Keep Supporting Ukraine Militarily
The USA should keep supporting Ukraine because it is in our best interests both strategically and economically.
The United States of America should keep supporting the Ukrainian military effort to repel the full Russian invasion of their nation despite the mounting costs (currently around $15 billion and counting) for providing military aid.
OK, let’s back up for a second. It’s been a while since I’ve posted an article, and a lot has changed in the time since then. For today, I wanted to focus on foreign policy, going out of my usual realm for this blog. As someone who once called himself a “progressive” and considered himself to be part of the movement, I’ve been extremely dismayed recently at watching other “progressive” commentators in the movement (Kyle Kulinski, Krystal Ball, The Young Turks, etc.) come out against continuing American financial and military aid to Ukraine. There is a lot of either disinformation or intentional white lying going around among the “progressive movement” (which I believe has in the last several months completely discredited itself and is why I only consider myself a “liberal” instead of both a “liberal” and a “progressive”, a topic for a future article), and I want to defend President Biden’s actions on Ukraine. Specifically, I am going to address this issue from a cold, hard geopolitical/geostrategic perspective that is indubitably being applied in the halls of power of NATO capitals around the world and certainly what is being considered in Washington, DC.
First, let’s start with a little bit of history and geography. Europe is a messy place, and its history is famous for being probably the single bloodiest continent in the world with possibly more deaths per capita from war in its cumulative history than any other continent. Let’s look at a topographical map of Europe:
(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_topography_map_en.png)
All of the green on the map is flatland/plains territory. All of the beige are various mountain chains. Probably the most defining geographic feature of continental Europe is the vast open stretch of flatland that stretches from France’s western Atlantic coast all the way deep into Russia, all the way to the Ural Mountains:
This entire vast expanse of flat territory is known as the Great European Plain (henceforth: GEP) crisscrossed and split up by various river systems:
(Source: https://worldmapwithcountries.net/2021/03/22/map-of-europe-rivers/)
The interaction of these two facts makes the GEP the home to two simultaneously paradoxical realities:
1. The GEP, due to its vast, open flatlands is basically a highway of travel for anyone who wants to move from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Ural Mountains (be it a Silk Road merchant bringing goods from China and India through Byzantium/Istanbul, a rail line connecting Moscow to Paris, legions of French/Polish cavalry conquering vast swathes of territory in months, a fleet of tanks moving east from Berlin to Moscow, etc.).
2. The various river systems are disconnected from each other and “slice” the GEP’s various peoples into differing cultural identities (i.e., nation-states), which prevents the creation of a singular national (cultural) identity like has happened in the USA (which is almost as vast by territory and has one large river system, the Greater Mississippi, that is fully interconnected for about two-thirds of its contiguous territory).
The result of these two geographic realities interacting in Europe is the existence of various national identities and cultures being forced to live in harmony on what is largely a vast open expanse of territory where it is extremely easy for these multitude of neighbors to invade each other and cause lots and lots of havoc. As we all know from a passing knowledge of European history, it doesn’t take much beyond one national leader in Europe with imperial ambitions to decide to go on a conquering rampage across the continent to create a “unified Europe”. Whether it was the Roman Dictator Caesar, Roman Emperor Trajan, Frankish Emperor Charlamagne, Spanish King Phillip II, Polish Emperor/Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila, Russian Empress Catherine the Great, French Emperor Napoleon, German Chancellor Hitler, or Russian President Putin; pretty much every major continental European power has at one point or another saw themselves as the “heir to the legacy of the Roman Empire” and sought to conquer some vast expanse of the GEP and in that process committed all the atrocities and more that we are currently seeing and hearing about in Ukraine (no European power has ever fought a “clean war”, and they have all involved war crimes and atrocities committed by all combatants).
It is currently Russia’s turn to have a leader who views himself as the present-day Caesar who then proceeds to attempt a conquest of Europe. This is nothing new, and this has happened multiple times in Russia’s history (Putin, Brezhnev, Stalin, Nicholas II, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, etc.). Russia, however, has a particularly poor starting point when it comes to location because it rests on the far eastern fringe of the GEP. From the maps above, the GEP is extremely narrow (in the north-south axis) from the French Atlantic coast to central Germany (where its narrowest point is less than 100 miles) whence it them opens out like an inverted funnel from central Germany deep into the vastness of Russia (the vertical distance stretches from less than 100 miles in central Germany to over 2,000 as you go east towards the Urals). Among historians and military strategists, this eastern expanse of the GEP is known as the “Invasion Superhighway” because of how difficult it is for the eastern powers to defend against a western invader (be it Poland/Sweden invading Russia, Germany invading Poland, or France invading Germany; all of which have happened multiple in the last 700 years).
Throughout its history, Russia has been invaded multiple times from the west, and the existence of this “Invasion Superhighway” makes it child’s play for an invading army to rape and pillage the expansive lands of Russia’s European plain on its way to the suburbs of Moscow (this has happened many times). Because of this fact, for any leader in Moscow, regardless of the time or political thinking, it is absolutely imperative to expand westwards, in order to achieve as defensible a line against a western invader as possible. In the words of Catherine the Great: “Either Russia must expand, or Russia must die.” In reality, Russia’s geography is so poor that it has indefensible flatlands on virtually all its land borders, which is why Russia is always expansionist in every direction (be it a border conflict in the 60s with China, subjugating the Central Asian republicans in the last decade, invading Georgia in 2008, etc.), but for now, we will focus on the western/European front (and it is completely fair to criticize the Euro-centrism that is undoubtedly coloring the current geopolitical reality).
Now this means that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not the end of Putin’s plans. Hell, it’s not even his first move, which was securing the central Caucuses border through the Chechen Wars. As such, Ukraine is just one step on the way to conquer other nations even further west. That means after Ukraine, Russia definitely looking to conquer Moldova (a non-NATO country), and after that, Russian leaders have made multiple comments about how Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and even more Central and Eastern European states should be “liberated” from “American control”. Ukraine is only the beginning, and Russia’s leaders have set their sights on conquering multiple NATO countries. That means Russia is looking to go to war with the United States of America.
Before we jump into why the United States should keep supporting the Ukrainian military despite the costs, let’s step back a second and look at why Russia invading a nation like Estonia or Poland would cause it to go to war with the United States. For that, we need to go back to the topographical map of Europe:
This time, however, instead of looking at the GEP, let’s consider the two large islands right off the northwest corner of mainland Europe: Great Britain and Ireland. The larger island, Great Britain, has been effectively a single government since roughly 1215, and the entire island became officially unified with the full conquest of Scotland by the English Dictator Oliver Cromwell in 1652 (Wales was conquered in 1283). The English/British then proceeded to turn the island of Ireland into some version of protectorate, colony, or unwilling/hateful subjugate for the proceeding 370-odd years. This then allowed Britain to become the global player that it was for the length of time that it was. The full political union of the British Isles (the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, and the various small satellite islands surrounding them) allowed the British to arise as the preeminent naval power, controlling territory from the Americas (including the 13 colonies which would eventually unite into the contemporary global superpower) to Hong Kong to Sydney to Cape Town. The British first became the world’s first truly global superpower, and this unprecedented reach was due to the political unity of the British Isles under one government, something the peoples of the GEP could never do.
However, the British always had a problem even as they became a global superpower; the mainland Europeans were right there. If Europe could ever do what Britain did (fully politically and nationally unify), Europe could not only challenge Britain’s supremacy on the seas and its global empire, a unified Europe could invade Britain itself (which hasn’t happened since 1066 while the British have invaded all but 22 out of 226 countries in the world). The reverse is also true: The mainland Europeans have to always deal with the fact that the British are always right there, but because of the fact that Britain is an island and thereby a naval power, no land power will ever be able to float a fleet powerful enough to take on the British Royal Navy unless pretty much all of mainland Europe is unified. Only by pacifying all of the terrestrial national threats (as the British did on their islands with the Welsh and Scots) could the Europeans set their sights on conquering Britain. The Brits know this, and the Europeans know this. They’ve also all known this for the last millennia. Hence why the British have spent the inflation adjusted equivalent of trillions of dollars of wealth over the last 500 years to prevent a unified Europe.
Prior to the Franco-British rapprochement in the 1890s, the French and British were bitter rivals due to these two facts. The French wanted a united Europe so that they could then turn their attention to challenging Britain on the seas, and the British wanted to prevent a united Europe for the inverse reason. However, with the rise of Germany and Russia as major mainland rival great powers in the late-19th Century, France has essentially cast off its traditional policy of a “united Europe” – at least from a military perspective. Since the late-19th Century, the French have allied with the British (and that alliance remains a steadfast core of European security and stability) in seeking to prevent a militarily united Europe. The last of these great wars over this geopolitical game were the two world wars. In those wars, the French and British were the chief leaders of the initial Allied Powers, and eventually due to cultural ties, they convinced the Americans to join the Allied Powers after the attack on Pearl Harbor. At the end of World War II, the First Cold War immediately began, and NATO was the eventual European alliance (including Canada and the United States) that came out to stabilize the post-World War II European security structure.
Through the experience of the two world wars and the ensuing NATO-led European security structure, the Americans gave guaranteed security for all of Europe from all foreign threats. Through the First Cold War (1945-1991), that threat was the Soviet Union. NATO and the European security structure coasted on inertia while chiefly focusing on securing stability in Europe and the War on Terror. Now, in the Second Cold War (2022-ongoing), the NATO-led security structure is focused on countering Russian threats in Europe and Chinese threats in the Indo-Pacific. The leaders of NATO nations often give paeans about how the treaty is to “defend democracy” or “protect freedom” or “prevent terror from harming the world” or what-have-you pablum about how all NATO countries are “families” and “families protect each other”, but at the end of the day, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is just another European military alliance, the likes of which have existed for centuries.
In reality, there are no “values” that underpin NATO. NATO today is just the latest version of a European military alliance that is designed to prevent a united Europe; that’s what it has always been. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization today is no different than the various military alliance that have waltzed through European history. The only new thing is that it includes non-European countries and is led by a non-European country. However, at the end of the day, it is not substantively different than the Triple Entente, Concert of Europe, the Stately Quadrille, or any other previous European military alliance. NATO is a straightforward military alliance with one goal: to prevent Russia from conquering Europe to create a unified Europe.
[ASIDE: This should not be surprising; the reason the French assisted the Americans in our revolution against the British was purely geostrategic as well. The American colonies were providing immense wealth for the British through tax and export revenue that it was allowing Britain to finance a whole bunch of countries (Netherlands, Prussia, Hanover, Austria, Italy, Spain, etc.) to declare war on pre-Revolutionary France. The French kings decided that cutting off that source of revenue would hurt the British – and they were right. The loss of the American colonies forever cut off Britain from one of the most valuable sources of capital for a great power. The French didn’t care about American independence; they wanted to hurt the British. Why did the Americans join World War II? Because we were worried that any country that could unite Europe could threaten the United States on our territory.]
As such, the USA is treaty-bound to protect all the members of NATO from a Russian attack, and that is why American and Russian troops are staring each other down with guns fully loaded on the plains of Eastern Europe right now. Whatever your position is on NATO (whether you think we should remain in it, its role, etc.), the reality is that under the current leadership of the USA, the USA will honor its commitment under Article V of the NATO treaty. As such, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a major problem for the USA. We know that the Russians are seeking to re-conquer Eastern Europe (at the very least), and we know that the Americans are willing to go to war to protect “every inch of NATO territory” (President Biden has repeatedly said this, probably most memorably in Warsaw). Russia is currently seeking to conquer Ukraine (again), and once it finishes conquering Ukraine, it will almost certainly move on a NATO country militarily. Once Russia attacks a NATO country, whether we want to or not to (though public polls in the USA have shown broad approval for Article V as it relates to present NATO member states), the American leadership has decided that we will go to war with Russia.
So why is it important for the USA to keep funding Ukraine despite the mounting costs overrunning $15 billion?
Because as long as the Russian military is fighting in Ukraine, it cannot move on to attack a NATO country. More specifically, as long as Russia is forced to fight in Ukraine, the USA will not go to war with Russia. Even more specifically, as long as Russia is occupied in Ukraine, there will not be a war between the two nations with the two largest nuclear weapons stockpiles in the world.
Given the reality that the Russian military has proven itself to be entirely incompetent such that it cannot even successfully subjugate a country on its border (which has 1/4th the population and 1/20th the area of Russia), it is axiomatically true that the battle-hardened American military will be able to wipeout the Russian military on the conventional battlefield in a matter of weeks. So yes, it is the reality that if the USA and Russia were ever able to go to conventional war, the Americans would win easily. However, the reality of the matter is that Russia holds the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and while the Americans have the stockpile to math it, Russia’s military doctrine specifically allows the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield as a first use policy. That means that as American soldiers are wiping out Russian soldiers on the battlefields of Central and Eastern Europe, as the Russians are forced into a retreat, they are guaranteed to utilize nuclear weapons on the battlefield against advancing American soldiers. At that point, it is nuclear war between the United States and Russia, and no one wants to even imagine what the results or consequences of that will be.
As such, we must avoid a war between the Russians and the Americans no matter what. The best way to prevent a direct exchange of fire between the Russian and American militaries right now is to keep the Russian military occupied in Ukraine. As long as the Russian military is forced to expend resources, equipment, time, energy, and yes manpower in Ukraine, that means that the Russian military (and the Russian nation itself) is being ground down to a pulp without a single American firing a shot. Why is that so important? Again, to reemphasize, we know that once the Russians are losing to Americans, tactical nuclear weapons come into play, and that simply cannot happen. So the killing shots can never be coming from an American soldier; the killing shot can only be coming from a Ukrainian soldier. So yes, this is absolutely a proxy war just like the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, etc. were throughout the Cold War. The goal from the one propping up the proxy against the great power (the USA in this case, the USSR in the case of North Vietnam, etc.) in every Cold War era conflict also applies to why the USA is funding the Ukrainian military effort: to prevent a nuclear war between the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.
Let us also consider the fact that based on the last 30 years of election results, the American electorate are done seeing body bags of American troops coming home. They have made that abundantly clear. Now, the polls in the USA still show that if Russia attacks a NATO country, the USA should defend that NATO country, but it has not been a secret that vast swathes of the American electorate are ready to abandon every military alliance and treaty that the USA is currently bound by. Right now, the polls say that the American electorate is willing to sacrifice American soldiers to protect “every inch of NATO territory”, but what do we think the polls will say within two years of body bags coming home from Europe?
How long do those numbers last? I give it at most a year. The American electorate, while supportive of American security commitments for the moment, is clearly in an isolationist mood, and once the war begins, my guess is that attitudes would shift very quickly. For a long time, Americans, both people and leaders, have been telling/begging/pleading/yelling at European allies to start “paying up” to defense commitments. Donald Trump’s presidency was the clearest example of this where he shamed multiple European leaders to their faces on live camera for not spending 2% on GDP or increasing ties to Russia, but Trump was neither the first nor will he be the last.
President Biden has told European allies multiple times that if war does break out, he will not be able to sustain American troops deployments into Europe even if he wins reelection for more than a couple of years. He has told them that the current expansion of American troop commitments to reinforce the Eastern Flank of NATO is only temporary and that it is only for a couple of years in order for the European allies to expand their military capabilities enough to deploy their own forces. He has warned that if there any American security commitment that comes up in another theater of the world, especially the Indo-Pacific, he will immediately draw down American troop deployments. He has gone so far as to rebuff the UK’s request to redeploy US Navy assets towards the Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters and made clear that the US Navy’s biggest focus is the Indo-Pacific and that the Royal and French Navies are pretty much left to protect European waters by themselves. Biden has been quieter about rebuffing and rebuking NATO, but behind the scenes, he has been even more isolationist towards European allies than Trump.
Biden and Trump and not the only recent American presidents to harangue European allies about NATO and defense commitments. President Barack Obama was the one who instituted the 2% of GDP commitment because he was tired of lecturing the allied leaders about it. President George W. Bush famously detested European leaders’ reluctance to commit resources to the War on Terror even though President Bush had reinforced the expanded Eastern Flank of NATO. President Bill Clinton expanded NATO into Central and Eastern Europe over the protests of several Western European allies (most notably France) President George H. W. Bush thought British and French leaders were ridiculous about their suspicions of a united Germany. The resentment of Americans feeling like they’re the ones who are pulling the overwhelming weight of NATO’s defense commitments while the Europeans are just sitting there being fat, happy cats happy to live in an American-guaranteed peace has been growing for decades. As an American, especially as an American from the Rust Belt (I live just outside Pittsburgh), I freely admit to believing the same things myself – and I consider myself an Atlanticist. A lot of Americans, myself included, feel as though the Europeans have not pulled their weight, and admittedly a lot of the progressive critique from people like Krystal Ball and Cenk Uygur also are coming from this positioning.
But again, we should be clear about something: If Russia attacks a NATO country, American soldiers will die in battle abroad. Even President Trump repeatedly reaffirmed the USA’s commitment to Article V, and President Biden’s words could not be clearer if he spoke to them with a billion microphones: “We will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full might of American power because we have a sacred obligation under Article V.” Americans do not want American soldiers to die abroad, but Americans are willing to go to war to defend NATO countries. That means, if Russia attacks a NATO country, American soldiers will die in Europe. However, as long as Russia is attacking Ukraine, a non-NATO country, American soldiers will not die in Europe. So that means, as long as the Ukrainians are fighting, American soldiers will live.
Ukraine does not have the military equipment necessary to fully repulse a Russian invasion by itself. However, it does have a highly motivated population that is willing to die to defend their territory as they have repeatedly said. Americans do not want their soldiers to die in Europe; Ukrainian soldiers are willing to die in Europe. The solution is simple: the Americans provide the weapons, and the Ukrainians provide the personnel. If Russia and the USA go to war, both American soldiers and American funding will be sacrificed. However, if Russia is forced to keep fighting in Ukraine, only American funding will be sacrificed while American soldiers are not. As an American myself, I’m sick and tired of sending our soldiers to die abroad. I understand our treaty commitments, and if a NATO member state did trigger Article V, I would fully support sending American troops to defend them. However, that is before American soldiers are coming back home in body bags. If you ask me after two years of American soldiers coming home in body bags from Europe, I cannot guarantee you that I would give you the same answer. So let’s use American funds to allow the Ukrainian soldiers to fight; that way, American soldiers will not fight/die.
However, the cold, hard American-favored calculus does not end there. The fact of the matter is that the weapons we are sending to Ukraine are pretty much all largely outdated models that our military no longer uses. Yes, even the much-vaunted HIMARS delivery systems are due to be phased out of the US military’s use by the end of this decade with new models already in production to replace the HIMARS’s role in the US military. NATO countries with stocks of old Soviet/Russian weaponry (from Poland’s T-72 tanks to Slovenia’s S-300 to Bulgaria’s MiG-29s) have been compelled to empty them in the face of Ukraine’s overwhelming need for weapons that they can acquire, deploy, and operate with relative ease. These Soviet era weapons systems and munitions played an important role in keeping the Ukrainians in the fight while (most) NATO countries rushed their promised supplies to Ukraine. These systems were older, but more available and familiar to soldiers of an ex-Soviet state. This means that European nations are about to be low on supply for critical systems and so will be looking for replacements, especially in the face of the new realities of European security. Since they are all NATO countries, there is only one vendor who can replace these weapons: the USA.
All of these European countries who have just been forced to empty out their weapons stocks are now going to replace those with American weapons stocks from American defense contractors. While it is true that some of the new European defense spending (including the much heralded $100 billion one-time expansion fund into Germany’s Bundeswehr) will be focused on domestic contractors (Airbus, BAe, Leopard, Panzer, Dassault, etc.), a lot of that investment is going to come to the USA. That means more American jobs, more industrial plants in the Rust Belt and South, more research and development dollars going to universities across the country, and all the follow-on positive network effects from that. However, the American economic benefit from an influx of defense contracts does not just come from NATO and other traditional American allies.
In the last year, the USA has also bought out ammunition stocks for Russian weapons from other countries around the world including South Africa, Afghanistan (yes, that’s the Taliban government we’re talking about; now, there’s some irony), India, and more. Now these countries also have to replace their munitions stocks, and thanks to sanctions and supply chain issues, Russia is essentially no longer a global supplier of weapons. Not only that, but the Russo-Ukrainian War has proven to the whole world that Russian weapons have shortcomings against American weapons, so all those countries which bought Russian military hardware are reconsidering whether they want to keep buying Russian military hardware. This is not a small economic pie. After the USA, Russia is the world’s second largest global defense exporter. India is the world’s largest defense importer, and something like 70% of their hardware comes from Russia. However, as India seeks to become a great power and seek closer ties with the USA, they are almost certain to stop buying Russian weaponry.
In all, at this very moment: All of the European nations are seeking to massively expand their defense hardware. All of the NATO countries are being forced to replace their weapons stocks because they’ve basically given all their Soviet/Russian stocks to Ukraine. All of the countries from which the USA has bought Russian ammunitions to give to Ukraine (i.e., India, South Africa, etc.) are now forced to restock. All of the countries which have bought Russian weapons are being forced to re-evaluate if they ever want to buy Russian weapons again. Putting all that together, that means that there is a whole bevy of nations across the world right now who need to replace their military hardware, and they all pretty much only have one vendor to turn to since the world’s #2 vendor of defense equipment (who had something like a 40% export share globally) is now unable to supply weaponry: the USA. American defense companies are going to be raking in cash from across the world these next few years.
Now, there is something to be said for the idea that we should not celebrate the fact that we are in a global arms race; that is true enough. However, the reality of the matter is that we do live in a world where interstate conflict (i.e., war) seems to be a very real threat. No one can say that “war is a thing of the past in Europe” anymore because there is literally a war on the mainland European continent. The reality of the matter is that countries around the world are once again gearing up for war, and the USA and our allies cannot avoid that. Given that reality, there is no shame in saying that it makes sense for defense contractors to make profits. When countries are seeking American weapons to defend themselves from aggressive actors on their borders or flanks, that is not a bad thing; that means nations are seeking to defend themselves from imperial neighbors.
So let us look at the positive side of this from an American point of view: Americans are going to get jobs, see their incomes go up, be on the cutting edge of science and technology, and home to the greatest economy and middle class the world has ever known – again. When reality hits you hard, sometimes the best thing you can do is embrace it for what it is presently and just try to make the most of a bad situation.
But it’s not just defense and economic benefits for the USA. The Ukraine War and American support for Ukraine has forced all of the European allies to more fully fall in line with American foreign policy views. As long as there is an aggressive Russia on Europe’s Eastern Flank, NATO nations are forced to depend on the USA because European allies cannot hope to hold off Russia without full American assistance through NATO. This also means that every Russophile in Europe proper has been discredited in the largely pro-American European Establishment. While it is true that there is a large swathe of Europe’s population where the Far Right, largely financed and supported by Vladimir Putin’s Russia (especially in Hungary and Italy) has taken control of domestic politics, the vast majority of NATO and EU populaces still lie on the pro-American camp if only because they hate Russia (e.g., Poland and Slovakia).
By making all the European allies fall into line behind the American foreign policy interests in Europe, we are also forcing them to fall into line behind American foreign policy interests outside Europe. The clearest example of this is China. A few months ago, the head of the British Army gave a public speech where he basically argued that it was time for the British Army to once again prepare to fight on the battlefields of Europe so that the Americans can focus on countering China in the Pacific. This sort of aggressive anti-China rhetoric (especially combined with a pro-American line in the same breath, no less) would not have been heard from British leadership even seven years ago. Until about 2018, Europe had been looking to China to serve as a “stable” source of global economic prowess after the 2008 US financial crash caused global markets to collapse.
It was not just the British who sought to cozy up to China like this. The Greeks, Italians, Spanish, French, British, and others sold ports to China. Germany and Switzerland sold chemicals companies to China. Portugal vetoed the annual EU report on human rights abuses across the world in 2019 over its China section. Bulgaria and Romania sought to join the Belt and road Initiative. Examples abound. It is really only after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Europe has fallen in line behind American foreign policy against China – finally. That it took the Europeans this long to realize that the Americans were right when it comes to China (and Russia) is a sad situation indeed.
But anyway, the China story is one for a different day. Overall, the point of this piece is that the USA should keep funding Ukraine despite the costs because it helps us beyond measure.
We basically eliminate Russia as a geopolitical threat to American interests. We have rejuvenated the domestic American manufacturing sector to the tune of what will amount to probably $2 trillion in direct economic impacts and at least $10 trillion over the next decade just from defense contracts (before considering all the network and knock-on positive economic effects that follow on from a manufacturing boom). We have convinced our European allies to fall in line behind us on our most important foreign policy interests. We have convinced the Europeans to pay up for their defense. We have revitalized American research and development into science and technology. We have reasserted the might of American leadership and the American military.
And all that happened with just $15 billion of military aid to Ukraine and not a single American soldier’s life lost in Europe. As an American taxpayer, that’s a bargain deal.