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The point with the "I don't need a ride" and "go fuck yourself" info ops etc. wasn't really to make people in the West sympathize with Ukraine over Russia, that was bound to happen anyway, but to counteract the wave of "Ukraine is doomed to collapse in a matter of days, it's useless to support it" counter-ops and dooming. And those counter-ops and dooming indeed were wrong, Ukraine didn't go through an immediate collapse and - contrary to what a number of Very Serious Realists (and openly pro-Russian commentors) said - even took back some of the initially conquered territories.
To be fair, Ukraine is only holding its own because we’re sending trillions a year into the country, and that’s quite simply only until they run out of people to draft into the war. They’re already needing to kidnap people off the streets to force them to fight. I don’t think that’s sustainable as a long term solution. Add in that the war has increased food prices because the “breadbasket of Europe” can’t plant crops, and the increase in fuel prices because we’re at war with a major oil producer, and it’s a giant mess.
I’m also concerned that spending so much on Ukraine is going to mean losing Taiwan to China. Taiwan makes many of the world’s top end microchips, and losing that to a hostile rival is insane. But that’s where I think we’re heading. The public’s will to continue propping up allied states is nearly gone. The money is going fast, and the weapons systems we’re sending to Ukraine probably won’t be replenished in time for a Taiwan war. It’s insane.
This has little to do with food prices because the EU doesn't import much of the kind of foods that Ukraine produces. The EU is a massive food exporter, both cereals and more processed goods.
The reason food prices are up is due to increased fuel and fertilizer costs (and to a lesser extend a lack seasonal workers), which has to do with the war but not the economic disruption of Ukraine. Disruption of Ukraine farming primarily drives up food costs in the middle east and Africa, not Europe.
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This doesn’t match the figures I’ve seen at all — total US contributions to Ukraine are measured around $175 billion over the last two and a half years, with another $60 billion or so from the EU, so an OoM less than trillions”.
In case anyone really cares about the technical definitions of order of magnitude. The numbers 175x10^9 and 10^12, might correctly be said to be of different orders, but the former is not an order of magnitude less than the latter.
To differ by an order of magnitude two numbers X and Y must satisfy abs(log10(X) - log10(Y)) >= 1. In this case log10(1000) - log10(175) ~ 0.76. It did seem a bit hyperbolic to say trillions, but it's not technically an OoM less.
On the other hand, to express the order of magnitude of each number individually, the conventional range for the significand is [1/sqrt(10), sqrt(10)). In this case 1.75x10^11 and 1x10^12. So the first has an order of magnitude of 11 and the second 12.
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The 60 billion from the EU is just financial aid, there is also 47b in military aid.
Your point still stands but European aid isn't as low as just 60 billion.
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