“Just stop the wars” is a slogan, not a credible plan.
“Every action has a consequence, and each consequence has another consequence. These are called Second-Order Effects. Every change you make to a system will have Second-Order Effects, which may affect the system’s functionality. Be careful when making changes, they may have the opposite effect of what you aimed for.”
This description of Second-Order Effects gets at something many people are missing when assessing the cost of supporting Ukraine.
Many are thinking of the upfront cost of helping Ukraine now and imagining all the savings that could transpire if support for Ukraine ends. Yet, that line of thinking always seems to stop there, with no concern for what will transpire if aid to Ukraine ends and Ukraine ends up being defeated.
As much as people may wish it were so, a Ukrainian defeat at the hands of Russia, or Ukraine being forced to sign a one-sided peace agreement under duress doesn’t ‘end the war,’ it merely postpones it.
Russia has ambitions far beyond Ukraine, and is hell-bent on breaking NATO completely, thus opening up former Soviet states to Russian invasion.
It is thus important to consider how expensive it would be if Ukraine fell.
If aid to Ukraine ends, there would certainly be short-term savings. Governments would not be sending billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine.
But that would also bring immediate costs, in lost jobs in munition plants and lost jobs for those who are refurbishing surplus military equipment.
And that’s just the start.
The collapse of Ukraine would mean a dramatically stronger Russia. Though they are weakened from massive casualties on the battlefield, Russia is already exceeding their pre-war military production levels. Russia is also more authoritarian than ever, with the Putin regime using the pretext of war to further silence dissent and centralize control over the economy.
A victorious Russia would have an even more direct path into Europe, would have 20-30 million new ‘citizens’, and would enslave millions of Ukrainian men by forcing them to join the Russian military. Russia’s military-industrial capacity would be bolstered, and they would get their hands on many of the advanced drones and missiles Ukraine has started to manufacture.
Russia would thus ‘snowball’ as you see in strategy games, where one conquest makes the next conquest easier, which makes the next conquest easier, and so on, just as Germany did by gobbling up countries in Europe in the initial stage of World War Two.
At some point, Russia would press a NATO country, which would lead either to a direct conflict between NATO & Russia, or the collapse of NATO through cowardice.
Both would be incredibly expensive.
Obviously, a direct NATO-Russia war would pull in other countries like China and North Korea (North Korea is already aiding Russia in Ukraine), and would likely spur China to take advantage of a distracted West by going into Taiwan.
This would lead to a global economic meltdown, not to mention the fact that Canada would either be sending our men and women in uniform to fight in Europe or would lose the protection of the NATO alliance and be more vulnerable than ever. Global shipping would collapse, leading to inflationary spikes that would make the post-COVID era look like a picnic.
This is why it has always been deceptive when people claim supporters of aiding Ukraine are ‘warmongers.’ Ensuring Ukraine wins and ends the war on favourable terms also ensures that Russia is less powerful economically and militarily going forward, which also reduces the likelihood of a broader conflict. By contrast, halting aid to Ukraine for short-term savings raises the risk that Russia ends up more powerful and more emboldened, which raises the likelihood of a broader conflict.
“Just stop the wars” is a slogan, not a plan.
Of course, much of this will fall on deaf ears. People are not in the mood to think about global conflict, and that is understandable. People have been slammed by inflation, and our societies feel destabilized and chaotic. Unfortunately, our enemies get a vote when it comes to the direction of the world, and so long as Russia is determined to rebuild the Soviet Empire, it will remain in our long-term financial and national security interest to aid Ukraine and ensure Ukraine wins.
Spencer Fernando
