After helping stage US escalation in Ukraine, Britain is building submarines to help counter China.

(Originally published Oct. 3 in “What in the World“) The United Kingdom is spending $4 billion building new nuclear-powered attack submarines as part of its commitment to the AUKUS group in March to contain China’s maritime ambitions.

When he made that commitment at a summit in San Diego, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also promised to boost British defense spending by $6 billion. The new subs won’t be delivered until the next decade.

Sunak has played an invaluable supporting role in U.S. President Joe Biden’s efforts to steadily escalate American involvement in Ukraine. It was Sunak who promised to give Ukraine Challenger battle tanks, thereby giving Biden the pretext back in January for dropping his own reservations about handing over U.S. Abrams tanks.

Then in May, Sunak announced the creation of a consortium with the Dutch to send F-16s to Ukraine and train Kyiv’s pilots, despite the fact that the UK has no F-16s and that it would have required Washington’s approval to give any to Ukraine. Biden almost immediately dropped his public objection to giving Ukraine American F-16s. It was later revealed that the whole episode was part of an elaborate, three-month PR sham: the decision to give Ukraine F-16s had been made as early as November the year before.

That left only attack drones and long-range missiles on the list of weapons Biden wouldn’t give Kyiv for fear Moscow would consider them a prescription for direct attacks on Russian soil and therefore tantamount to direct NATO involvement in the war.

But Sunak then began promising to send attack drones and long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine. Last week, Biden finally promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he would send him advanced, long-range U.S. Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS.

The Atacms could be going soon as part of the next tranche of aid from the Presidential drawdown authority. That’s the allotment of aid for Ukraine under which the Pentagon sends Ukraine hand-me-downs from its own arsenal.

The U.S. Congress just omitted aid for Ukraine from its latest bill to keep the Government from shutting down as right-wing Republicans stage another credit-destroying suicide threat. But the Pentagon still has $5.4 billion worth of weapons available under that program—enough for about six months. So, U.S. weapons will continue to flow to Ukraine. At least through the winter.

Fortunately for Ukraine, it can still count on British aid. As well as a new pledge of continued military aid from 23 of the 27 members of the European Union, the foreign ministers of which met Monday in Kyiv.