What do ya'll think defense budgets are for?

There's been increasing indignation about how much money is being sent to Ukraine. Part of the issue is that all the aid ends up getting announced twice: once when a funding bill passes congress and then again when each portion of that funding is actually sent, which can be spread out over many installments. This exacerbates American's long standing misconceptions about how much foreign aid we actually give. "Opinion polls consistently report that Americans believe foreign aid is about 25% of the federal budget, when it is actually less than 1%."

For some people though it wouldn't matter how much it was, they don't want to give anything. The most vocal would actually rather support Russia, because they are anti-democratic authoritarians (not that they would describe themselves this way, publicly at least). The majority of the anti-Ukraine crowd though, just doesn't care. They don't care about Russia is launching missiles into apartment buildings, about the rampant sexual violence committed by the Russian army, or about the nearly 14,000 children abducted and deported by Russia. These things are out of sight, out of mind.

I don't think I can reach those people, this article is to people who are on the fence. The ones who are thinking "Things seem bad in Ukraine, but we have our own problems."

First thing you need to understand is that the lawmakers and pundits who are loudly screaming that we need to help Americans first, do not, in fact, want to help Americans. They actively work to stop measures that would improve the lives of ordinary Americans. They do it, then again, and again.

The next thing to understand is that Russia is our enemy. You might not feel that way, but Russia sure does. From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Putin has repeatedly told Russians that the Ukraine campaign is essential for thwarting the West’s plans to bring Russia to its knees. His goal, he told a gathering of university students last month, “is primarily to protect the people and Russia from the threats that they are trying to create for us in our own historical territories…We cannot allow this.”

The West of course did not have any schemes to bring down Russia. Prior to their invasion of Ukraine we didn't really think about them much at all. We even pretty much gave them a pass over seizing Crimea. Russian leadership felt this in their bones though.

These delusions of persecution combined with a thirst for imperial glory means that Russia has, for centuries, been a threat to those around it. They will absolutely come after our interests and allies if they think they can get away with it.

"We just can't afford it!" Is a foolish cry. Destroying the Russian miliary is coming at a heavy cost for the Ukrainian populace, but not for us. We're getting it for a bargain. Don't be fooled by ninnies who are saying we're in over our head because we've given Ukraine our precious Javelins and Stingers. This would be a concern if shoulder mounted missiles were a cornerstone of the US military, but they're not. This is because we prefer to destroy enemy armor with F-35's. We could give all our Javelins away and it would scarcely change US military doctrine at all.

A Javelin costs about $200,000. A Russian T-14 Armata Tank costs about $4,000,000. That means we can gain $3,800,000 of value for each Javelin we give Ukrainians. Or we can leave our weapons in a warehouse because America first.

Some of the weapons we're sending actually have negative value to the US military. This is because they're older systems we don't even want anymore. And what are you supposed to do with old weapons? They're still dangerous, you can't just chuck them in the trash. Ukrainian ambassador Vadym Prystaiko has said of the weapons they've received "Some of the equipment has expired dates. We joke that if you want to dispose of them, give them to us. We will send them in the right direction."

Russia is dangerous. They hate us. Ukrainians have shown themselves willing to fight. We just need to arm them. We have a lot more older systems we could be sending; the F-16 is nearly 50 years old, but still a potential game changer.

Down with the empire. Slava Ukraini.