White House announces more weapons for Kyiv and Manila as Israel strikes Beirut
(Originally published July 31 in “What in the World“) Israeli fighter jets conducted an air strike on a Beirut suburb to kill a senior commander in the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.
The air strike escalated Israel’s retaliation for a weekend rocket attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah still denies being responsible for the attack, which killed 12 children on a soccer pitch in an Arab village. U.S. and other Western diplomats had been urging Tel Aviv not to attack Lebanon to avoid expanding the war in Gaza, despite continued attacks by Iranian proxies in Yemen, skirmishes with Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, and an unprecedented missile and drone strike in April from Iran itself.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin were in Manila, meanwhile, to announce $500 million in new U.S. military aid to the Philippines. The new aid will be used to bolster the Philippine Navy and to upgrade bases where Manila has granted access to U.S. forces.
Washington agreed in May last year to help Manila modernize its military after Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. agreed to expand both the 1951 the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty and the 2014 Enhanced Defense Security Cooperation Agreement. The updated mutual defense treaty expanded the area within which either side would come to the other’s defense to include the entire Pacific Ocean, “including anywhere in the South China Sea, on either of their public vessels, aircraft, or armed forces—which includes their Coast Guards—would invoke mutual defense commitments.” The expanded security cooperation agreement, meanwhile, granted U.S. forces access to nine of its bases—up from five.
The expanded defense ties are meant to respond to escalating tensions between the Philippines and China over atolls in the South China Sea that Beijing claims are Chinese territory. Tensions peaked in June when a Philippine sailor was severely injured during a clash between a Chinese vessel and a Philippine supply ship trying to reach a besieged garrison on Second Thomas Shoal. China and the Philippines last week signed an agreement allowing the Philippines to resupply that garrison.
Blinken and Austin are on a whirlwind tour of Asia, having just stopped in Tokyo to announce a joint military headquarters for the Indo-Pacific in Japan. Before that, Blinken visited Vietnam, which is negotiating the potential purchase of U.S. C-130 transport planes as part of a shift away from Moscow and towards the U.S. He next heads to Singapore, where he’ll be joined by White House national security advisor and the apparent architect of U.S. escalation in Ukraine, Jake Sullivan.
The White House isn’t neglecting Ukraine while Blinken and Austin are in Asia. On Monday, it announced another $1.7 billion in weapons for Ukraine. The latest package includes more air-defense missiles, artillery, and anti-tank rockets. It brings to more than $55.4 billion the total amount of military aid the U.S. has given Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February, 2022.
Only $200 million of the latest package comes from the Presidential drawdown authority, under which the Pentagon hands used American weapons from its existing arsenal to Ukraine and then buys new weapons to replace them. The rest is being funded under the $13.8 billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which provides money for both Washington and Kyiv to buy new weapons from arms manufacturers.
Washington has now also confirmed that the U.S. will supply missiles for Ukraine’s new F-16s. F-16s donated by Denmark and the Netherlands are due to arrive in Ukraine any day, with more coming from Belgium and Norway. The Pentagon said it would supply Ukraine with RTX-made air-to-surface and air-to-air missiles, including RTX’s AGM-88 HARM air-to-ground missiles, its AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missiles, and its advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, or Amraams.
U.S. President Joe Biden approved allies handing over the U.S.-made fighter jets in May last year after a three-month stage-managed pantomime patterned after the same reversals that saw him lift restrictions on supplying Ukraine with Stingers, howitzers, Himars rocket launchers, Patriot missiles, and Abrams battle tanks. Biden used the same “twist my rubber arm” tactic last October to reverse his restriction on supplying Ukraine with long-range Atacm missiles, and then in May on using U.S. weapons against targets across the border inside Russia.