What do you think about the aid to Ukraine which so far amounts to billions of dollars?
Do you support this:
* We are on the same side
* If we don’t help them now, it will eventually come to us
Or oppose it:
* It’s none of our business
* Charity begins at home
Or perhaps you don’t give it much thought/don’t care that much about it?
45 comments
Of course I support it.
I am not an American, but I haven’t seen a argument why Americans should be against it.
A: Helping a country that is attacked by a dictatorship is the ethical thing to do (for bleeding heart liberals)
B: You completely obliterate the conventional army of your second biggest geopolitical enemy and it only costs you pennies and zero dead Americans. Bargain of the century! (for stone cold realists)
Also your allies are buying _your_ gas and _your_ weapons now, made by American workers. Anyone who is against helping Ukraine seems to be either not informed enough or has a pro-Russian agenda.
Support it. Not only is it defending a nation from an invasion of conquest and so being the right thing to do (which should be reason enough), but for the more pragmatically minded it is also strategically a good move as it weakens an adversary for relatively chump change and allows the military to observe how certain weapons systems perform in a conventional war.
Putin needs to understand that invading neighboring countries to steal their territory is not acceptable. Expensive as it is to defend Ukraine, it will be far more expensive in the long run if Putin doesn’t receive that message.
We are either encouraged to meddle in other countries affairs or criticized for it. I wonder if rest of Ukraines allies in Europe, Asia etc are also matching the billions of $$$$ the US has sent? If not, they need to shut up.
I am curious how much of the $$$ given will be mismanaged. I guess we will find out in 10-15 years.
I support aid to the Ukraine, they are an ally invaded by a hostile foreign power. Hastening the downfall of Russia is merely a positive side effect.
We are on the same side, it won’t come to “us” per se, but it will come to the Baltics and Poland if not curtailed. Putin’s ambitions aren’t restricted to Donbas any more than they were restricted to any of the other places Russia has invaded and effectively annexed during his reign.
This invasion happened because nobody did anything substantive in response to Putin’s aggression before, he understandably read that as weakness and ambivalence, which gave him permission. He’ll keep doing it as long as it works – and his notion of what works allows for hundreds of thousands of Russians to die in pursuit of objectives we would consider trivial. If we fail to stop him, China and everyone else we’re trying to deter will take the same lesson Putin did.
We should be sending more in the way of heavy weapons (tanks, ATACMs or similar) because it’s self-evident that a German-led Europe is incapable of providing the necessary support. All that Trump-era bluster about how we couldn’t be trusted and Europe would see to its own defense (remember “Merkel, the new leader of the free world”?) was high-octane bullshit. Their defense policies flagrantly took advantage of us for decades, but that’s not Ukraine’s fault.
When it’s done, the European nations that underspent on NATO for 30 years should take all the money they saved and use it to rebuild Ukraine.
100% support it and I will continue to support Ukraine until the Russians go back home.
I have mixed feelings. I fully support Ukraine and oppose Russia. Russia is not and never will be our friend. Put in in a menace to the world. I would prefer to send them weapons rather than money, but money is preferable to sending troops.
I don’t support what we’re doing… because I think we should doing even more to help Ukraine, both in the US and through the wider NATO alliance.
We have thousands of spare and well-maintained Abrams tanks and we’re about to retire a whole generation of fighter jets. I realize the logistical challenges involved with handing these over to Ukraine, but if we really wanted to make it happen, we could.
I appreciate the lead Biden has taken on this matter, but there’s more still we could do.
And come on, Olaf, release the Leopards! Even if Germany doesn’t send them, let your allies do it.
It’s a cost efficient (and US lives efficient) means of helping Ukraine kick Russia in the balls. Of course I’m in favor of it.
My original position on this was that we should not be spending hardly anything on it. Ukraine is a European country that has very little impact on our economy or on our immediate security. Plus, we are/have been drawing a lot of weapons from our stockpiles that were supposed to go to Taiwan in the case of a Chinese invasion of that country, which I would say is a much higher priority for our country given the trade relationship and given how, unlike Ukraines democracy while has always been struggling with itches of illiberalism and is very corrupt, Taiwan is the largest beacon of true democracy in Asia, and one of the best in the world. Plus, their economy is a lot more tied to our own, and there really isn’t another band of countries who would be able to bear the burden of protecting Taiwan/sending significant military aid without us. Taiwan is simply a more important country to us than Ukraine in pretty much every light. So let the Europeans support Ukraine, and we can guide the Europeans on how to best support the country if need be, and maybe send a nominal amount of aid. After all, its not like the Europeans are unable to do this on their own if they wanted to.
That said, I did have a really good hole poked into my theory by a geopolitical commentator named Peter Zeihan. He made the assertion that buck for buck, even with a significant portion of the aid dissipating before it reaches the battlefield, the aid that we are giving Ukraine rn is having an outsized influence on the battlefield, weakening our geopolitical adversary Russia in a more efficient way than we have every been able to do before. He asserts that this actually does make sense from the American position from a monetary conservatism perspective. Like, yeah sure you can trust Europe to try to do the same thing, but Europe is not exactly known for their complete unity on their goals, and so their operations of aid might be less effective than ours.
And honestly, that idea really does speak to me, as Russia is still a large threat to us as a country, especially in the Arctic realm, and a weakening of the country as a whole would have some major upsides for the US. That said, I am still concerned about the Taiwan issue, since there are a lot fewer stockpiles for that country if China ever decides to invade.
But in the end I am kinda torn. But I don’t have any influence on the outcome regardless, so I don’t have to have my mind made up either way!
Support it – can’t just let Russia conquer whatever it wants. They’d desire to annex a lot if they could.
Also support being nice to Russia if they’re nice in return.
I hate it, but I support it because we are getting a fantastic deal on finding out what exactly Russia is capable of and ruining their shit at the same time.
I’m the first to state that America should be doing what is best for America and we shouldn’t be the worlds policeman or caregiver, but I think that containing Russia is what’s best for America right now.
The money we’re sending over there could end the homelessness crisis for 1/4th of the cost. The money we’re sending over there could pay our teachers and nurses better so they wouldn’t strike. Maybe if MTA had some of that money, subways wouldn’t have catastrophic, levee-breaking flooding during hurricane season. We always seem to have money for wars but not for things that will improve our own society…
I hope we keep giving it to them.
Being the world’s superpower has its price. Something the “America first” clowns don’t seem to understand.
So the world WANTS us to be involved THIS time, but they crap on us for some other war.
Ok then
100% support sending anything and everything we can
100% lost respect for European’s twiddling their thumbs and complaining the US isn’t sending enough. Definitely need to revisit the whole US is responsible for most of Europe’s defense needs.
Before this war I used to think a lot of European nations had powerful, but small, militaries. I didn’t realize they were essentially over equipped border guards.
Completely support it.
Bargain to destroy a geopolitical rival.
From a purely realpolitik, cold-hearted pragmatic point of view:
With the exception of a brief 4-year blip in the 1940s, pretty much every piece of American military hardware for the last 100 years has been designed with the primary purpose of killing Russians and Russian allies. “Opposition to Russia” has been one of the main driving factors of US foreign policy pretty much since we dropped isolationism. Now, all that equipment gets to do what it was designed to do, against the equipment it was designed to do it against, and zero American lives are put at risk. What a deal!
And like I said, that’s ignoring the ideological element of “wars of aggression are bad, defend democracies, oppose dictatorships, freedom rah rah.” Which is a fairly convincing argument by itself.
Most Americans have never lived in a world in which there was any reality other than the USA being the single superpower.
But it is a fleeting thing. And from an American perspective, having a world in which totalitarian regimes not only have significant power but are massively antagonistic against the US and the West in general is a much worse world to live in.
This is the world we lived in 40 years ago.
80 years ago we lived in a world fighting societies representing an alternative world view in which genocide was encouraged and killing anyone who didn’t actively purify the race was written into law.
109 years ago a seemingly small set of events precipitated a world war in part because people weren’t fully aware of the deep simmering differences among countries those events triggered.
Americans will be in a far worse position if Ukraine loses the war. We are not in the world we have been in for the last 30 years and what is happening now is the beginning of a change in world order that, if allowed to develop, will be significantly worse for the US, Western Europe, and all societies that promote democracy.
I support the aid, I think it suits our geopolitical interests, and in the long-term it’s about more than diminishing Russian power but could be a turning point in US-China relations. At the end of the day, Russia has arguably attempted a genocide in Ukraine, and has threatened other countries. Aiding an effort to prevent this from happening is worth it. I am definitely concerned the more it drags on, the worse it will get.
I support it , we are humiliating one of our biggest and oldest enemies by spending less than 10% of our military budget. Not to mention most of the equipment send is old stuff that would cost more to upkeep or scrap.
The US gives massive amounts of money to countries around the world every year. We give away so much charity mostly in the form of politicians buying votes
I don’t mind the ukraine money because it’s at least strategic for the US to see what a paper tiger russia is and watch them deplete their military resources
I’m for it. Sometimes Conservatives claim we shouldn’t give anything because we have homeless/poor people here. But they’re also the ones constantly opposing welfare programs or anything that helps the homeless, so that argument falls very flat for me. I’d prefer our money at least go towards defeating Russia rather then into some tax subsidy for the rich.
Full support. It’s worth it to stop a conquest-hungry dictator; definitely more worth it than the 2 decades in the Middle East.
This is very very cheap for a war (lets not pretend we won’t go to war with Russia in the future) where we get to fight our biggest advisory. And we are doing it without exchanging our own soldiers lives.
I’d rather spend billions now than lose millions of soldiers down the road, it’s an amazing bang for your buck.
I wish that we would do more. Ukraine is the only democratic country currently under military attack and it borders our NATO allies.
Should Russia take Kyiv, there will be millions more of refugees. Ukrainians would probably carry out terror attacks on the Russians. And without the EU alternative, right-wing nationalism will rise in Ukraine and when the Russians tire of being bled out, what sort of nation would rise in the Ukraine? Not the friendly Ukraine that is currently under attack, and maybe one with its own irredentism craving SE Poland and Russia to the Volga and Sochi.
We just proved a global threat was nowhere near as competent as it portrayed itself and that even our older generation weapons could fuck them up in the hands of a force barely trained with them. We learned how to use our weapons in unconventional methods, increasing their versatility without putting our own troops at risk and just scared the fuck out of the world by showing them what our shit can do to a “near-peer.” We also learned that Russian tactics have barely changed since Afghanistan and there’s no way they could occupy a small nation if they couldn’t even take it.
All this while simultaneously severely harming a rival’s capacity to protect force and influence and encouraging acquaintance nations to cooperate with us instead of risks instead of rivals. And all of this was old, dusty equipment that we were never going to use unless we were desperate, anyway, so it didn’t even affect readiness.
I would say it was worth it.
I support it. We get the benefits of Russia killing itself in a war without actually having to fight and die for it. With Russia severely weakened, we can focus more on the pacific, which is good for us.
Also a huge bonus is the business for our defense industry. A lot of the money the government is spending is going right back into the American economy to replace the equipment we’re sending over. More countries are buying our equipment after seeing how effective it is in Ukraine (HIMARS for example). It is also giving us a reason to scale up production of things like artillery shells, which we’d run out of fairly quickly if we ever went to war. Plus many of our European allies are finally starting to realize that they can’t neglect their militaries anymore.
Though Ukraine is pretty corrupt so I’d like to make sure the weapons we send them aren’t going to end up in the hands of some cartel or terrorist group later.
Overall I support it. It’s good for American jobs, military preparedness in the long run, very bad for Russia, and we get to help a people who are friendly to us defend themselves from one of our rivals. I really think that people who don’t support sending aid over to Ukraine understand anything about it.
I think we need to support more than we are.
Best proxy war we’ve ever had. We’re destroying Russia’s economy and political influence for an absolute bargain price, and not losing any Americans in the process.
The war is hurting America economically, but it’s hurting everyone else a lot more, and they’re looking to us for fuel and food and financial support. NATO is expanding, everyone’s reminded why they need our security, and next year we get to sell all our allies a bunch of new weapons to replace what they donated. Our position as the world’s superpower hasn’t been this strong in decades.
Also, helping Ukraine is nice I guess.
The idea of countries being able to invade without consequences in a globalized world is very worrying to me, especially a country like Ukraine which while not *huge* still plays a large role in the global economy. We should help Ukraine to frankly show that we as a global society aren’t going to support these kinds of conflicts. If the world didn’t support Ukraine and didn’t heavily denounce Russia, countries would start behaving way more aggressively, which is not something you want if you like modern life.
I support it because they’re the underdog. They need help and it won’t cost us a lot.
I do wish we spent some of our military budget on education and healthcare instead though, but that’s a different subject.
I’ve just read through this thread and want to say, as an American who immigrated here from Ukraine, how thankful I am for everyone here. I’ve read through every single reply and I’m relieved to see the support.
As for those with mixed or negative feelings, please know that Ukrainians in America are shopping in grocery store with you, getting coffee in line right before you, sharing the bus with you, walking alongside you into work. We are your compatriots and the decisions that the U.S government makes regarding aid to Ukraine do not only impact Ukrainians abroad, but also (and especially) Ukrainians in America. We are not nondescript people in a far-off land. We live in your communities and the way that you speak about us and our country of origin directly impacts the emotional and mental health of your own community.
Personally, my mental health is better, although it’s not generally great, because I don’t have to stress about whether the country I live in supports Ukraine. I can rest assured that the person next to me at the store would likely be supportive of me, because Americans are overwhelmingly supportive.
This is a fate and a pain that I would never wish upon anyone. It is existential and depressive. So, all this to say, thank you to Americans who are supportive, because the alternative world in which America supports Russia is debilitating to imagine. And if you are not supportive because of “taxes” or “funding” I challenge you to meet Ukrainians, make friends of us, and see how you feel then. Much love.
As a Korean American, i know that i wouldn’t be where i am today, if it wasn’t for the valiant sacrifices made by the US and its allies. Thanks to their support, my parents and I didn’t have to grow up under the repugnant and abhorrent regime.
In that regard, I took out a penny and i would gladly leave a penny in return.
So far, I support what the US has done in this matter. I do not in any way support US troops involved in this. And I think Europe could do a lot more.
I strongly support aid to Ukraine.
Every dollar spent in Ukraine, every weapon sent there, is directly helping defend America from Russian aggression and keeping Russia in check as a strategic adversary to the US.
Dollar-for-dollar, it’s a much better investment in American defense (in the long term) than giving big piles of money to defense contractors for dubious projects.
We’ve wasted far more money on far more questionable defense projects.
Keeping the Ukrainians armed with American guns helps keep Russia in check on a strategic/geopolitical level, meaning a safer America and a safer Europe for our allies.
See, the thing about the price tag of the support, majorly for the equipment, is a cost that has mostly already been incurred. Most of the stuff provided to Ukraine is old equipment that the US was no longer using, and stuff that at some point would need to be recycled anyways. So that figure is not so cut and dry.
Your second point for oppose “charity begins at home” almost always comes from those that advocate for destroying our social safety net. It’s not an actual good faith argument.
We’ve spent a tiny fraction of our budget on aid to Ukraine. And with that money, Ukraine has managed to completely emasculate one of our biggest rivals. The Russian military has been exposed as a paper tiger and turned them into a joke on the world stage.
I’m strongly in support of assisting Ukraine in defeating Russia as long as it’s done without American boots on the ground. So far, that looks entirely possible.
I support it. I think it benefits us in the long run.
I one hundred percent support it and think the price tag is overinflated. We’re sending them stuff the government already paid for. It’s not like it could be used for health care or education or something. And it’s not charity. We are in a second Cold War with Russia and have been for several years now. This is what our ginormous military budget is for