The United States House of Representatives convened in an extraordinary Saturday session to deliberate on a significant $95 billion aid package targeting Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The approved package, totaling nearly $100 billion, represents a substantial commitment to bolster Washington’s international allies and client states, breaking a six-month stalemate. This legislative movement allocates approximately $61 billion to support the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion for replenishing U.S. weapons inventories.
The passage through the House sets the stage for the Senate, where bipartisan leaders are equally eager to expedite the foreign aid package.
But is the aid package actually for Ukraine? This is where MIC comes into picture – The Military Industrial Complex. The U.S. government typically has substantial outstanding financial obligations to defense contractors, potentially reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars at any given time. Defense spending by the U.S. involves trillions of dollars annually, with a significant portion allocated to procurement. This involves keeping the cogs of the MIC running by paying contractors, and the exact percentage of the budget dedicated to this can vary from year to year. Given the scale and duration of these contracts, it is reasonable to estimate that the amount owed to defense contractors frequently totals in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst at the Department of Defense, pointed out the very same thing. He expressed skepticism about the aid’s ability to change the strategic military balance in the ongoing conflict with Russia. According to Maloof, much of the funds designated for Ukraine will end up with U.S. defense contractors to replenish American military stockpiles, thereby circulating money within the U.S. economy while making a big show of supporting Ukraine. He points out that under this arrangement, only older U.S. military equipment will be relocated to Ukraine and that will not enhance Ukraine’s military capabilities at all.
The effectiveness of the aid to Ukraine is compromised by concerns over its distribution and utilization, as noted by Michael Maloof and retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski. Kwiatkowski observes that much of the aid passes through Kiev’s governmental channels, which may weaken its impact on the frontline. She believes that only a small portion of the funds directly benefits Ukraine’s military efforts.
Strategically, the implications are severe. Maloof argues that Ukraine’s current military tactics, including strikes on Russian infrastructure, are unlikely to meaningfully change the overall military situation. He describes the conflict as an insurgency that does not shift the strategic balance, painting a bleak outlook for Ukraine’s capacity to maintain a prolonged conflict with Russia.
The U.S. and Europe face profound challenges in addressing the Ukrainian crisis through financial aid. There is a critical misalignment in the U.S. defense production system, which is not geared towards high-volume production of lower-value items like artillery and air defense missiles. This misalignment surfaced prominently two years ago and remains a significant bottleneck in responding to the crisis effectively. Such systemic limitations suggest that merely increasing financial inputs into this sector is unrealistic for resolving ongoing military shortages.
There are further broader economic constraints facing Europe, now deep into a recession exacerbated by severed energy supplies and the ongoing war. Europe’s economic turmoil, coupled with its inability to swiftly recover its pre-crisis standard of living, complicates its capacity to support Ukraine over the long term. Michael Maloof metaphorically describes efforts to revive Ukraine’s current regime as trying to “resuscitate a dead dog,” implying that continued financial aid might be futile.
Domestically, the U.S. political landscape reflects significant divisions on foreign aid, highlighted by reactions from Republicans who criticized Speaker Johnson for betraying US populace by prioritizing foreign aid over domestic issues like the southern border crisis. People of America are anyway disillusioned with the “uniparty” system that is more concerned with maintaining power rather than serving national interests.
