As Ukrainian munitions reach critically low levels, the Biden administration has pledged an additional $300 million in ammunition and weaponry for Kyiv. This marks the first security package announced by the Pentagon for Ukraine since December, and as national security adviser Jack Sullivan cautions, it will serve to maintain Ukraine’s defenses against Russian attacks for only a few weeks.

Straight Arrow News contributor Newt Gingrich contends that the United States should have consistently provided Ukraine with its entire inventory of decommissioned weapons to fend off Putin. Gingrich posits a theory to explain why this hasn’t been the case.

So I think there’s probably a problem that if we were to suddenly say, ‘What if we just took all the weapons that we were going to demobilize, that we didn’t need anymore, that were surplus, and gave them to Ukraine, because it’s not costing us anything. These are weapons we’re not going to use.’ Then that wouldn’t be weapons that would lead to money going back to the American manufacturers. So you’re not going to find any defense lobbyists, eagerly out there saying, ‘Gosh, this would be a really smart thing to do — good for the American taxpayer, good for the Ukrainians, really bad for Putin and Russia.‘

And yet, what I think should happen is, we should survey, first of all, how many weapons have been demobilized in the last two years that could have gone to Ukraine. My guess is, it’s an amazing number, and would have made Ukraine much stronger, save Ukrainian lives, and forced the Russians to really rethink what they’re doing.

But let’s start right now. We can’t go back and relive the last two years. Let’s make a ground rule that we’re going to make sure that every available surplus weapon goes to Ukraine, it doesn’t go to some graveyard, and is used at no cost to the American taxpayer to help defeat Putin.