02-12-2024, 02:19 PM
Biden can't unilaterally donate F16s to Ukraine. He has to use budgeted funds to do so. If he had used those funds back in 2022 to send F16s as you wished he had, Ukraine would be in much worse shape today with regards to artillery shells and air defense. F16s cost several hundred million dollars.
On the subject of Abrams, the US position from early on was that it would not be the best use of limited funds to send lots of them. Ukraine loudly kept demanding them, probably for their own domestic political reasons more than battlefield considerations, as a handful of Abrams won't/wouldn't make a large difference on the battlefield, but every new Western weapon supplied is loudly touted and celebrated in Ukraine. The Abrams of course counted against the appropriated funds just like an F16 would.
OK, so you say Biden should use some creative accounting to still somehow send F16s. Maybe he could do that, but he'd definitely be impeached for it. So here again we have domestic politics circumscribing the possible.
On the subject of Abrams, the US position from early on was that it would not be the best use of limited funds to send lots of them. Ukraine loudly kept demanding them, probably for their own domestic political reasons more than battlefield considerations, as a handful of Abrams won't/wouldn't make a large difference on the battlefield, but every new Western weapon supplied is loudly touted and celebrated in Ukraine. The Abrams of course counted against the appropriated funds just like an F16 would.
OK, so you say Biden should use some creative accounting to still somehow send F16s. Maybe he could do that, but he'd definitely be impeached for it. So here again we have domestic politics circumscribing the possible.