Saturday, December 14, 2024

Foreign Affairs: The Price of Russian Victory

Why Letting Putin Win Would Cost America More Than Supporting Ukraine -- A November Pew poll indicates that most Americans support helping Ukraine, yet roughly a quarter believe that Washington has been providing too much assistance.

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According to the „Electronic Budget", the war in Ukraine cost the Russian budget two billion roubles per hour between July and September 2024. 2'000'000 per hour!

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-- Newnet (@madoe2014.bsky.social) December 10, 2024 at 5:02 AM

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"But Americans worried only about the cost of helping Ukraine are thinking about the issue in the wrong way. They should be worried about the cost of not helping Ukraine.

Right now, by providing aid to Kyiv, the United States is preventing Russia from directly menacing eastern and central Europe, which would doubtless consume even more U.S. resources. Washington may, in fact, be deterring a direct war between NATO and Moscow, one in which U.S. forces would have to fight."

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"According to our calculations, defeat in Ukraine would require the United States to spend $808 billion more on defense over the next five years than it has budgeted.

Since 2022, by contrast, Congress has appropriated $112 billion to the Defense Department to assist Kyiv. T

hat means the aid provided to Ukraine through the Pentagon is less than 14 percent of what it would cost Washington to defend Europe against a victorious Russia. (That $112 billion is also mostly spent at home, on domestic weapons production.)

Put another way, allowing Russia to defeat Ukraine would cost the United States about seven times more than preventing a Russian victory. Aiding Ukraine, then, is clearly the right financial decision."

more at the link

Not to mention that aiding Ukraine is also clearly the right moral and geopolitical decision.

#1 | Posted by Corky at 2024-12-13 10:47 PM

CORKY

I think you're putting too much stock in Trump's allegiance to NATO.

He's been trying to bugger out of that alliance since his first term in office. Now that he has the Senate cowed, he might succeed.

#2 | Posted by Twinpac at 2024-12-14 12:16 AM

I think you're putting too much stock in Trump's allegiance to NATO.

Which would be zero.

#3 | Posted by REDIAL at 2024-12-14 12:33 AM

REDIAL

Corky is basing his assumptions on the current system of governance surviving Trump. That probably isn't going to happen.

#4 | Posted by Twinpac at 2024-12-14 02:23 AM

Billions because "russia bad". Ukraine was dumb enough to give up the nukes. Do we spend money on tribalism because of tribalism? Is there a point where we should not care what russia does? California has a greater economy.

#5 | Posted by Brennnn at 2024-12-14 04:09 PM

The reconstituted SU, plus whatever Russia gets in Europe after Vlad nails Ms Ukraine, is enough to compete with China for #2 in the World they way they used to... and want to again.

He's insatiable.

#6 | Posted by Corky at 2024-12-14 05:15 PM

Then again, Navy is leading Army, so anything is possible.

#7 | Posted by Corky at 2024-12-14 05:18 PM

European NATO nations alone cannot compete with Russia in Ukraine. Russia only has to shut down the oil pipeline to bring them to their knees.

The Baltic nations on Russia's border can easily be bombed into submission.

It looks like Trump is going to make sure all goes as planned between the GOP and Moscow.

#8 | Posted by Twinpac at 2024-12-15 07:07 AM

Truth in lending, I am not going to sign up for another news outlet to charge me money or pollute my in-container...so I only read that part of the article that was visible. That said, it is very misleading to monetize much of the aid that has been provided to Ukraine. Back when I was flying bombers, we would routinely drop hundreds of antiquated unguided weapons. Why? It wasn't for training. There aren't many circumstances in a modern conflict where bombers will be dropping unguided weapons. The simple fact is it was cheaper to drop them than it was to dispose of them through other means.

Ukraine is doing much of the same. Yes, an F-16 does have a $ value, but it doesn't have as much military value. These are assets that the US is planning on getting rid of anyways. In fact in some cases the cost may be neutral or even beneficial to the US. And that's just on a pure cost-basis. Disrupting Russian influence and force projection capability is immeasurable in value.

#9 | Posted by madbomber at 2024-12-15 11:18 AM

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