Presumably the US treasury doesn’t send palettes of cash and a letter of reference for the Ukrainian military to give to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin in exchange for as many million-dollar missiles as they can fit in their C-130 shopping cart.

So how does it work? Who picks which vendors provide the weapons? Who transfers the money to the vendors? Is the Ukrainian military even involved in the transaction, or do they take whatever the US buys for them?

It seems to me that this must be rife with moral hazards. How convenient that right as the war in Afghanistan winds down (leaving all the equipment unrecoverable), a new war starts up and suddenly Uncle Sam is paying $40 billion to unload your excess stock and get you started on the next generation of weaponry.

I’m all for helping the people of Ukraine, but I also believe firmly that war is unequivocally, always bad. So any action that prolongs or escalates a war must also be inherently bad. Combined with my distrust of arms manufacturers, I don’t feel good about the current situation.

I’m hoping someone can shed some light on the practical reality of how this goes down.