The new military aid, including a Patriot anti-aircraft system, is causing political unrest in the United States and Moscow with potential ramifications for Taiwan.
Americans haven’t spent this much on a war since World War II. As of last February, Washington’s military aid to Kyiv totaled $18.6 billion. During President Zelenskyy’s trip to the United States, an additional $1.85 billion in military aid was announced.
“Your money is not charity, it is an investment in global security and democracy, which we manage in the most responsible way,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Congress.
Notably, this new aid includes a Patriot anti-aircraft system designed to help the Ukrainian army repel the Russian bombing raids on Kyiv. It is the most emblematic anti-aircraft device in the American catalog. According to the Pentagon, the Patriot batteries are capable of shooting down cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles and even aircraft much more effectively than the systems currently available to the Ukrainian army.
But after the winter, we still have to wait a long time. The operator training time to take place in Germany is estimated at more than 3 months. It takes a year to train the maintenance teams, which must be Ukrainian lest the Americans be officially considered a warring party by Moscow.
Expensive and not very effective against drones
However, this new donation sparks controversy in the United States in military and political circles. George Beebe, a former US foreign intelligence adviser and current advisor to the Quincy Institute, questions the effectiveness of the Patriots in this particular case. According to this expert, it is a “very expensive and not very effective” way to defend against drone attacks.
The US Army is well aware of the problem. In the Middle East, it has faced drone attacks for years, against which it has only expensive and ineffective means. To counter this threat, the Pentagon earlier this year announced a $636 million budget for research and development of anti-drone defense systems, often costing hundreds of dollars.
According to Jack Watling, weapons expert at RUSI (Royal United Services Institute), a strategic studies center closely linked to British defence, the Patriot missiles will be able to shoot down Iranian Shahed-136 drones.
But in this case, “Kyiv will quickly run out of missiles,” the specialist points out in a column published in the Guardian.
Consequences not foreseeable
On the political side, the Democratic government also seems forced to take into account the growing desperation within the Republican opposition, which considers the proposed budget to be rather excessive or calls for much stricter control over the use of these aids. Some Republicans have called for an end to this funding and called for an audit to verify how funds already allocated to Ukraine have been used.
Wesley Hunt, who was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, had this telling phrase: “At this rate, we should at least make Ukraine the 51st state so it can start paying federal income taxes.”
In the Kremlin, of course, the announcement of supplying Patriots was received very coolly. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the new aid did not bode well for Ukraine.
According to Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador in Washington, the actions of the United States in Ukraine represent an escalation, the consequences of which cannot be foreseen, TASS reported. Moscow hinted last week that the Patriot system was a legitimate target for Russian forces. The ambassador also said that Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s trip confirmed that American statements that the United States did not want a conflict with Russia were meaningless.
But the extradition of the Patriots can also have an impact far beyond Europe. Jack Watling warns that Ukraine’s required quantities of Patriot missiles will weaken ‘deterrent attitude’ towards Beijing. According to him, providing these systems to Ukraine will come “at the expense of Western deterrence toward China given its threat to Taiwan’s independence.”
Benaouda Abdeddaim and Pascal Samama