Let's Make a Deal, Life-or-Death Edition

By War Correspondent Douglas MacArthur
with Spy Archivist Aula Minerva

In December of 1940, Great Britain stood alone in a war against a brutal dictatorship bent on conquest and mass murder.  While many Americans sympathized, few wanted to declare war on Nazi Germany.

In response to desperate pleas from Prime Minister Winston Churchill for weapons that it could not pay for, President Franklin D. Roosevelt thought about it for a while and came up with something called “Lend-Lease,” under which the United States would “lend” the weapons and presumably get them back, like a length of garden hose, after the war.

Any questions?

The ruse was transparent but it worked: the United States paid U.S. businesses to build weapons for Britain and then shipped them across the Atlantic.  It kept the UK in the war, which, spoiler alert, they and we won, with the assistance of a few others, like the Soviet Union (who also received copious amounts of Lend-Lease aid).

Flash forward 82 years, when another democratic ally (Ukraine) is under relentless assault by a brutal dictatorship bent on conquest and mass murder.  What can we do?

One option would be to engage in active hostilities with Russia whether through a so-called no-fly zone patrolled by the U.S. Air Force and our NATO allies or some other direct intervention.  This would certainly send a message but has a downside we might want to consider: starting World War III against a major nuclear power.  Before you sign off this option, watch “The Next Day” and then get back to us.

Another option would be to side with Vlad the Invader because he embodies the anti-democratic white nationalist values you treasure.  Let's call this option the “Tucker Carlson.”

A third option would be the one traditionally favored by Republican deep thinkers, including many pundits you can read or watch every day at 5 Eastern: invade a country that has nothing to do with the threat to demonstrate how big and strong we are. Pro: Iraq remains available.  Con: in practice this option demonstrates the opposite of the intended effect.

A fourth option would be the one chosen by F. D. Roosevelt: rush massive amounts of lethal and other aid to our ally to allow it to defend itself.  Thus far President Biden, who, unlike his predecessor, is not a demented Russian-owned grifting white supremacist, has chosen this path.

Which brings us to last week. As Russia transitions to a pure war crime strategy of bombing civilian targets like maternity hospitals to maximize civilian casualties, the Ukrainian Government has asked for the means to defend itself: (Based on our extensive experience playing “Call of Duty,” we understand that there are two ways to defend cities against bombers: anti-aircraft guns and missiles, and fighter planes, which are designed to shoot down bombers)

If Poland gets modern F-16's....

Ukraine has pilots ready to fly and fight Russians, but it can’t compete with Russia’s air power. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told U.S. lawmakers that fighter jets are his country’s top priority, even over antiaircraft missiles that Ukraine has been getting from its allies.

“If you can’t do [a no-fly zone], at least get me planes,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told members of Congress in a call this weekend....

So when Ukrainian President Zelensky asked for warplanes, he was not told to provide dirt on Biden's political opponents, but the response he got was hardly more helpful:

The administration is facing backlash over its decision earlier this week to scuttle Poland’s proposal that would have sent a number of its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via a transfer “free of charge” to the United States. Washington, citing concerns that Russia would view the move as a provocation, said the offer from Warsaw was not “tenable.”

Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have pleaded for the MiG-29 transfer. 

Free jets?  Who would turn down an offer like that?   More specifically, the deal announced by Poland was that they would turn over their entire fleet of 28 MiG-29's to the United States in Germany so that the U.S. could in turn lend-lease them to Ukraine.  In exchange, Poland asked the U.S. for an equivalent number of U.S. made F-16 fighter, which have been around for some 40 years.

At first glance, this deal seems like a no-brainer: Ukraine gets the jets its pilots know how to fly, and Poland gets some modern fighters to buttress NATO defenses.  And it's not like sending 28 F-16 to Poland would leave us defenseless.  At last count, the US Air Force was down to its last 1017 F-16's, exactly zero of which are doing any useful work anywhere in the world.  By the way, it's their third string fighter in case you were worried about the skies over Cleveland.

In response, the Biden Administration mictorated over the whole idea:

...it will send its old MiG-29's to Ukraine

It would shift the responsibility for delivering the fighter jets — and the risk of confrontation with Russia — on to Washington in a very public way. ...Poland’s offer would require the United States and NATO to play a lead role in getting the planes to Ukraine. Even in the context of broad Western effort to arm Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin could easily construe jets taking off from a NATO base in Germany to eventually fight Russians as NATO fighting Russians. That, Kirby said, “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance.”

Left unsaid is that if Washington does find a way to get fighter jets into Ukraine, it wants to do it as quietly as possible.

Yes, that's the whole f***in' idea: instead of leaving Poland to face Vlad the Invader's wrath, transfer his ire to a country that's too big to pick on, even if it was reduced to only 989 F-16's.

And why do we care how Vlad the Bomber of Maternity Hospitals construes Ukrainian Air Force pilots flying Ukrainian Air Force jets (note to NATO: make sure paint dries before handing over the keys) into Ukraine?  How is that different from any other weapons like anti-aircraft missiles we are happy to supply to Ukraine?  Don't they do the same thing?

Vlad the Murderer thinks so:

In response to American efforts to supply the Ukrainian military with antitank weapons and other matériel, Russia issued a new and more direct threat on Saturday, warning the United States that convoys with weapons sent to Ukraine would be “legitimate targets” for the Russian military.

Time to unleash our secret weapon

Is that how this war will work?  We'll give Vlad the Terrible Strategist a veto over what weapons NATO can and cannot provide to the desperate Ukrainians?  We wonder what Franklin D. Roosevelt would have said to that.

The other lame rationalization offered by Pentagon gasbags is that the MiG's won't do much good anyway:

American officials believe that the jets, given Russia’s increasing anti-air capabilities in Ukraine, would have limited value to Ukraine and that they are not worth the risks they could pose to more effective means of bolstering the Ukrainian military.

Maybe we should let the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense decide that for itself, rather than a bunch of crew-cut paper pushers wondering if they can get out of the Pentagon parking lot before traffic really backs up on the 14th Street Bridge.

Let's see if we can help the Pentagon's Nervous Nellies untangle this supposedly insoluble problem.  Our suggestion:

• Move principal production of “Top Gun III: Send More Oxygen” to Poland.  
• Sign Ukrainian-born Mila Kunis to play the role of Tom Cruise's flight instructor (she's shorter than he is so she won't have to slouch for 90 minutes unlike poor Kelly McGillis).
  
• The U.S. Government leases the Polish MiG-29 fleet for second unit shooting.  
• The day the shooting is over, the Polish Government asks for its MiG's back and is told that Mila Kunis sold them all to the Ukrainian Air Force, which repainted them and flew  them back to Ukraine.
• An apologetic U.S. Government sends 28 F-16's to Poland as compensation. 

Problem solved!  No way Vlad the Stewardess Whisperer wants to take on Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher!

You may say that this idea is a ridiculous travesty of military support.

To which we say, to paraphrase Otter, it's gotta work better than our government's current position of no planes for you while Ukrainian civilians die of thirst in the bombing of Mariupol.