AI was supposed to replace juniors and then climb up the ladder with each new release, eventually leaving any work only for the creme of the crop. Which would make the current generation of software engineers the last, but who cares - stocks go up.
Now apparently we've switched to pairing poor kids with an agreeable digital moron that reads and types real fast and expecting them to somehow get good at the job. Stocks still go up, so I guess we'll be doing this for a while.
Corruption of power is an inherent property of power. It is expected that people in power will get corrupted. The methods of power grabs are also fairly universal.
The difference between a corrupt shithole and free world is not in what the government tries to do, but in how the governed respond.
US gets to decide how at least half the fund gets spent, so it's US businesses who get the investment and eventually reap the profits. Ukraine obviously doesn't have the cash to give back and it will never have any without reconstruction. This is one way US gets anything at all back at a pace it has any control over.
But you are correct that without security guarantees there will be no development, no reconstruction, no investments. The deal just does nothing.
The only part of you post that can be steelmanned into what can be considered an argument is "NATO expansion". And that argument falls apart if you actually think and explore it for like 15 minutes. Like, what is NATO and its purpose, how does "expansion" actually work in terms of process, what events took place on the continent between 90s and new NATO members joining, what else could have compelled parties to go through the process and how durable that would be?
And then the rest of your "question" is straight up factually false.
Now apparently we've switched to pairing poor kids with an agreeable digital moron that reads and types real fast and expecting them to somehow get good at the job. Stocks still go up, so I guess we'll be doing this for a while.