Ukraine defense. Self defense.

We aren't sending money to Ukraine. We are sending weapons: Artillery shells, drones, missiles, tanks.

We build those here in the USA. 

Aid to Ukraine is an American jobs program.

I have mixed feelings about what constitutes a just and necessary war, including this war in Ukraine. But I am OK with our helping Ukraine protect itself from Russia. 

As a young man of draft age during the Vietnam War I considered battles over territory, markets, and influence to be a game played by selfish old men to gain power at home while they sent young men off to fight and die. These lyrics sung by Edwin Starr in 1970 seemed about right to me:

"War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y'all
War, huh (good God)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me, oh"

I still think that. But I recognize that it is a dangerous world, and that some of those selfish old men lead other countries. So my feelings are more conflicted now.

Most of the opposition to our giving aid to Ukraine comes from the political right. Trump tilted toward Russia and he brought his party along. There is an argument to be made that we forced Russia's hand. The West's alliances with Slavic countries crowded Russia. Russia perceived a threat. This should not be hard for Americans to understand. Countries are nervous about borders. Over half of Americans consider immigration to our country an "invasion," the repopulation of the U.S. by the descendants of the indigenous people White Americans displaced 200 years ago. They are at our southern border. They are unarmed, impoverished, and eager to work at hard-to-fill jobs. Poland, the Baltic countries, and Ukraine are armed rivals, allied with yet more rivals. We should not be surprised that Russia felt it needed to do something. 

Still I hope Ukraine survives. I want a peaceful global order and Russia's invasion upsets that order. I want Russia stopped.

The U.S. is fighting this war alongside Ukraine the way that Americans prefer to fight. We are the arsenal. Other people do the fighting and dying. Our provisions; their blood.

Opponents of our assistance to Ukraine describe our aid as an expensive act of generosity. That is why they talk of giving money to Ukraine. We don't send much money. We send weapons made in U.S. factories. Marc Thiessen of The Washington Post has written two columns describing where weapons are made, and which U.S. representatives oppose Ukraine support notwithstanding their own districts benefitting from those jobs, shown in red on the second map.

The American economy shifted from being a manufacturing powerhouse into a service economy. China manufactures things to sell us. We manufacture debt to sell them. There is a strategic problem with this. The ability to manufacture weapons at home and in quantity is a matter of national security. In the 1940s, Germany and Japan had technologically more advanced weaponry than we did, but that wasn't what counted in a prolonged war. We overwhelmed them with our ability to produce ships, planes, and munitions. The weapons of the present and future are drones and missiles, but critical parts of the supply chain to make those weapons are in China. We lost our capacity to mass-produce artillery shells-- 19th and 20th Century technology -- and it turns out that Ukraine needs those. 

Insofar as America reduces the likelihood of war by being strong and self-sufficient in our ability to provision our military -- and therefore too strong to be tested -- then there is national purpose in our rebuilding our defense-oriented manufacturing.

The war in Ukraine showed us that we have lost our ability to fight a protracted ground war. 

Our aid to Ukraine is self-defense. It goes beyond raising the cost to Russia for invading a neighbor, although it is surely that. It is also a matter of America rebuilding its onshore capacity to provision our military.

War may be good for nothing. But it is worse to fight one and lose because China won't sell us the drone parts we need.

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