1/10th of 1%

America has forgotten what it is like to live under threat of attack. Few remain who experienced the horrors of WWII and Cold War duck and cover drills are a distant memory. That's because the NATO alliance brought an era of unprecedented peace to Europe after centuries of major wars.

America's military might has served as a deterrent against nuclear strikes while the world works towards disarmament. This included Ukraine who had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world with 1,700 warheads.

They gave up every one of them in hopes of making the world a safer place and all they asked for was security agreements from several countries, including the United States.

Forgetting history has found ourselves blaming Ukraine for being attacked and complaining about giving it aid to protect itself. The amount of aid we’ve given is exaggerated and distorted to turn people against it. The good guys are demonized while tyrants receive sympathy.

The truth is that over 3 years, America has given Ukraine 1/10th of 1 percent of our GDP per year. 1/10th of 1%. How is that too high of a cost to defend freedom and democracy from violent oppression?

Even more outrageous is that 70% of the cost of that aid went right back into the US economy. Beyond that, other NATO nations made multi-billion dollar purchases of new US military equipment after giving their stockpiles to Ukraine, offsetting even more of America’s aid. The Ukraine war has cost America next to nothing and yet we’re acting like they owe us the world in return.

Russia didn’t invade Ukraine to defend itself. It was to expand their territory with the ambition of rebuilding the USSR. This is where history is important. The United States tried to be isolationist once before, and even had an America First movement. During that time, England’s Neville Chamberlain attempted to appease Hitler by giving him part of Czechoslovakia. Hitler went on to break the agreement and take over the rest of the nation, before continuing on to invade so many others. In 2014, Russia invaded and held Crimea. The world did little, hoping the conflict would end there, but Putin went on to invade the rest of Ukraine in hopes of taking it all.

Ukraine is a test for America. Under the previous administration, we were achieving a C+, now we are failing. If Russia defeats Ukraine, they will not stop. There will be another country attacked and another one after that. When one of those nations is a NATO ally, America will go to war, our boys will be sent to fight. Europe knows this. They understand the threat Russia poses, including its nuclear weapons.

After decades of disarmament and nonnuclear nations, Europe is talking about creating an arsenal of nuclear weapons to deter Russia as America retreats back across the ocean. Another lesson from history is how devastating nuclear bombs are. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should never be forgotten, nor should the images of the eerie shadows left behind on walls and sidewalks from where people were standing when the blasts went off. Today’s nuclear weapons are 40x stronger, can destroy an area 10x larger, and there are 12,000 of them.

Are we really going to sit around and complain about sending 1/10th of 1% of our GDP to stop Russia, to keep the world secure, and to prevent the escalation of nuclear powers? All Ukraine is asking for is support, and it is truly the least we can do.