Perspective matters. The roughly $15 billion worth of military assistance and equipment the U.S. has provided to Ukraine through Presidential drawdowns of existing Defense Department stocks (PDA) and Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) sounds like a lot. In raw absolute terms, it is. But it pales in comparison to what the U.S. spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tiny little chart you see outlined in red on the right side of the chart above this paragraph is the aid to Ukraine scaled to actual size versus the massive amounts we spent in CENTCOM.
The difference in returns on each security investment is stark. Despite more than $1 trillion in cumulative U.S. spend over two decades, an Afghan government facing gunmen in pickups crumpled in weeks. In contrast, a Ukrainian state receiving a tiny fraction as much has held its own against a full-scale onslaught by one of the larger nation-state militaries on the planet.
We would need to more than double what we’ve provided Ukraine thus far in 2022 just to match the inflation-adjusted amount DoD spent in Fiscal 2021 on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Let’s stay the course knowing that each dollar of equipment and assistance provided to Ukraine now saves lives there and bolsters our security here as well. Isolationism will not bring peace but investment in Ukraine’s defense helps hold the line against the forces of division and disorder that Russia and its ilk represent.
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