I believe no other country is individually spending tens of billions of dollars helping Ukraine. So if the US found a way to make a profit to recover some of the costs of preventing the expanse of communism and brutal killing of innocent people, while weakening a nation threatening the world with nuclear war, kudos to them.
You sound insane. The US has provided $75,000,000,000 of aid despite Ukraine being a European backwater that is not a member of NATO. It’d be great if the USA had something to show for all that aid, but Ukraine has made zero progress in its counteroffensive. It’s only fair that we question the value of the ongoing billions.
For reference, $75B is more than the US spends annually on federal highways. It is not a small amount and it has real impact on the budget.
The US is spending the equivalent of pocket change in Ukraine, if a decade+ of war in Afghanistan and Iraq didn't blow the US up, funding the Ukrainians certainly isn't.
Ironically I feel the spending in Ukraine is more justified than the other causes I mentioned if only to catch Putin with his pants down, make Russia show it’s hand, and keep Russian and Chinese expansionary dreams in check.
In many ways I agree with you though. Education for the US population is probably a far better use of that amount of cash
Yeah Ukrainian aid helps America being number 1 and keeps your dollars stay afloat. Don’t read other people’s one liners, it does sound good but it makes no sense to America in many ways to not help them. If they cower and not do enough, it will mess them up long term as the worlds number 1 power
Yes, the European Union is the biggest financial supporter of Ukraine and that excludes single European countries contributions.
US tops the military aid, that's most certainly true and it greatly benefits US defense contractors and their workers.
edit: seems like people having problems at reading, as I've said US indeed tops military help which is what the following comment(s) include.
What seems people don't understand is that this kind of (military) help, albeit absolutely critical to Ukraine, is money that stays in US. Every himars rocket fired by Ukraine it's 170k $ being paid to Lockheed Martin.
Well if Ukraine did not have the American made weapons, they would have folded in less than a month. The United States has spent close to 100B in aid for Ukraine in the last 6 months and other amounts of money by the EU as aid. All told it is about 5-10x Russia’s yearly military budget.
All in all, Russia is a very weak country with less than 1.5T GDP. As a result, any infusion of huge sum on money by external actors will tilt the balance in the favor of the party that gets the money .
the usg considers russia one of its key rivals, and so this ukraine thing was a godsend for them: ukraine provides the cannon fodder to fight and die, usg provides the materiel, and russia doesn't have a casus belli to nuke new york. the usg gets all the benefits of fighting a land war with russia with almost none of the costs: no messy body bag parades on cnn, no psychologically disturbed veterans blowing up federal buildings in oklahoma, no sheets of radioactive glass that were until recently thriving metropolises, and no test of the us nuclear response capabilities
all it's cost so far, in direct terms, is a hundred billion dollars or so over a couple of years, in an economy with thirty trillion dollars a year of gdp. 0.2% of gdp, say
Cus sending money to Ukraine benefits our politicians (wether thru holding 'defense' stocks or investments in rebuilding Ukr). Helping out the poor is un-American, anti capitalistic.
Yep. And the so-called "aid to Ukraine", 80% of it would be spent within the US on current stockpiles and new equipment. It's curious that the US military-industrial complex isn't falling all over itself attempting to send Ukraine lots of expensive gear and supplies it didn't even ask for. I guess there are too many Putin sympathizers in US political circles able to buy, engineer, and install influence.
Well, the victory in Ukraine is low cost high profit business for the US.
There is unprecedented growth of oil and natural gas sales to Europe, which completely displaced Russia as the biggest supplier. The arms contracts are rising heavily, making at least half of the world's armies interested in replacing old equipment. Prices are rising as well as profits.
Secondly, securing Ukraine would add up to the capitalistic market huge amounts of resources like grains and metals. This is a huge area of future investments that would provide gains for capital markets for years. Not to mention educated, hard-working populace.
There is also a matter of prestige. It is hard not to see the military advantage that western weapons have over the soviet ones. The risk of any other conflict is lower elsewhere. Still, the US is considered a worthy ally, whose guarantees are reliable.
Those are the advantages. Costs? Old military equipment that should be replaced anyway. Some money as well, but hey, banks are being given free cash as well. No boots on the ground, NATO expansion, many of the help come from allies. You can't make it cheaper.
And above all, morally you are still on the right side. Incredible.
If the US can kill Russians only by giving money and weapons to Ukraine they will definitely keep doing it. Ukraine has the will to fight and that’s way more important than native production lines.
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