukraine in the long-term. Bilateral security agreements Ukraine has signed with six EU countries and the U.K. allow for that. More similar agreements, including one with the U.S., are upcoming. Money for this can be found by increasing national defense spending, with governments informing their citizens that supporting Ukraine now prevents much greater future expense—and the need to risk their own servicemen and women’s lives.”
