Ordinance Wharf in Balaklava, Ukraine became a hectic site of resupply to British forces during the Crimean War. Credit: Public domain.
Washington’s expedited weapons deliveries to Ukraine and Israel demonstrates an extraordinary evolution in U.S. security cooperation. This untold story offers three hard-learned lessons for future conflicts.
Shortly after the horrific terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, President Biden offered reassurances of U.S. political and military support as the Israeli government began its response.1 The commitment – anticipated based on the longstanding relationship between the United States and Israel – nevertheless carried significant logistical concerns: How could the U.S. deliver on this promise when its security assistance apparatus was already straining to provide much-needed weaponry to Ukraine? How could it do so when wartime stockpiles and U.S. defense production capacity were already stretched so thin?*
The story provides a snapshot of the extraordinary evolution in U.S. security cooperation infrastructure since 2022. It also identifies potential reforms that could strengthen future assistance efforts.
Setting The Stage
Strengthening allies’ military capabilities is a critical foreign policy instrument, allowing the U.S. to advance national security outcomes without requiring overt deployment of conventional military forces. A series of organizations, processes, and authorities across the Department of State (DOS) and Department of Defense (DOD), as well as individual military departments, cooperate to facilitate delivery of these partner capabilities.
The overall state of security assistance before the escalation of conflict in Ukraine and Israel was mature, especially as the U.S. was drawing down assistance to Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. appropriated approximately $8-9 billion in security assistance annually, with Israel receiving roughly 40% of that funding.2 In contrast, aid to Ukraine was more modest, fluctuating between $300 to $400 million annually in the lead-up to 2022, although that figure had been steadily increasing since 2014.3
But in the aftermath of October 2023, anemic production rates – optimized for peacetime conditions – could not satisfy the simultaneous demands of Ukraine and Israel.4 While both U.S. officials and industry worked to increase production, the conflict would not wait for industrial base expansion. On both projects, officials deployed uncommon ingenuity to surge equipment to the battlefield, utilizing novel methods to work around the constraints of the U.S. defense industry.
Ukraine: Supplying The Underdog
After Ukraine weathered Russia’s initial full-scale invasion in February 2022 – even delivering effective counterpunches, to the surprise of most Western observers – delivering meaningful aid to the defenders became a paramount policy priority for the U.S. security assistance community. Nevertheless, they found themselves scrambling.
A major challenge was Ukraine’s lack of a pre-existing ability for coordinating with U.S. counterparts and absorbing security assistance (owing to the modest scope of this assistance before the war). In the early days of the war, American officials scrambled to identify weapons that could be rapidly delivered and effectively integrated with Ukrainian forces, particularly those that could thwart Russia’s push towards Kyiv. The first major systems delivered were shoulder-fired anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMS) like Javelin, man-portable air defenses (MANPADs) like the Stinger, counter-battery radars, and small arms.5 These weapons could be rapidly transferred and distributed and required minimal training for the operators.
A second major challenge was that established processes and funding appropriations for security assistance were not built for the speed or scope Ukraine required. Traditionally, security assistance is provided through grants or the transfer of equipment the U.S. military no longer needs. But Ukraine’s urgency and the lack of U.S. manufacturing capacity forced Washington to draw upon existing war stockpiles through Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). Underscoring the scale of the operation, the use of PDAs rose from once every few years to once every two to three weeks. Additionally, Congress raised the PDA funding cap from $100 million to $11 billion in 2022 to meet these needs.6 As of September 2024, there have been 53 drawdown packages. The funding cap further grew to $14.5 billion in 2023, although it dipped in 2024 following Congressional gridlock.7
Because of the rapid pace of the drawdowns, DOD decision-makers and European Command (EUCOM) built a cross-organization coordination mechanism to help facilitate rapid processing. First, the requests had to be validated and then evaluated against existing inventories to determine if fulfilling that request was possible without compromising the readiness of U.S. forces. Next came the execution, including identifying the location of each item and its delivery into Ukrainian hands. This whole process involved input from institutions including the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (OSD-P), Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment (OSD-A&S), Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness (OSD-P&R), the military services, and EUCOM.8
The Ukraine war forced important process innovations. Indeed, until the Ukraine conflict, each of these processes were siloed, occurring at different speeds and schedules. The immediate needs on the battlefield focused the process in a way never before seen. Led by senior leaders such as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante and former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Sasha Baker, DOD brought stakeholders together in one coordinated process. The various levels of organization learned how to expedite requests and ensure aid packages were not mired in bureaucracy.
As the Russian offensive towards Kyiv ground to a halt in April 2022, the focus shifted from the immediate preservation of the Ukrainian government to the long-term evolution of the Ukrainian military’s ability to fight a protracted war. Ukraine’s considerable stockpile of vintage Soviet military equipment was critical in the early days of the conflict, but the rapid rate of munitions expenditure and attrition meant that the conflict would rapidly outstrip these reserves. Transitioning to NATO-standard equipment would be necessary to ensure that Ukraine could tap into the defense industrial base of its Western allies, as its domestic industry was insufficient to meet the need.
At first, the integration of more advanced NATO systems involved high-impact plug and play systems: for example, U.S.-provided HIMARS, a truck-mounted multiple rocket system, and the M777, a 155mm towed howitzer.9 Over time, attrition would dictate the expansion of arms deliveries to more complicated and maintenance-intensive systems, like the M1 Abrams tank, M2 Bradley IFV, and the F-16 fighter, which necessitated the most time to adopt.10
Flexibility was a hallmark of U.S. efforts, and the security assistance community took a multi-pronged approach. Leaders took advantage of the broad range of existing security assistance programs, while simultaneously creatively leveraging existing authorities in new ways. For example, to keep Soviet-era equipment in the fight longer, the U.S. actively went to allied and friendly countries with stockpiles of ammunition and systems to either outright buy this materiel or encourage their transfer to Ukraine, with the prospect of American funds being available to purchase their replacement. It was a clever offer, allowing nations to off-load older equipment in exchange for financing support to modernize with U.S. technology.11 In addition, the U.S. proactively asked countries with relevant equipment to transfer it to Ukraine, whereas historically the U.S. would wait for allies to request transfers.12 This process scoured the globe for available equipment to keep Ukraine in the fight.
The promise of American funds to support military recapitalization was another major innovation in this story. The process, known as foreign military financing (FMF), is traditionally used to provide loans and grants to foreign governments to purchase U.S. equipment, services, and training. In the Ukraine context, the U.S. provided FMF to allies which steered equipment to Ukraine, backfilling gaps, accelerating production of new equipment, and expanding the defense industrial base (for example, by helping finance a production facility for 155mm artillery ammunition by a NATO ally).13 FMF funding was also used to subsidize the interest of larger FMF loans, helping partners that might not otherwise be able to afford American defense articles, again incentivizing immediate transfers to Ukraine. Despite their effectiveness, these loan authorities are temporary and face expiration.
As previously stated, U.S. defense contractors could not deliver military systems fast enough at the beginning of the war, so a surge of FMF to Ukraine itself, which is traditionally used to fund new production, did not necessarily translate into immediate aid delivery. However, as the conflict drags into its third year and industry has had time to scale, Ukraine has been able to take the FMF funding and apply it to its own priorities. This is a useful mechanism for Ukraine to directly buy the capabilities it decides it needs rather than accepting deliveries of whatever is on hand.
The Ukraine conflict pushed the DOD and the State Department to rely on a novel mix of loan authorities, FMF, and PDA to immediately get weapons to Ukraine and continue the flow of much-needed assistance, and in so doing created new internal coordination mechanisms that did not exist before. Little did they know how crucial those process innovations would become for an entirely different crisis in another region of the world.
Surging Support To Israel
Following the October 7, 2023 attacks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began a military operation into Gaza to destroy Hamas and reestablish Israeli security. Facing highly armed adversaries in both Hamas and Hezbollah—as well as Iran—Israel rapidly began depleting existing munitions stockpiles. The U.S. was called upon to surge security assistance.
U.S. security assistance to Israel is long-standing and well structured. There is a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Israel in place, under which Israel receives $3.3 billion in FMF annually with an additional $500 million annually for missile defense.14 As is typical for FMF, the funding allows Israel to purchase new U.S. equipment and services. Characteristic of U.S. defense sales, however, is the requirement for substantial lead time; the American defense industrial base tends to be production-constrained due to a large backlog of international orders. In addition, FMF is not structured for contingencies such as post-October 7 requirements, due to the rules around its execution. Finally, the U.S.-Israel MOU is not meant to be the sum of all U.S. aid, with supplemental aid authorized by Congress expected as necessary. In FY24, Congress enacted over $12.6 billion in total aid, including regular and supplemental appropriations.15 PDA was also used to provide munitions to Israel where there was an urgent operational need.
When the security cooperation community moved to support Israel, the DOD took the cross-functional model established for Ukraine and replicated it to evaluate and expedite requests from Israel. Due to the muscle memory developed since February 2022, key DOD stakeholders already understood the process and relationships necessary. Cross-departmental meetings between senior officials, which would not have occurred pre-Ukraine, became commonplace. With relationships already established, decisions could be reached quickly and stakeholders were able to cooperate on finding creative ways to deliver aid that normally would take much longer. For example, the U.S. Army was able to rapidly divest and transfer its two Iron Dome batteries to Israel to help bolster air defenses.
Similarly, FMS cases working through the bureaucracy were expedited. Israel was given the same level of priority as Ukraine when it came to arms delivery from U.S. defense contractors, bumping other nations behind it in line.16 U.S. officials were also able to pressure manufacturers to accelerate production in certain instances.
Unlike with Ukraine, the U.S. and Israel had established processes and counterpart organizations in place to facilitate aid delivery. The challenge of working through the constraints of existing programs and processes to ensure that aid was delivered at a pace necessary to support ongoing operations and maintain a deterrent threat, however, remained. In both instances, supplemental funding allowed for the immediate purchase of additional weapons and the backfill stockpiles.
Institutionalizing Hard-Learned Lessons
The conflicts in Ukraine and Israel have significantly stressed U.S. security assistance institutions. Yet, despite the massive weight of two ongoing wars, the U.S. has successfully provided critical defense capabilities to key partners and achieved significant impact on the ground in both theaters without involving U.S. troops. As both conflicts are ongoing, a full evaluation of security assistance performance is premature. But there are certain takeaways worth considering that could bolster the system in the future, especially as the DOD continues to prepare for a contingency in the Indo-Pacific.
First, security assistance and cooperation are executed cooperatively by various agencies within the DOD and DOS. It is a testament to the professionals in the system that the U.S. government apparatus was able to rise to the challenge. However, their success should not be taken for granted. Each agency needs to be properly resourced, in both budget and personnel, to ensure that the system can effectively respond to future contingencies and ensure that the U.S. and its allies have what is required to meet the threat. Just as the DOD has explored creating professional cyber and acquisitions professionals in recent history, maintaining a core of experts in security cooperation could have a major impact on U.S. capacity building.
This is both table stakes and a very real need. A recent DOS report specifically noted its Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM) staffing did not keep pace with new workload growth associated with current events. This shortfall directly affected the department’s ability to “engage fully in policy discussions, policy oversight, and program management” and “both PM and DOD staff confirmed that the bureau was not staffed sufficiently to provide more than the minimal review of DOD products requiring Department approval.”17
Second, one way to improve the effectiveness of the security cooperation enterprise would be to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance visibility and the predictability in the needs of US allies and partners. A system like this would help ensure that processes are less individually driven, institutionalizing some of the lessons learned regarding coordination. The efficiency generated by new software tools could help DOS and DOD do more with its existing workforce. Broader utilization of predictive analytics could also help planners anticipate equipment shortages when managing military stockpiles, ensuring that the U.S. is not caught flat-footed in the next conflict.
Third, and in addition to both personnel and budget, the process innovation part of this story must not be forgotten, particularly as the individuals involved have or will soon be circulating out of their positions with the change of administrations and the passage of time. It cannot be forgotten that a key reason for the success of U.S. security cooperation came from the willingness of key individuals to work creatively with existing authorities to solve new and hard problems. A process to identify and codify these coordinating functions would help the U.S. institutionalize the lessons learned over the last two and a half years and help the US government avoid repeating mistakes in the future. Congress should also consider codifying this informal muscle memory to ensure an integrated approach on security assistance.
The U.S. security assistance community, across both the DOD and DOS, is an often-unsung part of the U.S. national security establishment. The current conflicts forced innovation in this space that, absent an immediate need, would not likely have occurred. The work now is to tell this story and institutionalize these important lessons learned. Indeed, the next system-breaking stressor is nearly upon us, as the U.S. and its allies ready for a possible fight with China.
* For purposes of this article, we use the terms “security assistance”—typically associated with State Department efforts—and “security cooperation,” usually the term of art for Pentagon authorities, interchangeably, mindful of significant bureaucratic differences between these entities. The foundation of U.S. security assistance (SA) was codified with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which placed the Secretary of State in charge of security assistance under Title 22. The State Department (DoS) would ensure that “military assistance” would be provided to partners and allies in accordance with foreign policy objectives. Title 10 authorities were expanded to allow the DoD to conduct its own programs under the term security cooperation (SC).
References
1 Joseph R. Biden, “Remarks by President Biden on the October 7th Terrorist Attacks and the Resilience of the State of Israel and Its People,” October 18, 2024, The White House, Washington, D.C.
2 “ForeignAssistance.gov,” U.S. Department of State, September 26, 2024.
3 Christina Arabia, Andrew Bowen, Cory Welt, U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine, CRS Report No IF12040 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2024).
4 Mark F. Cancian, “Can the United States Equip Israel while Simultaneously Equipping Ukraine and Taiwan?,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 12, 2023.
5 Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali, “‘Risk worth taking’: U.S. rushes MANPADS to Ukraine despite proliferation concerns,” Reuters, March 11, 2022.
6 Arabia, Bowen, and Welt, U.S. Security Assistance, 2024.
7 Department of State, Use of Presidential Drawdown Authority for Military Assistance for Ukraine (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 2024).
8 Department of Defense and Department of State Officials, Interviews with Daniel Silverberg, Elena McGovern, and Michael Wang, Washington, D.C., August 2024.
9 Department of State Official, Interview with Daniel Silverberg, Elena McGovern, and Michael Wang, Washington D.C., August 2024.
10 Department of Defense Official, Interview with Daniel Silverberg, Elena McGovern, and Michael Wang, Washington, D.C., August 2024.
11 Department of State Official, Interview with Daniel Silverberg and Michael Wang, Washington D.C., August 2024.
12 Ibid.
13 Department of State, “$920 Million U.S.-Romania Foreign Military Financing Direct Loan Strengthens NATO,” September 25, 2024.
14 Jim Zanotti, Israel: Major Issues and U.S. Relations, CRS Report No R44245 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2024).
15 Ibid.
16 Department of Defense Official, Interview with Daniel Silverberg, Elena McGovern, and Michael Wang, Washington, D.C., August 2024.
17 Department of State, Inspection of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 2024).