The Hudson Institute is a “conservative think tank.” So it’s not a Biden administration mouthpiece. Some interesting points here:
Ten Myths about US Aid to Ukraine
Myth 1: There is not enough oversight of US aid to Ukraine.
Myth 2: We have written more than $66 billion worth of “blank checks” for Ukraine.
Myth 3: Congress hasn’t had “enough time to debate” US aid to Ukraine or “read the bill.”
Myth 4: This money to Ukraine would be better spent on “the wall” or “baby formula.”‘
Myth 5: Europe needs to “spend more” before America does.
Myth 6: The US should only give “military aid.”
Myth 7: US weapons are ending up on the black market or are not getting to the front lines.
Myth 8: Ukraine is too corrupt to receive aid responsibly.
Myth 9: Russia is a distraction. US focus must be on China.
Myth 10: Aid to Ukraine puts “America last.”
8 responses to “Ten Myths about US Aid to Ukraine”
4 is no myth. If someone doesn’t support foreign aid-that’s their opinion as a free citizen. They need that explained to them. I hear on Townhall a bipartisan amnesty is in the works. That assisted suicide in Canada has nothing on what the Beltway has done. Cyanide at least smells of almond-not dung.
another myth is the cost of the weapons we’re sending. what we’re really paying for is the replacement cost of equipment that was near the end of it’s shelf life anyway, which we would have to do war or not.
an example is the javelin missiles we have sent…they’re block 1 and 2 missiles, made in 1996 and 1997. the estimate at time of manufacture was a 25 year self life, and we’re on year 24. we would have had to scrap them next year, no matter what we did. so minus the actual transportation and handling, they’re basically free.
Unpopular Opinion Warning.
First I don’t care about Ukraine, nor do I see how its fate, one way or another, is a matter of national security for the United States, particularly with the Russian nuclear arsenal in mind. That arsenal, one should add, is the only thing about Russia that is, in any way, capable of threatening us. They are not a peer and barely a regional rival, Western Europe could defend itself relatively easily if it was willing to write the check.
Secondly, it’s hard not to admit the Russians have a point that NATO, an alliance that completed it mission thirty years ago, not only still exists but continues to expand to Russia’s borders. I remember I was there in those heady days before Saddam ruined a hell of a party. We would not tolerate the Warsaw Pact on our border, particularly with the Western European hobby of Invading Russia every century or so.
Thirdly, Kiev (cough) “Kyiv” was the original capital of the Russian State (or at least proto-Russian princely states) half of Ukraine is ethnically Russian, this is not a contest between powers foreign to each other it’s a civil war. Recall just how divided Ukraine is between East and West, and how both sides are trying to suppress each other language and cultures.
I don’t see how Ukraine or say the Baltic States are worth our time and money, much less even the slightest risk of a nuclear confrontation. Events in Ukraine have borne this out, Russia is a paper tiger and our proper role in this particular struggle is to leave it on the back page next to the personal where it belongs while we focus on more important things, which is literary almost anything else.
My opinion (yes, everyone has one) is that Western Europe sees the chance to knock Russia down a few pegs and to bring Ukraine into the tent with the rest of Eastern Europe.
End of rant, thank you for reading. You may flame away at your leisure.
> nor do I see how its fate, one way or another, is a matter of national security for the United States
Putting the brakes on Russias imperial ambitions *now* is easier than *later,* and it will give China reason to pause before *they* try it. Whether we want to be involved in the world or not, we are, and we always will be.
> the Russians have a point that NATO, an alliance that completed it mission thirty years ago
And yet, no. It’s not like Russia was all warm and cuddly until February; they’ve been acting the jackass for years. Russia would not have to worry about its neighbors joining NATO if its neighbors weren’t justly afraid of Russia. It’s not like The Great Satan US is strong-arming *Sweden* into signing up.
> half of Ukraine is ethnically Russian
And the Sudetenland was ethnically German. Now… it’s not. Germany over-reached, and not only did Germany get its ass handed to it, but the ethnic Germans were booted out of Czechoslavakia. Ukraine may well follow that pattern.
> Kiev (cough) “Kyiv” was the original capital of the Russian State
And it may be again! Greater Ukraine might well stretch to encompass Moscow. Who knows.
Thanks for the reply.
How do “Russian ambitions” constitute a threat to the United States?
As far as NATO goes my point stands, it was a counter to the Warsaw Pact which no longer exists. Do you really suppose that Russia is a threat to Western Europe? If so, how? Russia has good technology but so does Western Europe who unlike Russia can fund and field a modern force. I’m sorry, NATO outlived its usefulness and is just an expensive entanglement.
And yes, you are correct that Moscow may one day be part of “Greater Ukraine” but that’s the point it’s a civil war, a rational response on our part is to make popcorn and watch the show.
Finally, what in Eastern Europe is worth even the slightest risk of a Nuclear War? Do you really want to run that risk for Ukraine or Latvia? In an age where we recognized the dangers involved, we left the Berlin uprising and the Invasions of Czechoslovakia and Hungary alone despite our sympathy.
Where am I going wrong?
> How do “Russian ambitions” constitute a threat to the United States?
How did German or Japanese ambitions threaten the US? How did whackaloon Islamist ambitions threaten the US? At the start, they didn’t. Ambitions tend to amplify as they continue.
> Do you really suppose that Russia is a threat to Western Europe?
Russia certainly seems to think so. Threatening to nuke *Sweden* would seem to qualify.
> NATO outlived its usefulness
Counterpoint: Russia threatening western Europe justifies the continued existence of NATO. China justifies the continued existence of NATO. The existence of the UN justifies the existence of NATO. The world needs a partnership of civilized nations; NATO is one of the few.
> a rational response on our part is…
… to arm the less evil side in such a way that they grind down the more evil side. And lo and behold, that’s what we’re doing. If Russia gets pissy about it, just point out that any time the US has had to confront some tyrannical shithole in the last fifty years, they always seem to be armed with AK’s and RPGs and MiGs.
> what in Eastern Europe is worth even the slightest risk of a Nuclear War?
Shoot, what in *Detroit* is worth risking nuclear war? And yet if Russia invaded Detroit, I’d vote for pushing them back out, even if that risked a nuclear war. You don’t negotiate with terrorists and you don’t give an inch to bullies. If a bully threatens you and you back down, they advance forward and threaten you some more. They know they have a winning strategy to take your stuff.
If Russia is going to nuke us because they can’t conquer Ukraine… they were gonna nuke us anyway. The same dipshit ideology that holds that Ukraine should be eradicated holds that Russia is the rightful ruler of the entire world. China seems to hold the same sort of thinking.
Putin began his reign by promising Russians – ethnic Russians in particular – that only through his rule would Russia become once again secure and regain its deserved glory. Putin has been quite clear about this and explicit about it through the years. And through the years he has been living up to his promise to the Russian people.
Making Russia secure requires Russian control of the “land bridges” that lead in to Russia’s heartland. These are places where the geography readily lends itself to large scale troop movements. This, be it hordes of Mongols riding from east, hordes of Turks riding from the south, or panzerarmees of Germans driving in from the west, they all made use of the open terrain with its lack of natural obstacles (mountains, oceans, swamps, deserts, etc.,) to reach Moscow’s gates.
Across the more than two decades Putin has ruled in Russia he has secured one “land bridge” after another. Initially, these were all off to the east and in regions few in the West had even heard and even fewer actually cared about. Putin kicked this off first by renewing the Chechen War in order to crush that breakaway “republic” to thereby re-secure the western half of that land bridge formed by the coastal plain between the Caucus Mountain and the Caspian Sea. Within the decade Putin engineered the war in Georgia to secure the land bridge between the Black Sea and those same mountains.
In 2014 Putin engineered another excuse to begin the process of securing the land bridge that runs through the heart of Europe. First he grabbed the Crimea – itself a longstanding invasion route starting point – and territory in the eastern portion of Ukraine.
Alas, for the Ukraines, that could not be enough. Ukraine itself is not one of the land bridges. Instead, it’s between the Russian heartland at one end and the entrance of a land bridge at its other end. This one runs across what is now Poland and is wide, flat, open and unobstructed with the only significant geographic feature that could slow any attacker being the Vistula river as it runs through Warsaw. The remaining land bridges into Russia are where the Baltic republics now are along with parts of Finland.
Putin has made clear his intent to resecure all of those land bridges as Russia has only been safe from invasion when there has been Russian troops on the ground at each of the entrances to those land bridges. This has been Putin’s stated goal from the outset of his rule.
That NATO has “encroached” on Russia has nothing to do with Putin’s stated goals as Putin stated those goals long before so many of those countries of the former Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact asked for NATO membership on their own. Yes, Russia does have valid border security concerns. Russia has repeatedly been invaded by Europeans and they’ve driven across those land bridges to do so.
But then, those same land bridges have worked in the other direction as Russia has used them to invade each and every one of the European nations at the western ends of them. While the Russians have a valid border security concerns, so to does Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Finland have valid border security concerns.
Where it becomes a national security issue warranting American involvement is due to many of those nations bordering Russia being NATO member states. Thus, thanks to Article 5 of NATO, if any of those countries are attacked the US is obligated to come to their aid. And as Putin has made it clear he intends to retake control of what are now independent sovereign nation states with them all now being NATO member states, that means a direct war with the US.
For our own safety and security, if not for anyone else’s, it would be quite wise to avoid such a direct conflict. This, because Russia would lose such a fight on the conventional level quite quickly. And there’d be little incentive then for Russia NOT to use some of its nukes to halt the losses its conventional forces would be enduring. And there’s little chance that a “limited use of nuclear weapons” would not escalate to beyond just battlefield tactical ones.
So, in order to ensure that the US and NATO do not wind up directly confronting Russia we must ensure that Russia loses in Ukraine. Not “win but at a crippling price” but lose. We must ensure that when “peace” is declared it is with Ukraine’s having regained all the territory the Russians took from it and with Russia forced to make reparations for the damage and atrocities it inflicted upon Ukraine.
Ensuring this will not only prevent that direct NATO / Russian confrontation but will also ensure that Russia’s imperialist ambitions are destroyed for at least a generation if not longer.
So, yes, what happens in Ukraine is very much within America’s national security interests. And the money and resources we expend in Ukraine in order to crush Russia’s aggression there are worth it.
I’m inclined to agree that #4 makes me suspicious. The rest at least seem to be provable in one way or another, but that one’s a matter of opinion.