The White House has asked Congress for $106 billion in funding to allow Washington to continue supporting its allies in three separate global flashpoints: Ukraine, Israel and Asia. Sputnik reached out to retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and international geopolitics and military affairs consultant Earl Rasmussen for his take on the situation.
Congress will almost certainly pass President Biden\u2019s massive $106 billion supplemental funding request bundling new assistance for Tel Aviv together with other security spending, because \u201cno one is going to vote against aid to Israel,\u201d Rasmussen told Sputnik.
The supplemental, wrapped up into must-pass national security spending legislation, is widely seen as a means to outmaneuver and placate House Republicans weary of providing more aid to Ukraine, but who have made clear over the past two weeks that they\u2019re more than willing to send additional US financial and military assistance to Israel.
\u201cYou may see some adjustments in the figures,\u201d Rasmussen said, predicting \u201csome jockeying back and forth\u201d and possible modifications to spending priorities. The analyst added however that even if anti-Ukraine aid holdouts manage to win some concessions, Biden could still end up using his presidential authority to shift funds back to Kiev once the money is approved.
The spending will \u201cobviously\u201d benefit some people, the observer conceded, reacting to Biden\u2019s comments in his speech Friday about aid to Ukraine and Israel being \u201ca smart investment that\u2019s going to pay dividends for American security for generations.\u201d
Rasmussen stressed that the spending \u201cdoes not help the average American,\u201d and will actually harm the country\u2019s security overall, because it will ramp up tensions with Russia, potentially escalate the Palestinian-Israeli crisis into a regional conflict, and further increase the risks of war with China.
Emboldened Israel
Rasmussen expects the funding in the supplemental request to \u201cembolden Israel,\u201d giving Tel Aviv \u201cbasically a continued green light\u2026to do whatever they want to do in Gaza,\u201d up to and including a ground invasion.
The only consolation, in the retired US Army officer\u2019s perspective, is the fact that US reserves of some weapons are \u201cdrained\u201d or at \u201cextremely low\u201d levels, meaning the Pentagon won\u2019t be able to immediately increase military support for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan even if it wanted to.
\u201cEven with our industries ramping up, and they won\u2019t be ramped up for another two or three years, they still cannot match the production rate that Russia has, let alone if you throw Iran into the mix as well,\u201d Rasmussen said, recalling, for example, how some 300,000 155-mm shells of artillery ammunition in Israel were quietly sent to Ukraine earlier this year, making them unavailable for use by the IDF after the escalation with Hamas earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n