How much is Ukraine really costing us?

[YNOTAZ]

I live on the West side near a Luke AFB flight path. Yesterday, Luke used a different flight path down skunk creek very near my house, F35s are loud, so I paid attention. While we are arguing over funding the war in Ukraine, we are training Ukrainian pilots to fly F16s here at Luke AFB. OK, so I started to think, we are overtly sending Billions of dollars to Ukraine that we know about. but let’s look at the following, that we’re not being told.

The Ukrainian F16 trainees are flying against F35 out of Luke.

Yesterday, ignoring the F16s:

11 flights, each a pair of F35s or 22 sorties,

Assume 1 hour of flight time (probably more but make the math easier)

22 flight hours @ $42,000 per hour to operate an F35 = $924,000

So, on top of the billions being sent to Ukraine that we know about, we pissed away almost $1 million, just yesterday, not counting the paltry $22,000 per hour to operate our F16s that the Ukrainian trainees are flying. This all comes out of our military budget and when it’s taken from that big bucket it’s not accounted for and we’re not told about it. Is that the only additional cost?

Once again, we are getting screwed without even knowing it.

 

[Suck My Glock]

The ultimate question in this mental exercise of cost analysis is not "what is it costing us now", but "what will it cost us later if we don't do this?"

I argue that the greater costs of having to deal with a Russia we allow to win is soooooooo much more than we are currently spending on this. Yes, it sucks. But it will eventually suck much more if we don't think forward.

 

[Dauph]

How much is laundered to your accounts :lol:
Kidding SMG

 

[Half Cocked]

The ultimate question in this mental exercise of cost analysis is not "what is it costing us now", but "what will it cost us later if we don't do this?"

I argue that the greater costs of having to deal with a Russia we allow to win is soooooooo much more than we are currently spending on this. Yes, it sucks. But it will eventually suck much more if we don't think forward.

This is true. F-16s are old technology and being replaced by F-35s. We are sending ZERO F-16s to Ukraine but are providing flight training for Ukrainian pilots.

Most of the hardware that we have sent to Ukraine is older, unused equipment that has been in storage. We have been essentially going through our closets and sending the stuff that we don't want anymore to Ukraine. There are storage/maintenance costs as well as eventual costs to demil this old equipment that should be considered. As it turns out, the Ukrainians can use our old hardware to good effect and, in some cases, it is as good as if not better than the Russian/Soviet junk.

 

[Old Jeff H]

I noticed the different flightpath yesterday as well. They are loud!

 

[YNOTAZ]

The ultimate question in this mental exercise of cost analysis is not "what is it costing us now", but "what will it cost us later if we don't do this?"

What you didn't consider in the equation are two points:

1: every penny we send to Ukraine is increasing our debt to China and funding their military being built to confront us.

2: Ignore a part of #1 above because Biden and his entire regime are using Ukraine as a huge laundromat to funnel 10% (or more) to the big guy's coffers. If he loses the 2024 election, they will drift off to buy an island, somewhere.

We currently have a national debt of $250K per US taxpayer and we have no idea what we are spending to fund this war (my original point).