Professor Snyder and ‘Trump’s Big Lie’

In his recent article, Professor Timothy Snyder has effectively debunked President Donald Trump's misleading narrative about Ukraine's contributions to the United States and the world. According to Trump, the US has provided significant aid to Ukraine, yet Ukraine has done nothing in return. Trump even insinuated that Ukraine has received billions of dollars from the US but given nothing back.

To address this, let's examine the actual financial support provided by the US to Ukraine. A recent New York Post report states that direct aid to Ukraine during the administration of former President Joe Biden amounted to $130 billion. While Congress approved $164 billion in Ukraine-related funding, this figure also included associated US activities, indirect costs, and payments to third parties.

A reasonable estimate for the US investment in Ukraine's defense is $150 billion. Trump may have forgotten the purpose behind Biden's $150 billion aid to Ukraine. He should consider Russian President Vladimir Putin's repeated calls for restoring Russian geopolitical influence and control over territories once governed from Moscow.

The US National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2022 identifies Russia as an existential threat, and states that Russia's invasion of Ukraine demonstrates its willingness to use military force to redraw borders and undermine European security. If Putin had defeated Ukraine, he would have significantly increased Russia's military power and been emboldened to move against NATO, potentially involving US forces in a confrontation with Russian troops.

Ukraine's resilience in holding back Putin's forces, despite the odds, has been remarkable. NATO's European members acknowledge their lack of preparedness to counter such a threat, but they are only now beginning to develop their military capabilities. It will take at least five more years for them to become self-sufficient.

As long as the US and Europe continue to support Ukraine in its defense, Putin will be deterred from taking aggressive actions. However, if Ukraine were to be defeated and Russia were to absorb its human and material resources, the US would be left as the primary deterrent against Russia's expansion. The conservative American Enterprise Institute estimated that a world in which Russia prevails would cost the US an estimated $808 billion in additional defense spending over five years.

A separate RAND perspective concurred that a Russian victory would impose additional "colossal" costs on the US and its allies.

Ukraine's experience serves as a model for potential future conflicts, and artificial intelligence may be needed to estimate the costs that the US would bear if Ukraine had been defeated and the US participated in stopping Putin's aggression. AI estimated the cost to be $2-3 trillion, which may seem high compared to the estimated costs of the Afghanistan war ($2.3 trillion), the Iraq war ($1-2 trillion), and even a 5-year deterrence ($0.8 trillion).

However, this cost is not unreasonable when compared to the total cost of 20 years of US wars in the Middle East, which amounted to about $8 trillion.