March 10, 2025

— President Franklin Roosevelt

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I want my garden hose back

It was a date that will live in infamy: December 7, 1941.

Today's story begins exactly one year earlier.

That’s the date on which Prime Minister Winston Churchill transmitted a 15-page letter to President Franklin Roosevelt telling him that the U.K. was nearing its breaking point and needed help fast.

Picture this: the U.K. had just won the Battle of Britain -- the air war victory that meant that at least for now, the Germans were unlikely to try to invade England.

But, the United Kingdom was at risk of running out of money, which meant they might soon be cut off from buying the weapons and ammunition they'd been getting from the United States.

FDR was very sympathetic. He agreed with Churchill that “the defeat of the Nazi and Fascist tyranny [was] a matter of high consequence to the people of the United States,” as the British PM wrote in the last paragraph of his letter.

But, isolationists in Congress were powerful, and the America First Committee was gaining ground. FDR needed a way to help Britain without plunging the U.S. into war before the country was ready.

Over the next weeks, FDR and his advisors came up with a plan. What if, instead of selling weapons, the U.S. simply loaned them? Britain could use them for the duration of the war and return them afterward.

No money needed upfront.

When Roosevelt presented the Lend-Lease Act to Congress in early 1941, it sparked a firestorm. Roosevelt’s opponents painted him as a warmonger, willing to sacrifice American resources on a foreign war.

American hero Charles Lindbergh and Senator Burton Wheeler of the America First Committee fiercely opposed the bill.

"Lending war materials is a good deal like lending chewing gum," sneered Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. "Once it’s been used, you can’t get it back."

He insisted Lend-Lease would bankrupt the U.S. and turn into “an arsenal for the world.”

But FDR had concluded that if Britain fell, the U.S. would stand alone against Hitler’s war machine, and eventually German victories would threaten the U.S. directly.

Britain was fighting America’s war, he argued; better to send supplies now than soldiers later.

On March 11, 1941 -- 84 years ago tomorrow -- Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, and Roosevelt signed it into law. The United States formally abandoned neutrality without yet officially entering the war.

Convoys of American-built tanks, planes, rifles, and food began making their way across the Atlantic. It was an act of defiance against Hitler, a declaration that America would not sit idly by while democracy fell.

Churchill was jubilant. Lend-Lease did not just provide supplies—it provided hope.

In his speeches, he made clear that Britain would fight on, bolstered by the “arsenal of democracy” that America had become. And as Lend-Lease expanded, it reached the Soviet Union, China, and other nations fighting the Axis.

The program continued until the end of the war, even as the U.S. completely changed to a wartime economy and sent 12 million troops overseas (total U.S. population at the time, by the way: 133 million).

Personally, I will never understand why Hitler declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor -- as opposed to having the U.S. fight only Japan. Bu that's another story; thankfully he did, and the argument against U.S. involvement crumbled.

Afterward, the impact of March 11, 1941, and Churchill's letter continued.

The philosophy behind Lend-Lease became the backbone of U.S. foreign policy for the next eight decades. The Marshall Plan, NATO, and military aid to South Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Ukraine—all echoed the same idea: help allies fight enemies abroad so the war never comes home.

Obviously, it's been an imperfect solution. It's very expensive, and it also has meant that when the U.S. does fight, we're usually sending ships and planes and troops many thousands of miles away from home.

But the truth remains that the United States hasn't fought a major war -- meaning one that both (a) lasted more than a few days and (b) significantly affected our civilian population -- within our hemisphere since then. Not a bad streak.

We need a quote. I've always liked this one from FDR as he sold the plan to the American people:

Beats having to fight them on the beaches.

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Did you see ...

• O.K., this is a bit "on the nose" after what I just wrote above, but it's worth reading: America’s 80-year run as the world’s strongest power, a relatively benevolent hegemon that attracted willing partners and allies, has been rooted in two major U.S. initiatives launched in response to the upheaval of World War II. One was to convene the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, which enshrined the idea of free trade and low tariffs, generating unprecedented prosperity for the West. The other, five years later, was to lead the establishment of NATO, an alliance that won the Cold War and has ensured peace in Europe. Both of these legacies are being undone with stunning speed by President Trump. (The Wall Street Journal)
• Mark Carney, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor, will become Canada's next prime minister within days, after being elected as the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Carney clinched victory decisively on the first ballot, in a race that was set in motion earlier this year by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation. Carney has something surprising in common with President Trump: neither man held any elected office before becoming his country's top government leader. (CTV News)
• Thrust into unemployment, some axed federal workers face relatives who celebrate their firing. “I’ve been treated as a public enemy by the government and now it’s bleeding into my own family,” said a fired National Park Service technician. (Associated Press)
• Europe races to find Starlink alternatives for Ukraine, in case Elon Musk decides to switch off broadband service for the country. (Financial Times)
• References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay B-29 aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge "DEI" content. Some photos seemed to be flagged for removal because their file included the word “gay,” including photos of service members with that last name and images of the World War II aircraft. (PBS)
• AI bots will soon be rolled out on dating apps: Match Group, the technology company with the world’s largest portfolio of dating platforms, including Tinder and Hinge, has announced it is increasing investment in AI, with new products due this month. AI bots will be used to help users choose which photographs will be most popular, write messages to people and provide “effective coaching for struggling users.” (The Guardian)
• A 37-year-old Tennessee man was arrested, accused of stealing Blu-rays and DVDs from a manufacturing and distribution company used by major movie studios and sharing them online with millions of people before the movies' scheduled release dates. Among blockbuster movies that Steven Hale is accused of stealing is Spider-Man: No Way Home, which the feds say was "downloaded tens of millions of times, with an estimated loss to the copyright owner of tens of millions of dollars." (ArsTechnica)