The Biden administration’s commitment to Ukraine is admirable, but it comes at a price. The U.S. Army has awarded more than $1 billion in contracts over the last two months alone for military equipment and munitions destined for Ukraine, including high-tech missile systems, precision artillery shells, and long-range rocket launchers.
This spending spree means big business for defense contractors like Raytheon Missiles and Defense, who recently received an $84 million contract from the Army to supply Excalibur 1B precision munitions to Ukraine. Lockheed Martin was also awarded a whopping $432 million contract from the Army to replenish High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers sent to Ukraine.
It’s not just the companies that are benefiting either; American taxpayers are footing the bill for this increased military assistance as well. So far, Washington has allocated an astonishing $113 billion in assistance to Ukraine since February 2022 – most of which has come out of our military stocks thanks to the “Presidential Drawdown Authority” (PDA).
Ultimately it’s up to President Biden and his team at the Pentagon to justify such large sums of taxpayer money being spent on foreign aid programs when there is so much need here at home – particularly given recent reports about U.S.-supplied arms potentially falling into enemy hands in Ukraine due to poor oversight by Ukrainian forces themselves.
We must all ask whether this kind of spending is wise given our current fiscal situation. We must be sure that any aid going abroad isn’t putting American lives at risk or exacerbating conflicts where we have no real stake in their outcome – especially if doing so will irrevocably damage our already fragile economy back home due to unsustainable levels of debt and deficit spending.
