Mayor Klitschko Of Kyiv Is Wrong, Very Wrong: War Should Not Be Viewed As Money-Making Opportunity. View Fuels Corruption; Extends Suffering. View If China Attacks Taiwan- US Shifts From Ukraine?
Mayor Klitschko Of Kyiv Is Wrong, Very Wrong
What Will Be His Perspective If China Attacks Taiwan And The United States Believes It Must Redeploy Assets From Ukraine To Taiwan And To Support Allies And Partners South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, And Japan? Perhaps Create A Pacific Ocean-Westerward Focused Version Of NATO?
War Should Not Be Viewed As A Money-Making Opportunity. Such A Viewpoint Fuels Corruption And Extends Suffering.
On 19 January 2023, Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of the city of Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
The following is an excerpt: “The liberation of Ukraine has already provided a massive boost to the U.S. defense sector and the thousands of businesses it supports. After seeing the real-world success of American-made firepower, U.S. allies are placing orders. Taiwan points to Ukrainian success with U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and the ATACMS platforms for its decision to increase its budget for these weapons by more than 100%. Jordan and other nations are placing additional orders for advanced U.S. weapons to ensure Iran doesn’t threaten them. It’s no surprise key assets including Himars and Starlink satellites, which are helping provide communication on the battlefield and among civilians, are made in America. Companies such as John Deere, Cisco, Medtronic and GMC, as well as other businesses in the construction, building-materials, heavy-equipment, financial-services, telecom and life-science sectors, would benefit from Ukraine’s rebuilding. We need to win this war to launch a global bull market again.”
Mayor Klitschko wants United States taxpayers to swallow with pride that borrowing what has since 24 February 2022 exceeded US$113 billion and at today’s trajectory could approach US$200 billion by the end of 2023 to provide commercial, economic, humanitarian, military, and political support to the government of Ukraine and to the armed forces of Ukraine is helpful, stimulative, beneficial to the United States economy.
In essence, United States taxpayers should be appreciate there exists a war where they may participate- and profit from. Along with the thank you to the armed forces of Ukraine, should United States taxpayers send along a note of appreciation to the armed forces of the Russian Federation?
For 2023, the government of Ukraine will request approximately US$70 billion for operations and energy facility repairs. Approximately US$50 billion in military equipment provided by members of the thirty country North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other countries. Total commitments likely to be sought by the government of Ukraine for 2023 is more than US$120 billion. Remember- this does not include reconstruction monies.
NATO members: United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Albania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, Turkiye, Latvia, and North Macedonia.
No, the spending on Ukraine is not good for the United States economy nor for any of the economies in those countries where those governments have provided support to the government of Ukraine and armed forces of Ukraine.
Absent the Russian Federation-Ukraine war, the US$113 billion and what could be an additional US$50 billion by the end of 2023 in borrowing by United States taxpayers could have been and could be directed towards lowering the 2022/2023/2024 annual budget deficits; towards reducing the national debt of US$32 trillion; toward increasing expenditures for education, healthcare, and infrastructure; and toward the always domestic political favorite, lowering income tax rates.
Mayor Klitschko is correct that military spending does increase revenues for military contractors and associated companies. But those increased revenues arrive with a cost- something else does not have funding.
United States defense-related spending may be US$1 trillion by the 2025/2026 fiscal budget year. Is what is likely a 5% annual increase in defense-related spending to increase annually to more than 5%? It may, depending upon the duration of the Russian Federation-Ukraine war and the unneighborly ambitions of the government of the People’s Republic of China.
For NATO members and other governments who are contributing military equipment to Ukraine they may want to use the opportunity to replace existing inventories. This means potential military equipment export opportunities for United States-based companies and for companies within the twenty-seven European Union (EU), Canada-based companies, Japan-based companies, South Korea-based companies, and Turkiye-based companies among others.
EU members: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
Every government will be seeking to recoup what they have asked their voters to borrow to support Ukraine. There will be far more companies seeking orders than there will be orders to fulfill. Germany will be aggressive to maintain existing customers for its tanks; France will be seeking opportunities for its tanks; the United States will be seeking opportunities to replace Germany and France for its tanks.
Ukraine Battlefields Will Provide For Competitive Shopping
The battlefields in Ukraine will provide a real-time testing laboratory for military equipment- sort of a real-life war games (with live rounds) for companies manufacturing military equipment- and their respective governments who are often providing commercial, economic, and political export support, to use satellites and drones to monitor military equipment performance.
The marketing materials will now shift from the traditional and boring “See how our equipment performs during simulations, during war-games, during live-fire exercises, and how formidable it looks on static display” to the exciting (with appropriately-timed theme music) “Watch this real-time, action-packed, Russian Federation-Ukraine square-off and seek how our [insert type of military equipment] performed on the battlefield. Oh, and you can watch our live-from-the-battlefield YouTube Channel!” And, to cap off the marketing program: “With our next-generation technology, as you watch the live the battle, we are color-coding our products so you can more easily differentiate them from our competitors.”
There will be an end to the Russian Federation-Ukraine war. It may be temporary. It may be permanent. There will be an end to providing military equipment to Ukraine- unless Ukraine pays for it or, likely, uses United States government procurement programs to borrow funds which are guaranteed by the government of the United States, meaning taxpayers.
Paradoxes?
For the Russian Federation-Ukraine war since 20 May 2019 (the inauguration of Volodymyr Zelensky as the sixth post-U.S.S.R. President of Ukraine) and then again since 24 February 2022, neither the [Vladimir] Putin Administration (2000-2008 and 2012- ) nor the Zelensky Administration (2019- ) have reached their respective thresholds where the numbers of dead, wounded, maimed, assaulted, missing, infrastructure damaged and destroyed, and taxpayer funds spent have reached levels requiring face-to-face conversations by the respective heads of state.
The Inconvenient Truth remains too- some of the same governments opposing the Russian Federation and supporting Ukraine are providing resources and value to both the Russian Federation and Ukraine.