The obvious historical analogy to the Ukraine aid program is Lend-Lease. Do the similarities outweigh the differences?
Not really, because:
- Notwithstanding its many defeats at the hands of the Germans, the British Empire was still a world power in 1940. Ukraine isn’t.
- Hitler was a far greater danger to world peace than Putin is. However, Putin has a far greater capacity to kill Americans than Hitler did.
- America in 1940 was an industrial giant, but a military pygmy. Today, America has the world’s greatest military, and is being assisted by its NATO allies in Ukraine.
- Ukraine aid is far less controversial than Lend-Lease was.
Still, in light of the ongoing (and totally appropriate) discussions about America’s Ukraine end game, you can’t help but ask some questions. What was FDR’s end game in 1940? What if Hitler hadn’t foolishly declared war after Pearl Harbor? Would the British and the USSR have been able to defeat the Nazis without direct American military involvement? And what would Europe have looked like in 1945 if they had?
The best answers to those questions, in all likelihood, are: (1) he didn’t really have one, other than to hope for a German invasion of the USSR, as direct American military involvement in Europe was not politically viable at the time, and military aid alone wasn’t going to win the war; (2) the British and the USSR would have fought the Nazis without American troops; (3) the USSR would have beaten the Nazis even without a second front; and (4) Stalin would have dominated the European continent, and would have been in a far stronger position during the Cold War than he actually was.