NATO picks up bill for Ukraine’s US weapons as Russian drones fly foul

(Originally published Aug. 6 in “What in the World“) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is buying $1 billion of U.S. weapons to give to Ukraine.

The purchases are the result of deals reached at the NATO summit in June and a meeting between Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte last month to fill the gap created by Trump’s refusal to maintain former President Joe Biden’s stream of arms to Kyiv.

The Netherlands is paying for the first half, shelling out $500 million for ammunition and air-defense equipment, including more of Lockheed Martin’s interceptor missiles for Ukraine’s Patriot anti-missile batteries. A Scandinavian consortium between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden will buy the second half.

The last shipments of arms that Biden approved are still flowing to Ukraine after an unintended pause, but Trump appears unwilling to approve any more. Instead, he’s letting the other members of NATO foot the bill. Whether he maintains this position amid his own increasingly tense showdown with Russia and its former President Dmitri Medvedev remains to be seen.

Lithuania, meanwhile, is asking for fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to help it bolster its air defenses to defend against Russian incursions. The request comes after what is believed to be an errant drone carrying 2kg of explosives wandered into Lithuania from Belarus and crashed.

While the Lithuanians still believe the incursion was an accident, it was the second one in recent weeks: another Russian drone flew in from Belarus last month and crashed. Similar drone mishaps have been reported in Latvia, Poland, and Romania.

Politics and politicians in Washington may come and go, but the American view on defense remains durably paranoid. Case in point: the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency just awarded a 20-year, $50 billion contract to Patriot maker RTX (formerly Raytheon) to supply it with systems, spare parts, and support. That sounds like a lot of money, but it’s only $2.5 billion of revenue, which is chump change in an industry that can count on a nearly $900 billion annual government trough. That’s perhaps why the contract didn’t even rate a press release on the company website.

Moody’s economist Mark Zandi says the U.S. is on the verge of a recession.

Zandi cited Friday’s weak jobs data as well as slower consumer spending, and shrinking construction and manufacturing. What’s to blame? Trump’s crackdown on immigration and his tariffs, Zandi said.