Austerity will be the Death of Ukraine

Image courtesy: President of Ukraine via Flickr

As we enter the 10th year of fighting, with more than one million people killed or injured, the situation in Ukraine looks bleak. A meat grinder, reminiscent of a bygone era of trench warfare not seen in Europe since the first world war, where the young men and women of both countries are poured by the dozen into an endless abyss of mud and blood with little end in sight.

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the West (which had already been providing weapons, ammunition, vehicles and training troops) massively ramped up their support. The first year of the Biden presidency saw the US give roughly $200 Million in military assistance and in the 3 years since the invasion the total now stands at over $30 Billion, a more than 50-fold increase.

With over 1.3 million less fighting personnel, 1/3 of the base to recruit from and now on average the oldest military in the world (with an average age of 43), it seems Ukraine is now entirely dependent on western military assistance in order to maintain their ability to fight.

The rise of the far-right in the US and Europe came in response to the failure of liberal centrism to properly address falling living standards, rising inequality, and the collapse of the welfare state in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. After COVID-19 came a brief respite, where establishment politicians all over the west came back to defeat the populist right, but did nothing with their power.

During the 2024 UK general election, the apathy was tangible, with Labour winning a record number of seats, on a record low number of votes. The new government has returned to the business-as-usual austerity politics that ushered in the rise of anti-establishment forces all over the west. While people's lives get very marginally better (or more often worse), the rich get richer, public services continue to crumble, massive corporations continue to dominate all aspects of our political life and the desperate lashing out of those with nothing to lose simmers just below the surface.

The far-right in the US and Europe cozy up to Putin, admiring his ultranationalism and rejection of progressive social values. In Germany the far right AFD, who currently sit 2nd in the polls, have pledged to halt military aid to Ukraine, and in the US, Trump has said he will end the war “in 24 hours”. With only the US having significant leverage over Ukraine, it seems Trump may try to force a disadvantageous end to the war onto them, that they will reject.

If, for whatever reason, the war drags on and Trump is unable to broker an end to the bloodshed, then Ukraine will be left completely reliant on the west, especially Europe, for arms and support.

The current liberal-centrist narrative espoused by Ukraine’s biggest European supporters is an entirely unsustainable one of austerity economics at home, but a blank cheque for military spending and aid to Ukraine.

Liberals in western Europe want to try to close the pandora’s box of government spending that we saw in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. If we can move heaven and earth to pay everyone’s salary for months, then why can’t we invest properly in our health and education systems? Why do we have to be ripped off by private water and energy companies that desecrate our environment and take-home billions for their investors? Why can’t we build more council housing, cap rents, abolish tuition fees and raise the minimum wage? Why are these unrealistic fantasies, but spending billions to kill people hundreds of miles away is sensible?

No one buys this narrative, and they leave themselves wide open to attacks from all sides when they use it. In this, the centre cannot hold. If liberals want to continue supporting Ukraine, then they need to open the spending taps and end their outdated austerity dogma that will push millions more into the hands of the far-right.

Unless Liberal governments can re embrace the left and implement real radical change, then the far-right will return to power, snuffing out any possibility for an independent Ukraine.