You can read more great Ukraine coverage by both staff and community members here.
The list of reasons why assisting Ukraine is good for the United States is a long one. There’s the immense damage to the Russian military, the revitalization and expansion of NATO, the restoration of America’s position as a leader in the fight for democracy, the strengthening of diplomatic ties, and even a giant shift away from Russian-supplied oil and gas.
Also, defending a peaceful democratic nation against an illegal invasion by an aggressive, authoritarian military force is simply the right thing to do. And doing the right thing now and then is good for everyone.
But there’s another way in which helping Ukraine is helping the United States: It is revitalizing the American defense industry, generating innovation, and creating jobs in America.
An evaluation from the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows what should have been obvious from the start: When we talk about assistance to Ukraine, most of it involves the transfer of existing weapons systems that have already been built. Many of those systems are older, like the 1,669 Humvees and 300 M113 armored personnel carriers the American military has shipped to Ukraine.
But when shipments to Ukraine involve either systems or ammunition that need to be replaced, or new systems that are seeing their first use in combat, that generates orders to defense contractors. And those defense contractors aren’t in Ukraine: They’re in the U.S.
In fact, The Washington Post reports that of the $68 billion in military assistance Congress has approved following Russia’s invasion, almost 90% has gone to Americans. The locations where these systems are being built are scattered across the nation.
Bradley fighting vehicles are built in Pennsylvania and Alabama. HIMARS rocket launchers come from Arkansas. Switchblade drones come from California.
Both Abrams tanks and Stryker combat vehicles roll off United Auto Worker lines in Ohio. This means that Republicans like Sen. J.D. Vance and Rep. Jim Jordan aren’t just voting against democracy when they try to block assistance to Ukraine, they are actively voting against jobs in their own home state and district.
I’m a big believer in many of the things President Dwight Eisenhower had to say in his farewell address. No one should cheer the spending of a single penny on military hardware that might otherwise be spent on infrastructure, health care, or any peaceful purpose. And guarding against the influence of what Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” is at least as important today as it was in 1961.
But Eisenhower understood that, in an age where war could reach around the world in minutes, the risks of a robust defense industry had to be weighed against the cost of being unable to respond when necessary. It wasn’t a situation that he wanted. It shouldn’t be a situation that anyone wants. But if the United States is going to spend money on acquiring weapons so that Ukraine can fight against the invading might of Russia, it’s a very good thing that the money is being spent in the United States.
So far, Ukraine’s use of those weapons systems looks like a bargain, by anyone’s accounting. Over the last 643 days, Russia’s efforts to illegally invade and subjugate Ukraine have been a disaster for Vladimir Putin and his dreams of a renewed Soviet empire. Ukraine now estimates that Russia has lost 5,538 tanks in the conflict, over 2,500 of which have been independently visually confirmed. Add to that over 10,000 armored vehicles, over 8,000 artillery and MLRS systems, more than 300 military helicopters, and over 300 jet aircraft. All that’s on top of losing a sizable fraction of the Black Sea Fleet, the rest of which is now cowering in ports they hope are outside of Ukraine’s reach.
Russia has also lost at least 20 generals, thousands of lower-ranking officers, and an estimated 300,000 soldiers. Putin can call up all the conscripts he wants, scour the weeds for rusting tanks, and turn up the dial on his nation’s miserable industrial capacity, but Russia will spend decades recovering from the losses it has suffered in Ukraine. It may never recover.
Of course, the cost to Ukraine is measured in far more than dollars. They’ve also suffered tremendous losses and seen whole cities leveled by Putin’s insatiable appetite for destruction.
One of these days, money to assist Ukraine is going to be spent in Ukraine. Because that money won’t be for weapons: It will go to rebuilding homes, restoring vital services, and replacing lost schools and hospitals.
Let’s get to that day as fast as we can.
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