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As American aid continues to be held up in the House, a faction of pro-Ukraine supporters has begun to argue that Ukraine should be provided aid since this aid goes to American jobs. It is one of the more frustratingly counterproductive arguments I’ve seen since the beginning of the war, so I wanted to spend some time talking about how uniquely flawed I think this entire argument is.
The argument goes something like this: the vast majority of the money that is spent for military aid is in some form or another spent directly on domestic American manufacturing which helps America economically and provides more jobs in various congressional districts. This in turn means that right-wing congressmen who would otherwise not support aid to Ukraine would do so for the self-interested reason of providing benefits to their constituents.
Now look, the first part of this is correct when you structure the argument in this manner—the vast majority of American military aid is spent in the United States—but it leaves out the 28 billion dollars in critical American financial and humanitarian assistance. While Europe has carried a significant portion of this assistance, Ukraine is still looking at massive financial holes in its 2024 budget that will require American assistance to manage.
Steering the conversation away from holistic support to Ukraine to just strict military aid is going to cause Ukrainian civil servants—and likely their troops in the field—to miss paychecks amid active fighting. I don’t think I need to elaborate further on why soldiers being unpaid is bad for morale, and why I think it’s a bad idea to just leave out financial assistance.
The next part of this is that while we are standing up more production, it’s not going to create that many jobs. Take for instance that the primary source of 155mm artillery rounds in Iowa only employs an estimated 830 people. That’s about the same amount of jobs created by opening two Walmarts.
On top of this, the new artillery plants being constructed in Texas to increase production are explicitly being planned around requiring less manpower. So odds are that the facilities that will be stood up under new funding for munitions will create even fewer jobs than the artillery plants that are already operating.
There’s just not a particularly great return on investment for the defense industry when you’re talking about the relationship between increasing production and creating new jobs. This isn’t the automotive industry, munitions don’t need tens of thousands of people to produce tens of thousands of rounds. Since we’re living in an era of increasingly automated manufacturing, it’s not going to look great when you build up this entire case only to create a couple of thousand jobs.
This gets me to the next part of why I think this is flawed reasoning—if you argue that defense aid helps the American economy—so would any other form of domestic spending.
What exactly is stopping someone from responding to this argument by pointing out that this money could be spent on infrastructure instead? Why shouldn’t the government use this money to expand employment for essential functions? If you’re arguing about job creation, the source of the jobs is entirely fungible.
Why not provide grants for scientific and medical research instead? Couldn’t we provide more funding for humanities programs? Why shouldn’t this money be put towards retraining workers who have lost their manufacturing jobs? I can think of hundreds of other alternatives that would create jobs. If you don’t have a clear ethical case for why this should be spent aiding Ukraine it makes no difference where the money goes.
The next problem with this argument—and the most glaring and obvious to me—is that it’s just awful rhetoric. The idea that the United States should be involved in supporting a war effort because it benefits our defense industry is almost a parody of what left-wing and right-wing opponents of aid to Ukraine believe our true motives are.
It has been one of the earliest and most persistent sources of criticism against American support to Ukraine that this all really comes down to making sure Raytheon gets paid. People like J.D. Vance have already seized on this argument. It’s so fundamentally stupid as a piece of rhetoric that I almost think it was designed in a lab for populists to wave around as an argument for why we shouldn’t support Ukraine.
The idea that any of this would persuade right-wing members of Congress to support Ukraine just represents a complete and total lack of understanding of their ideological beliefs and what their base wants to hear in the first place. If you seriously think that someone like Matt Gaetz is going to be won over by appealing to how the money is going to Raytheon, you need to be checked for early-onset dementia.
The American right wing is single-mindedly interested in bolstering Trump’s election odds at this point, and the best way to do that is to cause congressional deadlock and frustrate the administration’s policies. It’s ridiculous to think that this line of reasoning is going to appeal to them, or that they would hurt Trump’s chances for a couple hundred jobs in their district.
Not only that, but in the public consciousness, there’s always been a knee-jerk reaction that the defense industry is the primary beneficiary of any American involvement in a war. How are people going to perceive the sincerity of America supporting Ukraine when pundits are coming out and saying “Yes actually, it is about sending money to the defense industry.” I mean, what are you thinking when you say this stuff?
What’s to be done about all this? Well for one, if you want to show that we aren’t writing “blank checks” to Ukraine and this money is being used appropriately—just direct people to the actual Special Investigator General for Operation Atlantic Resolve. You don’t have to endlessly waste your time with the idea that this money is disappearing, we have ample resources that already cover this.
As for the rhetoric of all of this? It’s a moral case that needs to be made continuously. Ukraine needs to be supported because they’re a fellow liberal democracy under siege from an autocratic power that has waged a brutal war against innocent people who wanted to live their lives in peace. The United States should support Ukraine because Russian soldiers shot civilians in basements in Bucha—not because it will boost Lockheed’s revenue.
Every time that people lose sight of why a war is being fought public support (and interest) in the war effort inevitably drifts. The reason that you fight a war needs to be made clear and concise, with the moral impetus for engaging in violence continuously reinforced in public messaging.
Eisenhower didn’t send a letter to American forces on the verge of D-Day talking about how munitions usage in the Second World War employed a lot of people, he rightfully reinforced that they were embarking on a great and noble undertaking. FDR did not go to Congress and mumble about how fighting the Japanese would create more shipbuilding capacity, he proclaimed that our righteous might would win through to absolute victory.
This isn’t rocket science, when there’s a moral case as clear as continued American support to Ukraine—stick to the moral imperative to act. Otherwise? The only people who will get more ammunition to work with are the J.D. Vances of the world.
The only relevant group to persuade are nativist Republicans. Everyone else is irrelevant, either because - like the professional protest left - they have taken themselves out of the political process by not voting, or, like anti-war progressives, they live in such deep blue districts that their vote is inconsequential.
Given this, the only relevant criticism in this piece is the idea that domestic funding is fungible. While I suppose this is true, framing lethal aid to Ukraine as a military subsidy to American manufacturing allows pro-Ukraine politicians to sell Ukraine aid FIRST as morally/strategically right and THEN placate domestic opponents with demonstrations of how aid also directly benefits Americans and not just American interests.
Ukraine hawks aren't vying for the Gaetz/MTG vote. That ship sailed a long time ago because ideological MAGAs have made Ukraine a totemic anti-Biden position. They're gone. They'll go wherever Trump goes.
Instead, they need to convince a Republican base demonstrably uncomfortable with the Afghanistan exit and highly bought into the aesthetics of American power, including the military.
I agree that the financial aid portion of the aid we give to Ukraine aren't addressed by this argument but I dont think that's particularly important. Strategic arguments are obviously only supported by strategic reasoning or moral reasoning.
The discussion about parody I think are not particularly important. Instinctive isolationists are likely to charge profiteering and have been doing so in the States since Smedley Butler. Whatever. Nobody should frame aid as propping up LockMart. Instead, you explain how it gives money to American workers. No need to mention Lockheed Martin or any other company. It would only be a problem to make this argument if it actually gave more fuel to arguments that this is about profiteering. But those arguments are being made anyway.
Additionally, if people truly believe that money is going to companies at home, why not take the opportunity to explain how and why this actually benefits them? This was done in WW2 with war bonds and a constant stream of propaganda, and also done with the Marshall Plan.
Fact is that arguments about the moral salience of defending Ukraine, which I do also subscribe to, are not breaking through to this demographic precisely because they see no concomitant benefit to American citizens. You can either keep going with argumentative lines that are demonstrably NOT WORKING, or you can try anything else. I agree that American leaders must make the case to defend Ukraine independent of its benefits. They must also explain how defending Ukraine defends our interests.
As retired military and a contractor, I could not agree more. Supporting Ukraine is just a be right thing to do even if the motives are completely selfish.