Tuesday’s ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was a spectacular exercise in Republican masochism, and some in the party are increasingly confused about national defense too. To wit, since when do Republicans oppose shoring up U.S. weapons stocks?
The stopgap government funding measure Congress passed over the weekend didn’t include aid for Ukraine, which President Biden has requested. More than 100 Republicans voted last week to strip $300 million for Ukraine from a spending bill. The Pentagon said Tuesday that it could continue to offer aid to Ukraine for “a little bit longer,” with roughly $5 billion left to draw down U.S. stocks.
But the account that lets the Pentagon backfill U.S. military weapons that have been donated to Ukraine is down to $1.6 billion. “We have already been forced to slow down the replenishment of our own forces to hedge against an uncertain funding future,” the Pentagon’s comptroller said in a letter to Congress.
Allow us to unfurl some ironies. GOP critics frequently complain that support for Ukraine is putting another country’s problems over our own. Yet now this crowd is stonewalling money to refill U.S. military cupboards, from bombs to air defenses, even though much of this will be an upgrade for American forces over Cold War equipment — such as new tactical vehicles to replace old Humvees.
The Ukraine skeptics fret that the U.S. is expending too much ammunition in Europe, a distraction from the larger threat from China. Yet that is an argument for forcing Mr. Biden to move faster to expand U.S. weapons production. The war in Ukraine has revealed that the U.S. needs deeper reserves in everything from artillery to long-range fires. And it is a strategic gift to learn this lesson before U.S. troops are dying in a war.
Take 155mm artillery. The U.S. is producing 28,000 shells a month, a Pentagon under secretary said in September, up from about 14,000. By 2025? On track for 100,000 a month. The Biden ramp up has been too slow given Ukraine’s need for shells, but it’s far superior to the meager previous output that couldn’t sustain a protracted fight.
In other words, money marked for Ukraine is tied up with America’s ability to defend itself, even if Mr. Biden has failed to explain this to the public. The more weapons America can produce, the more the world’s Xi Jinpings have to think long and hard about provoking the U.S. The now empty Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which lets the Pentagon procure new weapons from industry, is a down payment on a larger U.S. industrial base.
Arms production isn’t an American jobs program or economic stimulus, a fallacy that Republicans should reject. But it is nonetheless puzzling to see conservatives who complain about “hollowed out” U.S. manufacturing oppose money for producing missiles in Alabama or tanks in Ohio.
In less polarized times, Republicans would be capitalizing on Mr. Biden’s Ukraine request to expand U.S. military power, not holding equipment and ammo as a partisan hostage.
