1. The Soviet arsenal has been largely neutralized.
Ukraine has smashed Russia’s massive stockpile of Soviet-era tanks, vehicles, and munitions once intended for a European invasion. Much of it was outdated, but its destruction still means fewer weapons Russia could ever use against the Baltics or Poland — a long-term win for European security.
2. Russia has been exposed as a military paper tiger.
The war revealed the hollowness of Putin’s two-decade modernization effort. Russia will need years to replace its losses, and its military-industrial complex has proven incapable of matching NATO production. Many domestically produced systems showed major quality failures, confirming that — nukes aside — Russia’s conventional forces are more Potemkin than superpower.
Meanwhile, the impact of sanctions, frozen financial reserves, the loss or maiming of a million Russian men with thousands more casualties weekly, the massive brain drain of fleeing Russian citizens means that Putin has effectively crippled his own country. A weakened Russia also becomes a far less valuable partner in any anti-Western coalition China, Iran, North Korea, or other American antagonists might try to assemble.
3. Sanctions have fueled a US energy boom.
Fossil fuel exports were the main thing propping up Putin’s regime, but sanctions have gutted Russia’s European market share. The US has stepped in to supply oil and liquid natural gas to Russia’s former customers profiting heavily in the process. The more energy the US sells, the more leverage it has over global prices and the less power Russia or Middle Eastern dictators hold over Western economies. Rising oil prices now mean more American revenue, and the US can increase supply to stabilize prices on its own terms.
4. Russia remains America’s most persistent geopolitical antagonist.
From the Soviet era to today, Russia has never abandoned its resentment of US influence and democratic success. Putin has paid bounties to Afghan militants to kill US troops, interfered in American elections, and aligned himself with America’s enemies. He’s actively working to pull European states like Serbia, Hungary, and Slovakia away from the Western risking European solidarity and stability. He literally launched the first major European war since WWII.
Russia. Is. Not. America’s. Friend.
5. Ukraine genuinely wants to be a US ally.
Putin invaded to stop Ukraine from joining the EU and eventually NATO — exactly the path Ukrainians want. After centuries of Russian domination, Ukrainians prefer economic and political integration with the West to stagnating and being exploited in Moscow’s orbit. Thirty-seven million Ukrainians want to join America’s bloc of partners. That is good for the US, and bad for American adversaries.
A post-war Ukraine would also strengthen Europe. Ukraine arguably has the most battle-tested military in the world, and has developed much of the latest tactics and expertise in drone warfare. Its booming weapons and drone industry will give European allies access to vast quantities of high-grade, battlefield-proven systems, and many more soldiers committed to European security.
6. US support has already turned Ukraine into a major strategic asset.
The US has integrated Ukraine into Western weapons systems, logistics, and training. A strong, Western-aligned Ukraine is a literal shield and buffer against Russian expansion — making it less likely America will have to answer a future NATO Article 5 call for defense of the Baltics or Poland. Keeping Ukraine out of Russia’s attempted neo-imperial sphere of subjugation is an obvious win for Ukraine, but America always gains by maintaining and expanding its number of allies.
Reminder: The only time NATO’s Article 5 has ever been activated was in defense of the the US following 9/11. America always gains immensely by maintaining and expanding its circle of committed allies.
7. Putin is a violent autocrat who must be contained.
I don’t know why we have to explain to MAGA fans why dictators like Putin are cancers on Earth that must be stopped. Putin has brutally invaded Chechnya and Georgia as well, killed thousands of Syrians in their civil war, and maintains a destabilizing military presence in Moldova as well. Putin has been open about his territorial ambitions to recreate the Soviet Union at least geographically.
We’ve seen this movie a hundred times in history: however you want to call it — dictator, czar, emperor, pharaoh, etc. — autocratic psychos with delusions of territorial grandeur never fuck off with their constant warring and conquest salivating until you make them stop.
If Putin conquers Ukraine, he’ll draft Ukraine’s army into Russia’s military, and then reorganize his armies to start stockpiling for some form of invasion or subversion of the little Baltic states, Poland, and/or Finland.
It’s far easier and cheaper to confront a Russia that’s bogged down and losing thousands of soldiers weekly in Ukraine than a Russia that has absorbed millions of Ukrainians and Baltic citizens and is using their resources to threaten Poland behind a new iron curtain.
8. Supporting Ukraine is cheap — and strengthens U.S. industry.
With the Forever Wars over, the US has spare budget. Aid to Ukraine isn’t breaking our bank, but it can break Russia’s economy. And, crucially, no American troops are on the front lines.
This is Ukraine’s Revolutionary War, and they’re doing all the bravery, the sacrificing, and the dying. The courage of the Ukrainian people to stop Russian aggression in its tracks, and their tenacity in ensuring their nation wins a committed victory for liberal democracy against authoritarianism should be revered and rewarded with as much assistance as we can give.
Besides, most US spending actually stays in the US going to defense manufacturers to produce new equipment for the American military. Ukraine receives older stockpiles, while US industry modernizes and ramps up production. The war has helped jolt America out of its sluggish industrial habits, and accelerated advances in weapons and munitions manufacturing.
The conflict is also giving the Pentagon real-time insight into drone-centric warfare. With China expanding its military might and outpacing US industrial capacity, drone technology is integral to the playbook for defense.
9. Russia can’t sustain this war much longer.
Putin can’t maintain the illusion that Moscow and St. Petersburg are insulated from the consequences of his invasion. The Russian economy is sputtering under sanctions, falling oil revenues, American energy displacing Russian exports, abandoned pipelines, and growing diplomatic isolation.
The human toll is even worse. Russia’s demographics were already embarrassing with falling birth rates, proliferating Shit Life Syndrome, and a GDP per capita lower than 64 other nations, but now Putin is stomping on the accelerator of Russia’s geopolitical demise wasting an entire generation to steal a chunk of Ukraine that is now flattened, filled with unexploded ordnance, and useless without massive foreign investment.
10. We learned a bit about North Korea when it contributed to the war and lost thousands of soldiers.
The Kim Jong Un regime losing thousands of North Korean soldiers to help Putin gain a few meters of territory is good for South Korea, and the rest of the world generally. Can these allegedly elite NK soldiers be replaced quickly in such an odd society? Learning how North Koreans fight, and whether their developmentally backward hereditary communist dictatorship is capable of 21st Century military competence is productive for South Korea, as well as all the US troops stationed throughout Japan and Korea who would be involved in any renewed Korean conflict.
North Korea is such a wildcard country that maybe something crazy could happen from North Korean soldiers going home after having had sudden access to the Internet via the cell phones Russians gave them for communicating. Besides discovering the joy of pornography, North Koreans soldiers might have gotten some ideas about their nation and had a few political epiphanies thanks to media outside the Kim regime’s manic propaganda.
11. Russian propaganda is collapsing on the world stage.
Supporting Ukraine exposes the absurd myth of Russia as a Christian, masculine inheritor of Rome. Russia is closer to a gas station with nukes run by oligarchs who’ve looted the state for 25 years while Putin crowned himself a modern czar.
Fools like Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump may be dazzled by a few flashy Moscow neighborhoods and obvious Russian propaganda, but experts worldwide see a declining petro-state trapped in a resource curse. Putin’s “legacy” will be a poorer, older, more broken Russia.
12. Russia’s influence is evaporating.
The Ukraine War has repelled former Soviet republics in Central Asia, many of which are now seeking new trade and energy partnerships, even with Europe. Russian forces had to withdraw from Syria after the Assad regime collapsed, disrupting Moscow’s meddling networks in the Middle East and Africa. Across Russia’s former periphery, protests against Russian influence keep erupting. Putin’s empire is shrinking, not growing, and that’s a good thing.
13. Europe and America must stay united — or both will lose global power.
Demographics and population matter in geopolitics. The US cannot remain competitive against China, India, and eventually Africa if Europe drifts away and becomes a separate geopolitical bloc in competition with the US. It is strategically disastrous if Europe stops going along with the American government on issues of sanctions, security, trade, and diplomacy. US hegemony only works with Europe by its side.
14. The US is standing up for democracy — something it claims to value.
Ukrainians do not want to be ruled by Moscow. They have their own language, culture, and an older national history than Russia. Their democracy is young and incredibly ambitious after repeatedly revolting against pro-Russian leaders domestically. They don’t want Putin doing to Ukraine what he’s done to Russia. America’s record on defending freedom isn’t perfect, but supporting Ukraine is one of its clearest victories for self-sovereignty in decades. 🥃
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