Changes have arrived to a redesigned Causes: Check out new.causes.com!

Causes.com
| 4.20.22

What Is ‘Lend-Lease’ & How Could It Help Ukraine Against Russia’s Invasion?

Are you in favor of a Lend-Lease military aid program for Ukraine?

What’s the story?

  • House lawmakers are set to return to the Capitol next week and may vote on a bill to initiate a World War II-style Lend-Lease program that would speed the delivery of weapons and other critical supplies needed by Ukraine’s military as it defends against Russia’s invasion.

What would the bill do?

  • The bill, known as the Ukraine Democracy Lend-Lease Act of 2022, passed the Senate unanimously on a voice vote in early April before lawmakers went on a two-week recess.
  • It would help Ukraine’s government obtain military equipment from the U.S. by waiving certain restrictions on the sale of defense articles that are mostly related to payment and recall rights for loaned equipment.
  • Specifically, the bill would waive provisions that ban the use of loans with repayment periods longer than five years; allow the U.S. to recall the loaned defense article at any time; and require the receiving party to pay the U.S. for all costs incurred in leasing a defense article. It would also waive a provision that allows Congress to prohibit certain transfers of defense articles using a joint resolution.
  • These waivers would only apply to Ukraine, not to arms sales for any other country. They would remain in effect until the conflict which began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 has ceased, and Russia has reduced its military force on Ukraine’s eastern border to the levels maintained prior to March 1, 2021.
  • Additionally, the bill would require the president to establish expedited procedures to ensure the timely delivery of defense articles loaned or leased under this bill.
  • The bill was introduced in the Senate by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) along with original cosponsors Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Roger Wicker (R-MS). A companion bill in the House was introduced by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and lead cosponsor Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN).
  • If the bill is added to next week’s schedule in the House, it may be considered under the fast-track “suspension of the rules” process which expedites debate but requires a two-thirds majority for passage, given its unanimous passage in the Senate.

What role did Lend-Lease play in WWII?

  • Lend-Lease played a major role in aiding the Allied war effort against Germany, Italy, and Japan both before and after the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941. It helped the Allies wage war against Germany and in the process jump-started the U.S. defense industrial base prior to America’s entry into the war. 
  • The U.S. pursued a policy of isolationism and non-interventionism through much of the 1930s and remained neutral after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, an act that prompted Britain and France to enter the war against Germany. When war erupted in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began to work with Congress to gradually roll back various neutrality laws that restricted U.S. defense exports.
  • This initially began as a “cash and carry” program in which Britain would pay the U.S. in cash and gold for defense articles and also take responsibility for transporting them across the Atlantic. There was also a Destroyers for Bases Agreement of 1940 in which 50 U.S. Navy were transferred to Britain and Canada in exchange for basing rights in the Caribbean and Newfoundland, Canada. As Britain’s liquid currency assets dwindled and the war raged on, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill continued to lobby FDR for more aid and pleaded, “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job.” 
  • During the Battle of Britain in September 1940, Britain sent the Tizard Mission to initiate a technology-sharing program with the U.S. because Britain’s domestic industrial resources were already fully committed to its wartime mobilization and America’s industrial capacity was still revving up. The sharing included key technology for radar, a jet engine design, fuzes, gunsights, rockets, plastic explosives, and a memorandum on the feasibility of an atomic bomb.  
  • As WWII entered its second year, U.S. public opinion shifted to support more aid to the Allies and Roosevelt made his famous declaration that the U.S. would become the “Arsenal of Democracy” in December 1940. FDR signed Lend-Lease into law in March 1941 after it passed Congress despite opposition by isolationist lawmakers. As Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during debate on the bill, it was clearly viewed as a means of helping America’s ally stay in the fight while the U.S. began to mobilize its military might if the country was drawn into the war directly:
“We are buying… not lending. We are buying our own security while we prepare. By our delay during the past six years, while Germany was preparing, we find ourselves unprepared and unarmed, facing a thoroughly prepared and armed potential enemy.”
  • While Lend-Lease initially applied to the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth, and Free France, it quickly expanded to the Republic of China in April, and later to the Soviet Union in October. It continued after December 1941 when the U.S. entered the war following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.
  • Lend-Lease included the provision of warships, warplanes, weaponry, food, medicine, and other equipment and supplies. A total of $50.1 billion (roughly $690 billion in 2020 dollars) worth of supplies were shipped to three dozen countries under Lend-Lease, accounting for roughly 17% of all U.S. wartime expenditures. The largest recipients were Britain and its Commonwealth with $31.3 billion; the Soviet Union with $10.9 billion; France with $3.2 billion; and the Republic of China with $1.6 billion. Britain and its Commonwealth also provided Reverse Lend-Lease and supplied the U.S. with nearly $8 billion in war material.


RELATED READING


— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force - 621st Contingency Response Wing photo by Tech. Sgt. Gustavo Gonzalez via Flickr / Public Domain)