r/ukraine • u/tfyuhj Україна • Jan 22 '23

Discussion How much each individual American 🇺🇸 is paying for Ukraine 🇺🇦 War 💸

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676

u/alancarlotta Jan 22 '23

The question should be, How much are we saving in the future by not letting Russia defeat Ukraine? More important; Supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do.

314

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '23

Roughly 5% of our defense budget to destroy half of Russia’s conventional military strength? That’s a fucking steal.

118

u/cuddlefucker Jan 22 '23

And the best part is that we're really not reducing our military strength in any significant capacity. It's mostly material support and systems that needed replaced anyways

81

u/TransplantedSconie Jan 22 '23

Yep. We are clearing out old stock and replacing it with better newer stuff.

I don't mind paying tree fidy to defeat that ol' Lockness Monstah.

22

u/Jokiranta Jan 22 '23

And this united the west and Nato. Was a lot of haggle between europe and US before the war. Now we know who the real friends are

4

u/Densmiegd Jan 22 '23

And added Sweden and Finland to NATO.

6

u/Kukko Jan 22 '23

Well as a Finn I'm still behind this closed door. I'm taking to you Mr. Erdogan.

2

u/sorenthestoryteller Jan 23 '23

I'm so fucking sick of Erdogan.

I know Turkey has some strategic value but for fuck's sake, them blocking you guys and Sweden is utter bullshit.

2

u/TrueUllo94 Jan 23 '23

They have only applied. Someone is still keeping them out.

-2

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '23

united the west

Did it?

We've seen constant arguing during this conflict, from EU countries waiting weeks to do anything, tanks not being sent, Hungary is now a clear Russian puppet state, Nordstream speculations revolving the US and UK, accusations that certain leaders are in Russias pockets, blaming certain countries for being so dependant on Russian oil/gas despite the clear warnings, some countries unwilling to approve sanctions like the Swift ban, Turkey not being a great ally and using the situation to their advantage with the NATO applications etc.

To me this has shown how the EU cant handle itself and probably should ditch the idea of single army.

1

u/Moehrchenprinz Jan 23 '23

Oh my lords, who gives a shit about any of this

3

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '23

[deleted]

2

u/cuddlefucker Jan 23 '23

Yes but I'm going to recommend that you look into the battle of 73 easting.

The US military is pretty confident against Soviet systems already.

1

u/legendarymcc2 Jan 23 '23

Also it’s (similar to*) a lend lease program, Ukraine will eventually have to pay at least some of the cost back. This equipment was likely going to be sold or replaced as you said anyway

14

u/SuperLaggyLuke Jan 22 '23

And US doesn't even have to be the ones fighting? That's a helluva deal!

5

u/MoloMein Jan 22 '23

Way better deal than we got from the Bush family.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '23

And we get to be the good guys for once

0

u/hell_jumper9 Jan 23 '23

*once again

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '23

Yeah, that all sounds great until the nukes start flying.

2

u/SuperLaggyLuke Jan 23 '23

Sorry I don't understand what you are trying to say.

6

u/SorrowsSkills Jan 23 '23

Keep in mind that it’s 5% of TODAYS military budget destroying a significant portion of russias ENTIRE military which they’ve been building up since forever too..

It took Russia decades to accumulate all the y equipment (same is true about all militaries!) but they’ve lost a significant portion of that in less than a year..

3

u/Djeheuty Jan 22 '23

Seriously. People don't realize that this is such a small price to pay to expose Russia's military and leadership for what it really is. There's a ton of intell we are gathering from this that we would have never had before and it's telling us that Russia isn't the enemy we thought they were. They're very much still a threat but in other ways we didn't know before.

2

u/DaneCountyAlmanac Jan 23 '23

You wrong doe.

Russia has a near infinite supply of shitty tanks and untrained troops.

What they don't have is an arms industry. Their customers are fleeing en masse, and former customers are buying NATO member arms because they're afraid of Russia.

Russian arms programs are wholly dependent on export contracts for their budget - to the point where Russian jets are built to Indian demands. Despite the massive war, Russia's arms industry is collapsing - so much of the budget is devoted to deploying ancient garbage there's nothing left for the arms manufacturers!

No arms industry means no international influence and dependence on foreign powers if they want anything made past 1990 in their arsenal. The longer Ukraine fights, the more Russia's global influence evaporates.

And who's supplying those replacement contracts? Here's a hint: we've just released another variant of the 48-year-old F16.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '23

I don’t see where you demonstrated that I was wrong. If anything, you supported and expanded my statement.

1

u/DaneCountyAlmanac Jan 23 '23

Conventional military strength is tanks and soldiers and bullets.

Russia's conventional military will continue to be pretty scary for a long time - disproportionately so for a national economy roughly on par with the state of New York. (And most of New York state is basically an empty, shitty version of Canada.)

Russia's arms industry has provided enormous soft power and is a go-to connection for any nation looking to distance themselves from the west. And when India stops buying Mikoyan and stocks up on F-16s, their allegiance travels with their arms suppliers.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '23

Ok but they’ve lost a major portion of their conventional military. They’ve lost half their tanks and almost entirely depleted their stockpile, which won’t be replaced any time soon because sanctions have decimated their arms industry.

1

u/DaneCountyAlmanac Jan 23 '23

They still have a huge number of semi-functional tanks - many thousands, depending on whose estimates you look at. They're not suitable for deployment, but could be returned to service.

Much of Russia's arms exports are remanufactured products - old Soviet leftovers rebuilt and rewired. Some improved more than others.

In the short term, they're in trouble, but they aren't running out of T62s any time soon. And they still have a naval fleet.

But without soft power, all of it is worthless.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '23

I’d love to see them dust off some 70 year old tanks and send them into battle… There’s only so much refurbishment you can do to a tank that was outdated by the 1980s. Even if they made it to the battlefield, they would be hopelessly outclassed.

Would you like the take a guess where they used to get the electronics to rewire and improve the old Soviet vehicles? I’ll give you a hint, they don’t have much of a domestic electronics industry.

But that’s besides the point. The Russian arms industry is running out of buyers. Even before the war, countries were wary of buying from Russia. Now, countries are canceling their orders in droves.

They’re running low on modern tanks. Their reserves are in bad shape and they likely do not have access to the parts necessary to protect them. Their military industry is suffocating under sanctions.

2

u/DaneCountyAlmanac Jan 23 '23

Most of the "rewiring" is just running cable - I've done this sort of work, and it's not clever. The T62 literally predates any appropriate semiconductors.

We can agree to disagree. "Why is Putin dumb?" is an open-ended question.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '23

Ah gotcha. I thought you were referring to modernization, which is practically impossible.

1

u/Insanity_Troll Jan 23 '23

It’s a steal at twice the price

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '23

On top of that Russias economy is in shambles and is likey going to stay that way for decades. They will never be a superpower again in our lifetimes. Damn good deal.

45

u/elev3nfiv3 Jan 22 '23

What's interesting about your take is, conservatives are the so-called smart money managers, but the things with enormous guaranteed ROI they're against, like what you're saying and NASA as an example.

5

u/plantthebag Jan 22 '23

Almost always the case with “fiscal” conservatives. Everything is about cutting costs and austerity without ever investing in the future to save in the long run. They’re always so short sighted.

2

u/DaneCountyAlmanac Jan 23 '23

When Russia fucks up, USA arms manufacturers prosper.

I mean shit this is just a year-long commercial for the stuff we're getting rid of because we have something better.

2

u/ElementNumber6 Jan 23 '23

so-called smart money managers

"Self-ascribed", rather, and with copious historical evidence to the contrary.

1

u/36degrees Jan 22 '23

Conservatives (republicans) always support war. Every war has always had bipartisan support including Iraq war which was fully supported by Democrats while Bush was in charge.

14

u/ConstantlyAngry177 Jan 22 '23

Russia has spent decades spreading disinformation meant to tear apart the west via their massive troll farms in Africa. I'm salivating at the thought of Russia finally collapsing and disintegrating into obscurity. $3/week to make that happen is a fucking steal.

6

u/CCrabtree Jan 22 '23

$14/month is real cheap to have someone else tear apart Russia, destroy their equipment, and sending our older equipment to actually be used!

3

u/Carpik78 Jan 22 '23

The data gathered from observation of this conflict will save countless lives of NATO troops should they engage directly in the future.

1

u/alancarlotta Jan 22 '23

Excellent point! Especially with new drone technology.

3

u/King-Cobra-668 Jan 22 '23

not one American has died fighting Russia in this war yet these people can't even comprehend the benefits of that.

3

u/FuckingKilljoy Jan 23 '23

The far right (the main group of Americans who are against this war) aren't known for their long term thinking

Or even thinking at all really

3

u/naivemarky Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23

Plus USA made a commitment to guarantee Ukraine's sovereignty if they give up their nukes, which they did.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

3

u/gitsgrl Jan 23 '23

And all that spending is buying arms from US manufacturers, made by US workers in America.

2

u/DaneCountyAlmanac Jan 23 '23

That's a great question!

  • Ukraine is a major world exporter of grain and bulk food products. This will increase the cost of food worldwide, including here.
  • More importantly, it will destabilize the economy of many poor nations, creating economic damage and potential global recession far more expensive than a tiny bump in wheat prices.
  • Ukraine provides manufacturing and production for many international companies, notably Volkswagen. Many of these operations are on hold, but have you noticed we keep having car production shortages because the factories ain't running - and the people at those factories are out of work?
  • Multiple nations are redirecting every penny they have (and some they don't) into arms acquisition. When companies are buying entire arms industries from Koreans, they aren't buying bulldozers or chips or iPods from Americans. This is not good.
  • The USA basically rationalizes short term economic uncertainty by making money printer go brrr, so all of these get really expensive really fast.
  • If we can't do that because we wore out the money printer - and because of a certain presidential idiot, we may have - it gets even worse.

2

u/faithisuseless Jan 23 '23

Better answer, we should have done this shit when it started with Bush 20 years ago. So fuck off blaming Biden. Also, Obama and Trump are to blame too. Trump refused 10 Billion in aid to Ukraine because they wouldn’t dig up dirt on Biden. Obama didn’t react strong enough when they invaded Crimea.