I think the heart of the matter that I haven’t seen discussed yet is: Who’s going to pay for it? The current administration is cutting expenses across the board. There’s a lot of talk about the deficit and defense spending. I don’t see much appetite in the US to keep sending blank checks to Ukraine. Hence, the minerals deal: this was to recoup costs.

Of course, it would be great if defending democracy was free. However, with politicians already talking about cutting Medicaid spending, it was only a matter of time until defense spending came under scrutiny