Tax dollars tossed into the sky

Twelve miles south of Sen. JD Vance’s (R-Ohio) birthplace of Middletown, Ohio, is a place where billions of taxpayer dollars sailed virtually into the clear blue sky for more than 50 years. That place is the Voice of America’s Bethany Relay Station, an array of short-wave antennas that beamed radio signals to overseas listeners, first to Nazi Germany and then to captive nations behind the Iron Curtain.

Voice of America (VOA) first aired just 79 days after the United States reluctantly entered World War II, a struggle that exacted an untold price in blood and treasure. In effect, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan forced America to drain resources that could have better been used at home. “At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States government had no international broadcasting facilities, or any real interest in reaching out to the world by radio,” technology writer James E. O’Neal wrote in a 2008 piece for Radio World magazine. “In sharp contrast, [Adolf] Hitler and Hirohito had been keeping busy, spreading their version of the facts to anyone within reach of a shortwave set.” The Nazi dictator took notice of the American broadcasts. Referencing Bethany, which is situated just north of Ohio’s Queen City, Hitler denounced VOA as “The Cincinnati Liars.”

The Cold War continued to divert American resources to the tune of an estimated $25 trillion (in 2023 dollars) over 50 years for the military, arms, intelligence, foreign aid, proxy wars, diplomacy and soft power to contain Moscow. Over the years, billions were spent on the Voice even as the USSR spent even more on antennas across 11 time zones to jam its signals.

Bethany was closed in 1994 when satellite TV and the internet made shortwave broadcasting obsolete. But if we had it to do over again, would Vance choose to shut down or even build Bethany? One of his isolationist predecessors, Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, was an outspoken opponent of America’s entry into World War II. What would have happened had isolationists prevailed? Political analyst George Weigel speculated in a 2022 article in First Things, a magazine published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life: “There is no Lend-Lease Act and no surreptitious American convoying of merchant ships to Great Britain. There is no draft, and the U.S. Army is effectively dismantled. There is no American embargo on the export of oil and other raw materials to Japan, there is no reinforcement of the Philippines, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet remains based in San Diego rather than Pearl Harbor. The United States has chosen not to enter the world war then underway, imagining that American freedom can co-exist with a Nazi-dominated Europe and a Japanese-dominated Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Similarly, after the defeat of France in June 1940, Great Britain could have chosen to accept Hitler’s offer of a negotiated peace that preserved the British Empire while giving Germany a free hand in continental Europe.”

Vance’s immediate predecessor, retired GOP Sen. Rob Portman, put it more succinctly at the Cleveland City Club on Nov. 17, 2023: “Remember — during World War II, we almost didn’t join. What if we hadn’t? The world would be a very different place. Everybody in Europe would be speaking German.”

Nazi Germany was defeated not only by U.S. and Allied forces but ironically, by one of the war’s initial belligerents, the Soviet Union. As the Nazi secret police, Gestapo, was dismantled and its leaders executed, its Soviet counterpart set up shop across Central and Eastern Europe. One of the agents in the KGB Dresden office, Vladimir Putin, is now president of the Russian Federation, successor to the USSR. Putin has called the demise of the Soviet Union “the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century.” Significantly, he does not lament the collapse of communism, but of the Russian Empire. In another irony, all but state media in Russia are blocked and the Kremlin uses modern technology and American press freedoms to spread disinformation in the United States.

Aid to Ukraine is expensive. No doubt. But the Cold War exacted multiples of the estimated $70 billion that the United States has so far provided Ukraine. Do Vance and like-minded legislators believe there is no risk of Russia revisiting the Cold War and foisting on us even greater annual outlays for decades to come? If there is any risk, how much? Will assuming a minimal risk for the sake of domestic spending ensure America against Russia’s proven record of exploiting foreign weakness? If Vance’s bet fails, can his children’s generation afford the trillions needed to contain the outright militarism with which the Kremlin is indoctrinating Russian youth? Will Russian autocracy outlast American democracy?

Vance, as an outspoken critic of aid to Ukraine, should care enough about America to inquire why he should care about that nation. If America is to be great again, he must weigh past precedents against future prospects — demographic, financial, strategic and moral. But how can he, if has yet to meet with his constituents in one of America’s largest Ukrainian communities, much less to visit Ukraine with a CODEL? Has he spoken with his predecessor, Portman, who was co-chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus and visited that country 13 times as senator? Bethany might be a good place for Vance to ponder the long-term cost of not funding Ukraine. Portman hails from Cincinnati.

Fedynsky is a retired 34-year veteran of the Voice of America. He served in various capacities, including VOA Moscow Bureau Chief and host of “Window on America,” a weekly Ukrainian Service TV news magazine that has aired nationwide in Ukraine since January 1993.