Vladimir Putin is sitting in his office, his top lip curled into a snarl.
He’s just been given his armed forces tanks inventory.
The losses are staggering.
The Russians were losing about five tanks a day earlier in the year, but it increased
to ten tanks a day after Ukraine’s counteroffensives in the East and West.
Legions of T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s, have been destroyed.
It’s a nightmare for Putin.
To suffer losses like that, the opposing side must have formidable weapons; as luck would
have it, Ukraine has no shortage of them thanks to the west.
The US providing aid to Ukraine is hardly anything new.
The Ukraine-Russia-US story is a long and complicated one as to how these nations have
interacted with each other (overtly and covertly) in recent years, and long before the war.
US help has been there, for the right people, for a while.
Russia has also grown its influence in Ukraine, and it’s been that way, well, for a long
time.
In 2014, the US helped overthrow Ukraine's Elected President, with Assistant Secretary
of State Victoria Nuland even being caught on the phone hand-picking a new Ukrainian
leader.
So, when we talk about US aid to Ukraine, it’s a convoluted story going back way before
the Russian invasion.
The tale has many sides, which anyone paying taxes should arguably understand.
The Russians have repeatedly said that the US has been dictating things behind the scenes,
which has resulted in what they say is nothing more than a “proxy war.”
The US has accused Russia of flagrant abuse of its powers.
Up until recently, Ukraine didn’t take that much newspaper space up, and when it was talked
about, it wasn’t often in a positive light.
Corruption and Neo-nazis often filled the stories.
Now Putin is using neo-Nazi propaganda as justification for the invasion.
There’s the so-called realist account, as provided by the American political scientist
John Mearsheimer, who believes the US has orchestrated the war for its own selfish reasons,
pushing the world closer to a nuclear catastrophe.
Mearsheimer doesn’t get invited to many parties these days.
He hasn’t been on CNN for eons.
Holding that view can make you A LOT of enemies in the US and Ukraine.
It will get you called a Putin propagandist, especially when you say something like Mearsheimer
told the New Yorker recently, “We were going to blame the Russians.
So, we invented this story that Russia was bent on aggression in Eastern Europe.”
Mearsheimer is just one of many vastly unpopular political experts who think the US has been
pulling all the strings to cause havoc to Russia.
They still think Putin is wrong, though.
They still blame him for what he has done.
You’d have many more friends if you espoused another view, the corporate media view for
the most part, which is that Putin won’t stop until he’s satisfied that Russia is
as great as it was in the past.
That Putin is the epitome of evil.
He’s out of control.
He won’t stop until Russia has built a new Russian Empire, which is why he needs to be
stopped… which is why Ukraine needs billions in aid paid for by all you taxpaying citizens.
So, in some sense, this is why the US can give so much aid, and, for the most part,
its citizens are okay with it.
It’s the same in other countries, such as the UK, even if it is struggling right now.
Today we’re going to talk more about how the US is aiding Ukraine in the practical
sense, and we’ll leave out all the small print of the why part.
Neither will we try to understand what Vladimir Putin is thinking.
We will just say this, though.
We don’t want to celebrate weapons and war.
We don’t want to make this show sound like weapon worship.
The biggest losers in this conflict are the soldiers dying on both sides and the civilians
suffering in large numbers.
We only hope they will find some amount of peace soon.
As you’ll see at the end, this could be wishful thinking.
When you get to that end, if you pick a winner, you’ll probably say the arms industry: the
BAE Systems of this world, the Lockheed Martins, the Northrop Grummans, and the Raytheons.
Their shareholders are also winning, which happen to include some members of Congress
and some members of the UK Parliament.
You can't ignore this, either, when it comes to aid.
Over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine has been spent so far by all countries, but expect
that to shoot up as the weeks and months pass.
Most of it has been and will be military aid.
It’s not all about weapons, though.
It’s also about food, clothing, infrastructure, and more.
This is humanitarian aid after all.
If you add up all the aid provided by the US, the New York Times says the package is
$54 billion.
But that was back in May.
Things have changed since then, as you’ll soon see.
Still, that number is more or less correct.
Just to put matters into perspective, last year, the US government spent $43 billion
on highway grants, $63 billion on public housing, $260 billion on education, and $56 billion
on health insurance premium tax credits.
You might now think the US’ $54 billion is an immense amount, but in terms of their
GDPs, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland have spent more than the US on Ukraine aid.
In order, Lithuania, the UK, and Canada came after the US.
In terms of US aid, $12.5 billion has gone into providing weapons and other supplies.
$9.4 billion has gone to economic aid.
$6 billion on military and security assistance.
$7 billion on food assistance and healthcare.
$4.7 billion on grants and loans for military supplies, and $8.1 billion on military deployments
and intelligence.
It’s surprising how many countries are helping out Ukraine.
The number is around 50.
We bet you didn’t know that Argentina has just sent 1,700 tons of “foodstuffs, medicine,
and clothing” to Ukraine.
Bulgaria has also just sent over 2,000 helmets and 2,000 bulletproof vests.
But tens of millions in aid is coming from many other nations, and for the wealthier
ones, the aid is in the billions.
France has sent Ukraine some top-notch military equipment, and we are talking about enough
weapons and machinery to start a small war.
It’s the same with the UK.
It has sent a whole host of weapons to Ukraine, including “thousands” of anti-armor weapons
and Javelin anti-tank missiles.
It has spent $54 million alone on Ukraine-bound Black Hornet Nano drones.
God knows how they’ll be used.
We told you business was booming for the arms industry.
Revenues have shot up.
Records are being broken.
As heads, legs and chests are blown asunder, the profits of the people that make that possible
have literally never been so good.
In terms of raw numbers, the US is not only the biggest aid provider to Ukraine right
now, followed by the UK, Poland, and Germany, but it’s the biggest provider of military
aid to nations worldwide.
While humanitarian aid pales in comparison, the US is also the world leader in that regard
($8.2 billion for 2021), followed by Germany ($1.8 billion), the EU ($1.5 billion), and
the UK ($840 million).
The US’s military aid comes from the budget of the Department of Defense, which, as you
know, is a huge budget.
It’s $722 billion for 2022, and the DoD has requested it to be raised to $813 billion
for 2023.
The US defense budget started to increase drastically in 2001, when it was $331 billion.
In 2005, it reached $533 billion.
It wasn’t even a hundred billion in the late 60s and early 70s when the US was fighting
in Vietnam and secretly bombing the hell out of Laos and Cambodia.
Still, in terms of inflation, the 1969 defense budget would be $679 billion in today’s
money.
We’ll talk about some new numbers soon, but first, we need to ask how the US actually
sends so many weapons to Ukraine.
We mean in logistical terms.
The answer is two-fold.
One way is by air.
For instance, the US’ giant air transport planes can transport an insane amount, with
the Super Galaxy being able to carry 130 tons of equipment.
That means you could pack it with two M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, or as many as ten
armored vehicles, or perhaps sixteen High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, aka
Humvees.
Having a few military transport planes flying every week will help, but in August 2022,
the Washington Post said the Pentagon was expanding its use of maritime shipping.
The Pentagon won’t say what routes those ships will be using but did say that many
of the weapons will go straight to Ukraine while others will add to stocks already in
other European countries.
We guess you can now see why Russia has been losing so many tanks.
It seems the entire world has Ukraine’s back.
Even China, which some say is taking the side of Russia, has remained neutral and isn’t
sending Russia any military aid.
The bad news, or the very worse news, would be if things got nuclear – because Russia
could hold its own.
That’s scary, and some analysts don’t count out nuclear war.
Now let’s look at some of the weapons the US has already sent to Ukraine.
At the top of the list, we’ll put the 1,400 or so stinger anti-aircraft systems.
Anti-aircraft weapons have been very useful and have already taken out a number of aircraft
on both sides.
On October 1, an anti-air missile shot a Russian Ka-52 attack helicopter to pieces in Zaporizhzhia
Oblast, but we can’t say exactly what weapon was used.
The US has also sent about 8,500 Javelin anti-armor systems.
News reports tell us that these things have been partly responsible for all that damage
to Russian tanks we talked about in the intro.
Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have been busy making these things while the US sent around
32,000 units of different types of anti-armor systems.
The list of weapons goes on and on, but let’s just mention a few more things that have been
sent already.
One package included 20 Mi-17 helicopters.
On top of this, there were 200 MaxxPro mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, eight
national advanced surface-to-air missile systems, hundreds of armored high mobility multipurpose
wheeled vehicles, and 200 M113 armored personnel carriers.
Then you have things such as counter-unmanned aerial systems, air surveillance radars, patrol
boats, night vision devices, thermal imagery systems, satellite imagery services, cold
weather gear, electronic jamming equipment, explosive ordnance disposal protective gear,
and much more.
It’s still not enough, according to the US media.
Some more recent items talked about in the media that we think are part of the $54 billion
budget include artillery and coastal defense weapons, ammunition for the artillery, and
a bunch more advanced rocket systems.
Now, we imagine you can really understand Russia’s tank problem.
Analysts are saying that the recent losses for Russia have been nothing short of astounding.
On October 19, the country lost 1,392 tanks.
801 were destroyed, and the rest were just abandoned or were taken without being hit.
Ukraine has also lost tanks, but not anywhere near as many.
We should add that Russia hasn’t reported its losses, though.
The news comes from the western media.
Never mind how cynical you think it sounds, you should always question what’s reported
in terms of wins and losses in wars.
Throughout modern history, the numbers have been propagandistically cooked to placate
and buck up the public.
We’re not saying that’s the case here, but just bear that in mind.
Russia will be doing the same, of course.
It doesn’t help that Russia has been using tanks from the 1960s and 70s.
The T-62 is so old that one of the abandoned tanks was found, and inside it, someone had
written, “I hate Nixon.”
Just kidding, but you get the idea.
Modern tanks are far less exposed than older ones.
According to Forbes, Ukraine now has quite a collection of captured T-62s.
As for what Ukraine wants more of, not long ago, it put in a request for High Mobility
Artillery Rocket Systems.
These things, which will set you back about $3.8 million apiece from Lockheed Martin,
are incredibly useful despite some reports of civilian casualties.
Some members of the Taliban might also have been hurt of course.
Although according to the International Security Assistance Force, the rockets were 300 meters
off their target.
Despite the misses, military experts call HMARS’s indispensable, or as one website
said, “Combat-proven, all-weather, 24/7, lethal and responsive” weapons.
That’s why Ukraine has them on its Christmas list.
As part of that same package, the US said it would also send some M777 howitzers, 18
of them, each weighing in at $3.7 million, created by the British company BAE Systems.
Recently, Ukraine said it needed longer-range weapons since Russia already had them.
Obviously, it doesn’t help if the enemy can hit you from farther away.
A Ukrainian presidential advisor explained, “It is hard to fight when you are attacked
from 70 km away and have nothing to fight back with.
Ukraine can return Russia behind the Iron Curtain, but we need effective weapons for
that.”
The BBC reported in September that the US had agreed to send new aid, this time amounting
to around $2.7 billion.
The BBC said the package would include “Howitzers, munitions, Humvee vehicles, armored ambulances,
and anti-tank systems.”
Again, we can’t tell you if this was already part of the $54 billion aid package or a bit
added to it.
We say a bit.
$2.7 billion is hardly just a drop in this ocean of blood.
It was agreed anyway, without much opposition at all.
As usual, the added money was greenlit by both sides of the US’ political divide.
This war and the attendant aid is about the only thing Democrats and Republicans can agree
on, for the most part.
This is another reason why the aid can keep flowing.
No one is against it.
Although, not everyone feels the same about the situation.
As you might know, former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard just left the Democrat Party.
She has taken an anti-war stance and just called the Democrats an “Elitist Cabal of
Warmongers.”
She is in a very small minority of US politicians, and if you look at her Twitter page, half
the public likes to call her a “traitor.”.
The highly critical Noam Chomsky take on US foreign policy is not exactly embraced these
days by the leaders of the free world.
At a sprightly 93, Chomsky is no fan of both sides of US politics in their present guises.
He’d prefer real diplomacy to happen in Ukraine, which might not happen anytime soon.
No one in their right mind would be a fan of Putin, so you have to wonder how this will
all end.
Endless war seems to be on the cards.
If any entity is thrilled about this, it’s the military-industrial complex, not the actual
people fighting and dying.
In an interview, Chomsky recently talked about the “utter incompetence of the Russian military,”
but he issued a warning about the western media narrative, saying whenever there is
“virtual unanimity on complex and murky issues,” something is afoot, something is
missing.
Another former war correspondent and journalist said we are either looking at “endless war”
or a “potential nuclear holocaust.”
This will likely mean that next year, there will be more billions in aid, which, short
of everyone shaking hands and making some deals, is the best outcome.
The other outcome is the end of the world as we know it.
Millions upon millions dead.
How did we ever get to this?
Again, that’s a long, difficult story that is more complicated than some narratives suggest.
This is a show about aid, but what does aid mean?
It means death and destruction, so fittingly, we’ll leave you with a sobering reflection
from Chomsky: “Unless the great powers find ways to accommodate
to confront the most important threats that have arisen in human history — environmental
destruction and nuclear war — nothing else will matter…And time is short.”
Now you need to watch “Ukraine's Plan to Win the War.”
Or, have a look at “How War in Ukraine Will Cause Russia To Collapse.”