Why Ukraine Should Be Given Billions, But Only as a Loan
Summary: Ukraine desperately
needs U.S. assistance to stand against Russian aggression, and if the U.S.
ceases such aid, it could embolden Vladimir Putin to seize more territory in
Europe and perhaps even attack a NATO member, thereby forcing a U.S. military response.
But billions of dollars’ worth of financial and military aid should not be free,
but rather given as a loan.
Why Ukraine Should Be Given Billions,
But Only as a Loan
By Wahab Raofi
In his
book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman wrote that “the world is an interconnected
economic integration, which supersedes ideological and political differences, and
no player would likely dare to jeopardize that arrangement.”
Then
along came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is not one of the NATO
countries. The U.S. has no obligation to defend them. But for several logical
reasons, U.S. taxpayer money is being sent by the billions in hopes it can help
save Ukraine from Russian aggression.
The attack of Russia on the sovereign state of Ukraine poses a significant
challenge to the international community's dedication to upholding the global
order.
Much of the world looks up to the U.S. as a beacon of freedom, and President
Joe Biden’s response to Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine, a sovereign state, has
shown strong leadership. He has helped enable Ukraine to defend itself.
But Congress is divided on whether to continue U.S. financial support or
impose a price tag on it. The Senate voted
70 to 29 to approve the emergency national security funding package, which
includes $60 billion in war aid for Ukraine alongside funding for Israel,
Taiwan, and humanitarian aid for Gaza.
Eighteen Republicans backed the legislation after former president Donald Trump,
the leading Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election, criticized
the bill on social media by saying that the foreign aid should take the
form of a loan.
Although I am not a fan of Donald Trump, I must agree
with his stance. This approach makes sense for several reasons. My birthplace, Afghanistan,
serves as a case in point.
During the past 20 years, the U.S. poured billions of dollars
into Afghanistan to support the pro-American government of Ashraf Ghani, and it
all turned out to be wasted when we ultimately witnessed the catastrophic
collapse of the Afghan government in August of 2021.
A significant factor was the lack of oversight and
accountability in Afghanistan and America, which resulted in waste, corruption and
inadequate maintenance of the equipment and armor received from the U.S. I know
this because I was there, working as an interpreter for the NATO/International
Security Assistance Force, both during and after the war.
We saw a lack of supervision that enabled U.S.
taxpayers' money to end up in the accounts of corrupt Afghan military and
civilian officials. I recall that in several meetings between American and
Afghan army officials, Afghan commanders complained about soldiers and
subordinates ignoring or even talking back to them, invoking the notion that
they are paid by the Americans rather than the Afghan government. Why should
the Afghan rank and file be obeying their Afghan commanders? This mentality
cascaded into a lack of progress on the battlefield and low morale.
The notion that the U.S. should provide military
equipment, air shelter during combat, and pay for various expenses was eroding
the Afghans’ own self-reliance, and they had come to depend on Americans.
The Ukraine army could not escape the same scenario;
it’s what I call free-for-all fatigue or the curse of dependence. Some Ukraine
officials already stand accused of funneling financial aid into their private
accounts, and Several
top
Ukrainian officials were fired amid a ballooning corruption scandal in the
biggest upheaval in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government since Russia’s
invasion began 11 months ago.
I am not arguing that the U.S. should not help, but
rather that they should help with accountability. It should be reciprocal.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.)
said, “I mean, why
shouldn’t Ukraine, which is mineral rich with the things that
we need as a free country, or for that matter, frozen Russian assets that we
have, why wouldn’t we make those things available to the American taxpayer to
replenish the generosity/”
Another option, as Max Boot writes in the Washington
Post, is first to send Ukraine the estimated $300 billion in
frozen Russian assets held in the West, primarily in a Belgian clearinghouse.
The European Union and the Group of Seven recently agreed to send Ukraine the
profits from Russian holdings, which could amount to $4 billion this year. But it would be
far more effective to send the entire amount to make clear to Putin that
aggression does not pay — literally.
Trump is right to say that the Europeans should also
help themselves, and his call is getting momentum. We should help Ukraine because it wants to be free and
join the Western world. They don’t want to live in constant fear of being
overtaken by Russia.
Unless Congress passes the Defense
Department's supplemental funding request, Ukraine will not be able to defend
itself against Russian aggression, a senior defense official told the news
media this week.
If we send
military aid, we’ll spend some billions of dollars now to invest in peace
and security for the future. There are those who argue that U.S.
aid to Ukraine serves
only to prolong a deadly conflict that has already cost both sides hundreds
of thousands of casualties. But let’s keep in mind that appeasement is not the
right policy. As Winston Churchill famously said, “An appeaser is one who feeds
a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
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