It's unbelievable how much we've sent Ukraine while Americans are suffering at dire rates.
If we had hundreds of billions just laying around for crooked foreign nations, surely we had it for school lunch programs, affordable housing, homeless programs, etc.
> It's unbelievable how much we've sent Ukraine while Americans are suffering at dire rates.
Indeed, it's unbelievable how little we actually sent via pallets (compared to past US wars) v. how much we sent in the form of gift cards for Ukraine to buy US surplus military hardware.
It's a very cost-effective program we should continue not just to defend our allies against a dictator but to keep our own economy cranking as money circulates among US employees and US companies throughout the military supply chain.
The ROI is the mitigation of a third world war by a mad despot and the consequential preservation of lives that would otherwise have been lost. It's a hugely valuable investment once you look at the historical costs of appeasement.
Also, to repeat the point with a bit more nuance: most of the money being "sent" doesn't even leave the US economy until it's in the hands of people e.g as wages. US military procurement rules mean that the aid money going to Ukraine for hardware procurement ultimately only goes back to US equipment manufacturers and other US companies in that supply chain.
Tldr: each aid package is largely a gift card to spend at the Made-In-USA gun store.
> The ROI is the mitigation of a third world war by a mad despot and the consequential preservation of lives that would otherwise have been lost. It's a hugely valuable investment once you look at the historical costs of appeasement.
Citation *massively* needed. There is no evidence that a 3rd world war was mitigated. There is substantial evidence that this war has gone on far longer than it would have if the west had stayed out.
> Also, to repeat the point with a bit more nuance: most of the money being "sent" doesn't even leave the US economy until it's in the hands of people e.g as wages. US military procurement rules mean that the aid money going to Ukraine for hardware procurement ultimately only goes back to US equipment manufacturers and other US companies in that supply chain.
I understand this.
What I do not understand is how making a massive wealth transfer from our children and grandchildren to shareholders of the military-industrial complex is viewed as net-positive economic activity.
Taking out a loan against the future productivity of your children isn't suddenly made okay because you spend that money with other Americans to send guns to someone in another country.
It's net-positive activity full-stop, not just economic activity.
The US dollar thrives because it's backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government. Which in all practical terms means it's backed by our guns, or more precisely our ability to wage war. Closely allied nations and currencies such as the Euro, the Pound, and the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand Dollars similarly benefit.
So in immediate terms you may see it as a wealth transfer, in longer timescales opening up our economic horizons (improving economic and political conditions with our allies and opening fronts for investment with new allies) improves our ability to grow GDP, revenue, our tax base, and our ability to do more business in our own currency.
That's pretty much the payoff, if you're looking for one in strictly economic terms.
> It's net-positive activity full-stop, not just economic activity.
Net positive for who? It doesn't seem to be a net positive for Ukraine, who have effectively lost an entire generation of young men.
> in longer timescales opening up our economic horizons (improving economic and political conditions with our allies and opening fronts for investment with new allies) improves our ability to grow GDP, revenue, our tax base, and our ability to do more business in our own currency.
This is a wildly nebulous claim. At "longer timescales" I can claim the same thing: indebting future generations to help defend non allies ("new ally" is an interesting word for someone who wasn't an ally until they needed our help) without a clear ROI is a fantastic way to slow future GDP growth by continually increasing the amount of debt we have to service.
> Net positive for who? It doesn't seem to be a net positive for Ukraine, who have effectively lost an entire generation of young men.
Men who laid down their lives to defend their homeland. This isn't a serious counterargument on your part and devalues your standing as a good-faith participant in this exchange.
> This is a wildly nebulous claim
The history of our nation as a world superpower disagrees.
There's zero reason why the US can't both support Ukraine and help solve homelessness. Homelessness is a product of a restrictive construction policies (namely, many US cities forbid or highly restrict construction of high-density low-cost housing), not a lack of funds.
Don't buy the disinformation;not much of that money was actually sent to Ukraine, most of the money stays in the US. [0]
The US not funding school lunch programs, affordable housing, homeless programs is not a problem of lacking resources. It's an ideological decision. The help sent to Ukraine is actually negligible.[1]
There's more than enough money to go around; just look at the US's regular defense budget. This money being pushed to the MIC instead of to citizens in need is a conscious decision.
You are very naive if you think any of that money would go into helping the people in need. Those huge sums were approved and spent for the benefit of the military complex who traditionally sponsor political campaigns and outright bribe the government and the Congress so that the war machine never stops.
How much was sent to Ukraine in cash, exactly? And how much of that was taken away from housing budgets?
From what I heard, the vast majority of what was sent to Ukraine was military surplus.
(That's of course ignoring some pretty serious points you're making more or less implicitly, eg that Americans are suffering in a way comparable to "being shelled by Russians" or that the help is send to encourage their "being crooked" and not, you know, fight back against invading Russians. And you're also basically brushing off the part where the help came in with strings attached in terms of fighting corruption.)
Some is sold to local police departments. Some is sold to your pick of developing nation warlords. Some is destroyed or used for training.
I do agree that it's kind of fucked up that US military spending is so huge that it can make a major difference to the war in Ukraine with mostly equipment it was going to throw away. But (1) that's not a problem that started in 2022 (2) I think there's a huge hypocrisy in complaining about the fact that this equipment is being sent to Ukraine, and not complaining about the fact that this equipment was bought/built in the first place.
If you want to make a dent in the US military-industrial complex, look at the F-35 program: the budget overrun alone is more than three times the worth of equipment sent to Ukraine (except it was spent in cash).
Ukraine is being attacked by Russia. Ukraine fights for its survival. It has been doing that since 2014, when Russia first attacked Ukraine. It has been doing that without help by the US for 8 years. It will continue to do so, with or without US help.
If we had hundreds of billions just laying around for crooked foreign nations, surely we had it for school lunch programs, affordable housing, homeless programs, etc.