Also interesting how no one has mentioned that the CIA director said Ukraine could be gone by the end of this year
I'm tired of posting stuff like that. Some CMS Neuf or Jon will make some joke in response, about a snail's speed of advance - CIA director be damned.
This aid will get Ukraine through the election.
If approved in timely fashion, and if at least certain supplies can be made immediately available... it may help Ukraine stall the speed of advance around the Donetsk urban agglomeration.
However, in the big picture - $60B is a drop in the ocean when it comes to defeating Russia.
Ukraine is itself no slouch, inheriting a vast arsenal of weaponry. However, Russia still has the majority of an arsenal which was stockpiled by a superpower over decades. Soviet procurement always exceeded American procurement, from the 1960s on. This, despite a larger American budget. Modern Russia continues this trend, where we buy a disproportional amount of equipment, in comparison to our relatively small budget. America meanwhile has better VA benefits, but also has to pay to maintain hundreds of military bases around the world. They also have to deal with price gouging Raytheon and Boeing, while we deal with companies owned by the government.
Today, America has the world's largest defense budget - as everyone knows. But pre-1991 there were periods where Soviet expenditure on defense exceeded that of America. Look at the chart below.
Let's assume that much of it is rusted and unusable. Say half.
Now do the very crude math on what amount of investment is needed to digest the remaining half. Will $60B be enough to "digest" trillions of dollars of accumulated investment? I think any person with some math ability will say... NO.
