Helping Ukraine Is Cheap, Easy, Good for America, and the Right Thing to Do
There is so much disinformation about Ukraine that many Americans appear to have forgotten why we are supporting the country in the first place.* They believe we are "giving money" to Ukraine that could be better used domestically. The Republican Party, in particular, has painted this as another government handout—arguing that Democrats want to give money to illegal immigrants** and Ukrainians while Americans suffer. This narrative has gained traction in the wake of two powerful hurricanes that have rocked the American Southeast.
And this narrative is a lie.
The reality is that the United States has been greatly harmed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Supporting Ukraine is affordable and straightforward, but the Biden administration has not done enough, and our efforts will have been wasted if Ukraine falters. Thankfully, our European and other allies are contributing far more to Ukraine, as a percentage of their GDP, than we are, and the Ukrainians themselves are remarkably resourceful. They will not fall to Putin.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's revisit what's happening in Ukraine, why we got involved, how it's beneficial for us, how it's our moral obligation, and why it's costing us far less than the price tag suggests.
Ukrainians Stood Up to Russian Corruption and Were Invaded for It
After the end of the Soviet Union, former Soviet states had a choice: modernize and integrate with global norms, or cling to Soviet-era corruption and isolationism. Countries like Estonia, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania embraced change, quickly reformed, and are now among the fastest-growing economies in the world. Ukraine and Russia, on the other hand, often flirted with change but couldn't overcome the entrenched corrupt kleptocrats in their societies and economies.
But in the 2010s, that started to change. In the years leading up to 2014, Ukrainians increasingly told their government that they wanted to move toward the European Union. They saw integration into the EU as a way to enforce financial discipline and curb corruption, as EU regulations would achieve what the Ukrainian people had been unable to accomplish on their own. Some also feared the growing influence of Moscow in business and government, and Moscow was becoming increasingly militant. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was forced by popular demand to explore joining the EU but was then pressured by Russian President Vladimir Putin to refuse to sign the EU association agreement. The people protested, the government cracked down, the people held firm, the government escalated violence, the people rose up, and Yanukovych fled to Russia in the middle of the night. Democracy had won.
Ukraine quickly adopted anti-corruption measures that put it back on course to joining the EU. But Putin wasn't going to accept this defeat quietly. His soldiers took control of the Crimean Peninsula and invaded eastern Ukraine. By the end of 2014, Crimea had been illegally annexed by Russia, and a war in the east grew more intense each day.
But a surprising thing happened in 2015. Another key Russian ally was on the verge of collapse. Anti-government rebels in Syria were close to toppling the government of Bashar al-Assad. Russia quickly called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and deployed to Syria. The conflict in Ukraine became effectively frozen, and Assad remained in power.
But frozen conflicts thaw. With Syria stabilized and Russia’s economic and military positions in Ukraine becoming increasingly untenable, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In short, the Ukrainians stood up for democracy, the rule of law, and transparency in business, and they were invaded for it. Vladimir Putin, a tyrant at home and an aggressive neighbor, could not tolerate a pro-democracy, anti-corruption movement in a country so close to his borders.
Reason 1: Wars of Territorial Expansion Make Everyone On Earth Less Safe
This is the first reason why we must stand up to Vladimir Putin. It cannot be acceptable for autocrats, dictators, and tyrants to crush pro-democracy movements in countries that aren't their own. Yet, this is exactly what Russia has done. In Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, he has used literal invasion. In many other countries, including our own, he has employed assassination, disinformation, and even sabotage. At the end of World War II, the world declared that no nation can wage a war for territorial expansion. This is what Putin is doing, and we cannot allow it. Allowing this unchecked aggression could embolden other powers, like China, to behave similarly. To allow it would virtually guarantee that it will happen again, probably soon, potentially endangering territories where American troops are stationed, such as Japan or the Philippines. Next time, it could mean a world war. The best way to prevent a future conflict is to address this one.
Reason 2: We Live in a Global Economy—Chaos Hurts Everyone
Ukraine is one of the largest exporters of grain, apples, sunflowers (and sunflower oils), and other agricultural products. It is also a major natural gas and coal exporter. Immediately after the invasion, global prices spiked significantly. Many people in developing nations couldn't absorb the price increases. Shortages, hunger, and starvation followed.
Prices in the United States were not immune. The decisions of Vladimir Putin sent economic shockwaves through the entire world. The global community had to negotiate the renewal of shipments from Ukraine, and prices eventually stabilized, but it’s clear this played a role in global inflation.
Everything around you depends on global trade. Most of the food you eat and products you buy were grown or manufactured overseas. But this is an oversimplification. The out-of-season tomato you buy might have been grown in Mexico with fertilizer from Morocco, shipped in a plastic container made in Indonesia, from oil pumped in Saudi Arabia and refined in New Orleans. The cash register you use to buy it has a computer with a processing chip made in Taiwan, parts from a dozen countries, and software made in Estonia, using steel mined in Ukraine and plastic made in Vietnam from Canadian oil. There’s just no escaping it. A problem anywhere in the world impacts the whole world. Small problems get absorbed by this huge global system, and you'll never notice. A massive invasion of a country like Ukraine, though, has significant, far-reaching impacts we can't even adequately model due to the system’s complexity.
Returning to the first argument: Just because this conflict impacts Ukraine doesn’t mean the next one, inspired by this one, won’t happen someplace even more critical to global trade.
Furthermore, these disruptions tend to hurt the poorest countries, and when those countries suffer a crisis, their people tend to leave and go elsewhere. Are you concerned about the crisis at the border? Well, the war in Ukraine made it worse, even if there’s not a single Ukrainian at the border.
Stability and global security affect us all. Nothing is more destabilizing than an unprovoked, illegal invasion.
Reason 3: Ukraine Gave Up Its Nukes Because the World Promised to Defend It
The end of the Soviet Union was a time of promise. After all, the world had been divided for so long, there was at least a hope that we could finally work together to make the world a better place. Some of that happened.
But there was also great fear. The USSR had the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and it wasn't all located in Russia. Would the somewhat chaotic dissolution of one of the biggest countries in the world lead to dozens of small nuclear states, each armed to the teeth and competing for resources? That would not end well.
The global community, working closely with Russia and the former Soviet states, came together to ensure peace, stability, and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, a treaty signed by Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom on December 5, 1994, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for the promise that Ukraine's neighbors and the international community would guarantee its security. Then one of its neighbors, the one with the most responsibility to protect Ukraine, invaded it instead.
So if you are the leader of Iran, North Korea, or even Ukraine or any of the dozen countries that border Russia, and you are observing this conflict, you've just been heavily incentivized to develop a nuclear weapons program. After all, Russia is less likely to invade Estonia or Poland, or help North Korea invade South Korea, if all of those other countries have nukes.
On October 17, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said just that. At a press conference following a meeting of the European Council, Zelenskyy said that he told U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, a critic of Ukraine and NATO, that Ukraine only has two options: NATO membership or its own nuclear arsenal. His words make sense. Russia is an existential threat to Ukraine's existence. Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for a promise from the world that this kind of aggression would not happen. Zelenskyy is calling for the world to honor the agreement we initially made, and by doing so, we can ensure that Ukraine will not feel the need to develop a nuclear arsenal. We'll also send a message to all other non-aligned states that they do not need to develop weapons of mass destruction to ensure their territorial integrity and independence.
Reason 4: Doing the Right Thing Now Is Cheap. Doing It Ourselves Later Will Be Very Expensive
To date, the U.S. has allocated more than $175 billion in emergency funding to support Ukraine since the war started on February 22, 2022, according to the Council of Foreign Relations which put out a comprehensive look at this subject in September. This sounds like a lot of money, and by many measures it is, but it needs to be put into perspective.
First, of that $175 billion, only $106 billion goes to Ukraine, with the rest going to fund US government activities related to Ukraine (training, shipping, maintenance, etc.). Of that, and this is missed in most of the media reports, a good chunk of this doesn't actually cost taxpayers a dime. Approximately $62.3 billion came directly from Department of Defense stockpiles, weapons and munitions that were, quite literally in many cases, sitting on the shelf unused. Some of the weapons systems we donated were not in working order or were nearing their expiration date and would need to be decommissioned, repaired, modernized, or replaced anyway. In other words, when the costs are added up for accounting purposes, the initial manufacturing cost of the weapon is the number that makes it to the spreadsheet. In reality, giving away these weapons and munitions cost the American taxpayer nearly nothing.
When these weapons systems are replaced, they are contracts given to American-owned manufacturers who hire American workers to do the work—in other words, government stimulus which puts money right back into the American economy while simultaneously modernizing our military equipment to help us better deal with threats from Russia, China, or other foes. More than 70 cities across America have manufacturing contracts, putting money in the pockets of Americans at a time when they need it.
Cash has also been provided to Ukraine to cover payrolls of government and military employees and to pay for healthcare and other humanitarian supplies. To date Ukraine has received about $26.4 billion in direct support, and another $3.9 billion has gone directly to humanitarian support, bypassing the Ukrainian government all together.
To put things in perspective, the total Department of Defense (DOD) budget since the Ukraine war started is over $2.423 trillion, meaning the aid to Ukraine has added about perhaps only 2% to the operating budget of the DOD—a small price to pay to help a key ally win a major war against our most persistent foe.
The Flawed Logic of Republican Critics
If you spend enough time on social media or following politics, you are sure to hear someone, usually a Republican, argue that we shouldn’t be spending tax dollars on X or Y when we should spend them on A or B. Right now, you’ll hear a lot of people say that we shouldn't send money to Ukraine when we’re dealing with two hurricanes at home. This is the kind of common sense that quickly falls apart. The temperature outside is getting colder, and my children need new clothes. If a window in our house breaks, my wife won't say that we can't replace it because we need to buy the kids clothes. We need to do both; we should be budgeting for both clothing and house repairs, and emergencies, and one has nothing to do with the other. The U.S. government budget is vast. We can afford to take care of our citizens while still pursuing geopolitical stability and responding to emergencies abroad. We MUST do both things. We also shouldn't change our national strategy because an emergency—manmade or natural, foreign or domestic—pops up. That is exactly what the enemy hopes for: that we will be preoccupied with domestic issues and will ignore foreign threats. This is particularly true when you look at the minuscule price tag for supporting Ukraine.
The other thing that gets lost in these conversations, as I've argued above, is that abandoning Ukraine will also have costs. Geopolitical insecurity drives immigration, inflation, and makes us all less safe. These costs are hard to calculate because some of them are obvious and direct -- US exports to Ukraine have dropped dramatically since 2022, i.e. Ukrainians are spending less money buying our stuff) -- and indirect. What kind of an impact does fear of Russian intervention elsewhere in the world have on the broader economy? What is the scope of the ripple effects of this invasion on other nation's economies, which also ultimately impacts our own? Evidence shows time and time again that a crisis in one place can have wide-reaching repercussions across the planet.
Stupid Politics, Stupid Policies
Experts like myself have been arguing since 2014 that the U.S. was not doing enough to support Ukraine or to deter Russia, and look what happened. The U.S. only provided Ukraine with $2.8 billion in the six years between Russia's initial military intervention in Ukraine in 2014 and its outright invasion in February 2022, less than 3% of the money we've given Ukraine since, and the war may cost us hundreds of billions in the years to come. The price is indeed increasing. The US has recently pledged $375 million more for Ukraine, nearly double the amount of recent shipments.
Imagine if we supported Ukraine properly from the beginning. Maybe Putin would not have invaded. Maybe even if he did, with enough weapons and supplies, Ukraine would have easily won this war already. Deterrence would have saved a lot of money, but it would have spared the world, including the United States, a significant amount of chaos and doubt, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of lives that have already been lost and the millions of people who have been displaced due to the fighting.
This is the mistake Americans make over and over again. We count the pennies spent and not the dollars returned. We count the cost of action but rarely inaction. And so we wait, we wait for things to get so bad that we are forced to act. And when we wait we often fail to intervene early enough to prevent a crisis and instead end up responding to one. We skimp on preventative measures, then wind up either footing a huge bill for emergency spending or ignoring the problem all together until it rots.
Worse yet, we make these debates political when they are not. If you attend a foreign policy event like a conference or a forum, you'll find that the people who bother to tune in to these issues are both Republicans and Democrats, and they tend to largely agree on the courses of action, because reality isn't partisan and the right course of action is obvious to anyone paying enough attention. Unfortunately, political ideologues and populists, and the meme culture that supports them, is far more focused on scoring cheap political points than in finding real solutions. Once again, Ukraine is the perfect example.
*This is Biden's fault. It's a subject for another article, but the Biden administration, much like the Obama administration, has been far too timid and ineffectual in foreign affairs. A core reason for their failure -- ineffective Strategic Communications (STRATCOM). Biden has failed to explain this war to the American people and has simultaneously given Ukraine large amounts of aid and has not given them enough. He's hedged his bets, likely to prevent US support for Ukraine from becoming a wider conflict with Russia or a domestic political hot button. The result is what you see. I'll be writing about this soon.
**The Republican party continuously lies about illegal immigration and it's a safe bet that if they say something about immigration at all it should be fact checked. FEMA aid is not going to illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants do not increase crime. Illegal immigrants generate more money than they cost in government services, which are minimal. Again, a debate for another article.
