WTH is Ukraine Aid’s Best-Kept Secret? Most of The Money Stays in the U.S. John Ferrari Explains

The best-kept secret about aid to Ukraine? 90% of the money the
US allocates for military aid is spent here at home. The money
goes right to American defense companies that employ American
workers to produce the weapons systems that Ukraine is using to
fight Russia. Not only that: the money is revitalizing decayed
production lines, bringing back institutional knowledge about
weapons manufacturing to the fore, and pushing the American
defense sector to innovate and modernize old weapons systems. But
this is all being done begrudgingly by the Pentagon and painfully
slowly by the Biden admin, and with zero support from several
loud voices in the GOP. At a time when the US is facing three
major threat environments – Russia-Ukraine, Hamas-Israel, and a
future China-Taiwan – why is Congress so confused about the need
to rebuild America’s defenses? Why aren’t Congressmen pushing
harder for more jobs in their own districts for their own
constituents, instead of prioritizing their own isolationist
agenda? Bonus: read Marc’s piece in the Washington Post laying
out the argument, and the data, for Ukraine aid benefiting the
American worker.


John Ferrari is a nonresident senior fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute (AEI), where his work focuses on the defense
budget, defense reform and acquisition, and the US military. Over
his 32-year US Army career, Major General Ferrari, who is now
retired, served as the director of program analysis and
evaluation, the commanding general of the White Sands Missile
Range, a deputy commander for programs at the NATO Training
Mission in Afghanistan, and a strategic planner for the Combined
Joint Task Force Seven in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Major General Ferrari has also worked as a branch chief for
contingency operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the US
Department of Defense and as a program examiner at the Office of
Management and Budget at the White House.


Download the transcript here.