Would a Ukrainian Nuke Save US Tax Dollars?

A Ukrainian nuclear deterrent could escalate the war, but could also end the war immediately if Vladimir Putin decides he doesn’t want to risk escalation.

A man with a Ukrainian flag stands on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House as demonstrators gather to protest the Russian invasion in Washington, DC on Feb. 25, 2022. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Commentary

A new law to fund the government for 45 days and avert a shutdown omitted funding for Ukraine and was rapidly followed on Oct. 3 by Republicans beheading themselves in the House of Representatives. A “gang of eight hard-liners” led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), called the “chaos caucus” by detractors, combined with Democrats to oust Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Chaos, indeed.

The upset in Washington has revealed to U.S. allies, including Ukraine, just how tenuous U.S. financial support in a war might be. Tens of billions of dollars in military aid, much less putting U.S. troops under fire, could be canceled in a single vote in a single chamber of Congress due to admittedly reasonable wishes on the part of American voters to omit themselves from seemingly endless wars in Europe and Asia. Their isolationism and domestic priorities, such as decreasing the federal debt, ending the influence of lobbyist money, and controlling the border, clash with expensive measures to keep an increasingly dangerous world at bay.

There are no easy answers to these questions, and opposing Republicans in the House aren’t villains, though they portray the other side to be. The chaos created by the fight, however, has second-order effects globally.

The ability of a small group of House holdouts to cancel Ukraine aid makes our allies less sure of “iron-clad” American support when needed. The latest disappointment will lead our developed democracy allies on the frontlines with Russia and China, including Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and Poland, for example, to seek stronger militaries, more defense spending, and perhaps even their own independent nuclear arsenals. Much of this is obviously a good thing for the U.S. budget. But, there’s a catch.

In 1994, the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for the former Soviet republic relinquishing its approximately 5,000 nuclear weapons to Russia. Now that Russia has breached the agreement, Kyiv can reasonably argue that the United States and United Kingdom are obligated to help defend the country. Canceling military aid could be considered a breach.

“If indeed we breached that agreement with Ukraine, what do you think every one of our enemies—and more importantly, our allies—are going to say about America? ‘We can’t count on America,’” Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) told the Wall Street Journal.

“That has a domino effect. It is greatly debilitating to the national security of the United States, not the least of which it’s going to set off a view by many countries that, ‘We can’t count on the United States. We need nuclear weapons.’”

Weak U.S. support for Taiwan and the Philippines, both of which are suffering ongoing military harassment by China, has the same effect on allies such as Japan and South Korea, which have most likely considered acquiring their own nuclear deterrent in the face of China’s aggression. And, if Japan and South Korea are any indication, Ukraine could develop its own nuclear arsenal in as little as six months from when the political decision is made. That timeframe could be considerably shortened given Ukraine’s history of nuclear weapon and ballistic missile manufacture, or with full U.S., UK, or French support.

A Ukrainian nuclear deterrent could escalate the war, but could also end the war immediately if Vladimir Putin decides he doesn’t want to risk escalation against a quietly but clearly enraged Ukrainian leadership. It could continue as a conventional war but with new red lines, for example an increased threat of retaliation should Russian troops further breach Kyiv or the Dnieper River.

There’s risk in all these scenarios, but in at least several, the requirement for outside military aid to Ukraine would decrease significantly. That would calm the bloated U.S. budget, which is ultimately the cause of the chaos caucus’s eructation against Mr. McCarthy.

Mr. Gaetz is rightly revolting, albeit in a potentially self-defeating way, against the national debt and budgetary processes, such as omnibus bills and lobbyist influence, that keep it growing. Annual interest payments on the U.S. federal debt could reach as much as $2 trillion by 2033. Compare that to an expected $2.5 trillion in income taxes paid in 2023 and $4.9 trillion in 2022 government revenue. The main message of the caucus is that something has to give, and free-spending Democrats along with conservative Republicans aren’t executing the radical financial reform needed to fix the system.

If we don’t spend what’s required to win in present-day Ukraine, will future invasions be more numerous? Almost certainly. Eventually, if Mr. Putin and Xi Jinping aren’t nipped in the bud, they will use invasions to strengthen themselves to the point that they threaten Brussels, Tokyo, or Washington more directly. That may seem a long way off, but it’s the logical conclusion of the apparently unlimited territorial goals of Moscow and Beijing.

There are no easy solutions to these threats, and all choices entail risk. Neither Mr. Gaetz nor Mr. McCarthy are the villains. At some point, however, most reasonable people will come to agree that budget cuts must be made, and new sources of revenue found.

Innovative ways to decrease the likelihood of costly wars, while increasing U.S. revenues, should be considered by fiscal conservatives. One of those ways is to sell nuclear weapons to frontline developed democracies such as Ukraine. By doing so, we would decrease expenditures while increasing revenue.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.