Helping Ukraine. Defending Taiwan. Talk Is Cheap. Actually Doing It Costs Money.

If you support Ukraine in its war with Russia, if you think the United States needs to defend Taiwan’s right to choose if it unites with China, then you need to support more money for defense.  The Russian attack on Ukraine is a new kind of war.  Actually, it’s not a new kind of war, but it is a kind of war that we have not seen for a long time.  It is a war of attrition, which means it is a war of weapons, supplies, and ammunition.

We are rapidly using up our inventories of all kinds of weapons and supplies in supporting Ukraine.  If we are going to continue to support Ukraine, we are going to need more of these things.  Right away.  And if we support the right of Taiwan to decide its own fate, we need to get supplies of these things to them – right away.  Plus, we need to replenish our own supplies because who knows where else trouble might arise.  There are countries and groups that might think now is a good time to take advantage.

But this will cost money.  We not only need to increase our orders of weapons and ammunition.  We also need our suppliers to increase their production capacity.  They need to build more plants, buy more equipment, hire more workers.  But to get companies to do this, we need to enter into long-term, multi-year contracts, with guaranties of purchases.  That means Congress and the President have to commit to provide the money for these contracts not only this year, but also next year and the year after that.  That will cost money.  That means more money for defense.  But promises and commitments aren’t free.

So, now we’ll see.  It's easy to say you support Ukraine.  It’s easy to say we should defend Taiwan.  But if you really mean it, you have to step up and spend the money to actually do it.  Because talk is cheap.  Backing it up, isn’t.  We will see, over the next year and more, who really supports Ukraine, who really is willing to defend Taiwan, who really wants to build up U.S. defenses, by who is willing to spend the money to actually do it.