President Donald Trump is evaluating how far to go to bat for Ukraine. The debate over sending Tomahawk cruise missiles and additional Patriot batteries has sharpened as Russia pounds Ukrainian cities day and night, and as casualty figures climb amid thinning air defenses.
Trump campaigned on a promise to end American spending on Ukraine, and he has largely kept it, channeling support instead through European allies who purchase U.S. weapons and pass them on. Still, he has also clearly warmed up to President Volodymyr Zelensky. At the same time, Kyiv has grown more successful on the battlefield. Trump should thus move to increase support for Ukraine. Doing so would be the joint moral, pragmatic, and strategic decision.
We should not forget that it was Trump, in his first term, who approved the transfer of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. That was before the war, but after the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014. In contrast, the Obama administration had spent two years dithering over whether to send lethal aid. The weapons Trump delivered proved crucial in the war’s opening days, when Ukrainian units shredded the Russian armored columns rolling toward Kyiv. Extending more help now would continue Trump’s initial policy rather than reverse it.
Some measures of military support would be easier than others. Facing Russian and North Korean missile onslaughts against Ukrainian civilians, the U.S. should provide more offensive weapons to Ukraine. On the flip side, providing Patriot air defense munitions poses a more complicated choice. Those weapons have been heavily depleted in Iran, and the U.S. must reconstitute these stocks in deterrence of China. That reconstitution should be pursued on a war-footing approach, maximizing speed and production.
Still, the top line is clear: Limited U.S. military aid to Ukraine consumes a modest slice of American resources while grinding down the armed forces of one of Washington’s chief strategic challengers. The dividends are already visible far beyond Ukraine. In Syria, Russia finds itself on its back foot, its influence collapsing alongside the regime it once propped up. In Venezuela, Moscow’s capacity to project power and shield its clients has also withered. Same with Cuba. A Russia bogged down and bled in Ukraine is a Russia with shrinking reach everywhere else, and Ukraine has delivered this outcome at the cost of American dollars rather than American lives. This ranks among the highest yield national security investments available to any White House. Much of the money cycles back through American production lines, in any case.
Beyond the balance sheet lies the question of deterrence, where the stakes stretch well past Europe.
China, Iran, and North Korea are all looking at whether Washington has the lasting political will to support partners under attack. A Ukraine that holds firm will signal that aggression carries added risks. In contrast, if Russia prevails, it will emerge from this war stronger and more emboldened, and with a bigger appetite on NATO’s doorstep. That would make an adversary far costlier to contain later than to check now. America’s other adversaries will also sense that American resolve has faltered.
The moral dimension of supporting Ukraine should also not be ignored. Russia has assaulted a smaller neighbor that rejects absorption into Moscow’s imperial project, a neighbor with a long memory of genocide and mass murder directed from the Kremlin. Few conflicts present themselves in such stark relief. This is a story of good and evil, and Ukraine stands on the side of freedom and liberty. Standing behind people defending their home is the right thing to do.
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Presidents are remembered for the decisions they make at moments of consequence.
Trump armed Ukraine when others hesitated. The question now is whether he will do so again when the stakes are higher and the case stronger. Standing on the right side at the hour of Europe’s largest war in generations will shape how history remembers this president.