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President Joe Biden recently requested another $24 billion in aid to Ukraine, including $13 billion in military aid. This adds to the estimated $113 billion, including $62 billion in security assistance, already provided by the United States since the conflict began—considerably exceeding the amount provided by European states, who presumably have a more direct interest in the outcome of the conflict than the U.S.
The request comes at a difficult time for the administration. According to a CNN poll, a majority of Americans now believe the United States has already done enough to help defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion. Ukraine's summer counteroffensive has stalled, raising the prospect of a protracted stalemate. And an increase in Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil raises uncomfortable questions about how far the U.S. can back Ukraine without risking escalation or direct involvement in the conflict.
Given that Ukraine's ability to prosecute the war is largely underwritten by the American taxpayer, it is up to Congress and the press to act in the public interest by providing oversight and scrutiny of the executive branch. Both have proven reluctant to do so over the course of the conflict.
Just a couple weeks ago the Senate voted down an amendment to establish an inspector general to oversee aid sent to Ukraine. Concerns about the final destination of funds and weaponry intended to bolster Ukraine's defense emerged early in the conflict but were quickly shot down. This is despite the fact that Ukraine continues to have rampant corruption, prominent far-right and neo-Nazi paramilitaries, and one of the largest illegal arms trafficking markets in Europe. This raises the very real possibility of U.S. military-grade weapons proliferating to malign actors throughout Europe and beyond.
But there are further risks to the U.S. even when military assistance arrives safely in the hands of the Ukrainian military. Ukraine's top general, Valery Zaluzhny, has expressed his frustration with Western governments' insistence that weapons they provide not be used on targets in Russia. A recent article reported that the CIA is nearly as uncertain about decision-making in Kyiv as in Moscow—a interesting claim given the apparent penetration by U.S. intelligence into the highest levels of the Kremlin just prior to the Russian invasion. It's understandable that Ukraine should want to take the fight to the enemy. But the discrepancy between what the United States is prepared to do to defend Ukraine while avoiding a direct conflict with Russia, and the military imperatives imposed on Ukraine in order to prosecute the war effectively, demonstrate that American and Ukrainian interests are not identical.
This point is further underlined by Ukrainian attacks on non-military targets inside Russia. Ukraine is allegedly responsible for the dramatic destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline last September, and a number of assassinations of prominent civilian propagandists in Russia. The press has reported that U.S. intelligence officials were aware of but unable to prevent the Ukrainian operations. If true, this raises the worrying possibility that the U.S. can't restrain Ukraine from actions that could provoke a Russian response against the U.S. or NATO, especially given Kyiv's explicit desire to bring the U.S. more directly into the fight.
It would be just as worrying if the U.S. were in fact more directly involved than publicly admitted. It has already been reported that in addition to aiding Ukrainian war planning, U.S. intelligence has helped Ukraine target Russian generals and sink the Russian warship Moskva. Some early reporting and later leaks revealed that U.S. special forces and intelligence officials had "boots on the ground" in Ukraine, although the extent of their involvement remains an open question. One report even claimed that a NATO member state has sabotage cells inside Russia, backed by the CIA.
The American press has been enthusiastically supportive of Ukraine, and have become hesitant to question the American defense and intelligence agencies they are supposed to scrutinize. This has included denying any role NATO expansion may have had in provoking the war, downplaying neo-Nazism in the Ukrainian armed forces, and circulating the implausible suggestion that Russia destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline, among others.
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has found that media outlets gave far more coverage to Russia's invasion of Ukraine than America's invasion of Iraq in 2003—a similarly preventative war in violation of another nation's sovereignty, which left hundreds of thousands dead unnecessarily and was sold to the public by a massive media failure. The same media outlets spent years promoting the ultimately baseless story that former President Donald Trump was in cahoots with (or even an agent of) Moscow, which worsened many Americans' opinion of Russia and helped further sour U.S.-Russian relations prior to the invasion.
The American people deserve better. Those who claim America's support for Ukraine is in defense of democracy should also want to defend democracy at home. That starts with maintaining the powers of elected representatives over the national security state, and maintaining a well-informed citizenry through an obstreperous press.
Christopher McCallion is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Update (8/31/23, 1:39 AM EST): The specifics of Ukraine's illegal arms trafficking was updated.
