Pentagon accountants scrounge up an extra $3bn in arms for Ukraine by fixing a bookkeeping error.

(Originally published May 19 in “What in the World“) Who knew that one of the most potent weapons in the Pentagon’s arsenal might prove to be its accountants’ green visors and pens?

Bookkeeping boffins at the Pentagon have managed to conjure up roughly $3 billion in additional funding for weapons that can be sent to Ukraine and Taiwan without Congressional approval—simply by lowering the estimated value of the weapons they’ve already sent.

While the Pentagon had been toting up the value of its military aid—$36.9 billion at last accounting—using what it would cost to replace each item, accountants realized that they should be using each item’s depreciated book value instead.

Most of the aid provided to Ukraine and Taiwan has been made on what’s called a Presidential Drawdown Authority, or PDA. It’s a lot like hand-me-downs: the Pentagon gives Ukraine a weapon from its own arsenal, which it then pays a military contractor to replace. PDA weapons to Ukraine were coming out of $14.5 billion Congress had approved for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. But as of this week, there was only about $2.7 billion worth of weaponry left to give and Ukraine has been running low on arms to defend against Russian barrages and mount its Big Spring Counteroffensive. The Pentagon was worried not only about its own dwindling stockpiles of weapons needed to defend America against possible attack, but that it might run out of weapons to give Ukraine by summer.

Washington’s allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—led by the United Kingdom—are agitating for the U.S. to fork over some F-16s, each of which costs anywhere from $64 million to $80 million. London has gone as far as to propose cobbling together consortia to buy Ukraine things like long-range missiles and F-16s. The subject is likely to prove a sticking point at the Group of Seven summit later this week in Hiroshima, Japan.

But thanks to the Pentagon’s accountants, Washington may have found a clever way to keep running down U.S. arsenals without having to go hat in hand to Congress for more cash as Biden tries to stare down House Republicans threatening refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Biden agrees to sweeping spending cuts.

Turns out the Pentagon had been recording the value of each weapon it was giving Ukraine at how much it would cost to replace it with a brand, new weapon. Anyone who has worked on corporate books knows, however, that any new piece of equipment loses a percentage of its value the minute it leaves the proverbial showroom.

But the Pentagon was making the problem even worse by valuing weapons at the cost of replacing them not only with a new version of the same weapon, but with the more modern, sophisticated weapon slated to replace it. Thus, as The Wall Street Journal explains, an M777 howitzer was recorded at a value equivalent to buying a brand, new Himars missile launcher. That’s like valuing your five-year-old Prius at the price of a brand, new Tesla.

The Pentagon says it found the error a couple of months ago, but only just announced it. It said it had already corrected accounts of aid to Ukraine, meaning the latest $36.9 billion subtotal remains correct. But correcting the error has lifted the sum of weapons it can still provide Ukraine to almost $6 billion.

Best of all, the Pentagon will still need to replace the “pre-owned, barely used” weapons it’s giving Ukraine and Taiwan with the brand-new versions of the weapons whose value it had been recording. Taxpayers will thus still be stuck with a bill that’s at least $3 billion higher than the reported value of the aid provided to Ukraine and Taiwan to replenish America’s arsenals.

The hand-me-downs to Ukraine under this $25.93 billion PDA don’t include the $18 billion given to Kyiv to buy weapons directly from manufacturers under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative or the $4.73 billion earmarked as Foreign Military Financing. Combined, the PDA, USAI and FMF money make up the $36.9 billion in aid given since Russia’s invasion.

FMF is how many other allies buy their U.S. weapons, a process that always requires Washington’s approval, specifically a green light from the U.S. State Dept. With American ordnance flying off the shelves, U.S. diplomats can’t keep up, so State is reportedly looking to overhaul its approval process to eliminate red tape and reduce the waiting time for customers eager to get new U.S. weapons.