Flying from his embattled country to Washington cannot have been a decision that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky took lightly. That he went ahead and made the visit, meeting with President Biden and addressing a joint session of Congress, must have reflected unease in Kyiv about its allies’ willingness to stick with Ukraine in a war that shows no signs of ending.
Zelensky’s speech, complete with references to the Battles of the Bulge and Saratoga, was carefully crafted. He expressed his gratitude for the assistance that Ukraine has received, while making the case that this was not just Ukraine’s fight, but the Western world’s too, even if only indirectly: “I assure you that Ukrainian soldiers can perfectly operate American tanks and planes themselves.”
Aid for Ukraine was not, Zelensky maintained, “charity.” It was “an investment in . . . global security and democracy.” Helping Ukraine is, we believe, the correct thing to do, but it can be justified based on calculations colder than the defense of a principle (“democracy”). Helping Ukraine is yielding real returns too. Approved U.S. spending to date on Ukraine has been some $68 billion. An additional $45 billion is now on the table. These sums, even today, are a great deal of money. That said, looking at them against a 2022 defense budget of some $740 billion and, probably, the mid-800 billions of dollars in 2023 makes them look less daunting, even more so when factoring in the massive Russian losses of men and matériel that aid has helped buy.
Those losses, in time, will be replaced (just as we will replace the American equipment destroyed in Ukraine), but the reduction for now in the threat posed by Russia’s conventional forces in Europe represents a good return on “investment.” Moreover, should Ukraine fall, Putin’s words and deeds give every reason to expect that Russia will, one way or another, start probing further west. When Zelensky warned that “it is just a matter of time [before Russia] will strike against your other allies if we do not stop them now,” he was right. The form that that “strike” might take is a matter of conjecture, but, unless the U.S. decides to wash its hands of Europe, dealing with such a strike will cost far more than our support for Kyiv.
Most of Putin’s vulnerable neighbors are much smaller than Ukraine and would therefore require more direct outside assistance in order to defend themselves against Russia. We should be thankful that Zelensky asks us only for money; he can supply the warriors and the will.
Nevertheless, we cannot indefinitely dodge the question of what we should do if the war drags on, or how we intend to pay for this. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, our current rate of spending on Ukraine is running at just under $7 billion a month. That means that, if the war continues (and it probably will), another aid package will have to be agreed to in the course of next year. That will be entirely deficit spending if no effort is made to sacrifice other spending priorities. The U.S. also needs to have formed a clearer view of its strategy before then. Waiting for Putin to die or be overthrown is not a strategy. And neither is waiting for a Russian economic or military collapse. However unlikely, the last of these possibilities, in particular, comes fraught with nuclear peril.
PHOTOS: Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington
If our strategy is to continue on our current path, that needs to be acknowledged, as does the importance of ensuring that our European allies do their part, something that cannot be taken for granted. We must also face the reality that the longer this conflict persists, the greater the danger of a more widespread and, possibly, nuclear war. To reduce that possibility, we should still avoid supplying weapons that Ukraine could use to strike deep into Russia.
If we are unwilling to maintain our current level of support for Ukraine indefinitely, we should be working behind the scenes to push Kyiv toward a deal. One reason to do so now is the stronger bargaining power that Ukraine should enjoy as a result of its battlefield success.
In his speech, President Zelensky maintained that “this battle cannot be frozen or postponed. It cannot be ignored, hoping that the ocean or something else will provide a protection.” The use of the word “frozen” was, in all probability, aimed at those arguing that “freezing” the conflict, perhaps by aiming for a Korean-style armistice, is the best that can be hoped for under current circumstances. This would mean that Russia would keep some of its ill-gotten gains. Should the U.S. decide to go down this route, it should do so by beginning the discussions with Kyiv, not Moscow. And it should do so in the full awareness that any such armistice would be fragile. The best chance that the peace would hold would be a rearmed Ukraine on a clear path to closer integration with, and eventual membership in, the EU. Anything less, and the risk of renewed Russian aggression would, in time, become a certainty.