Germany is unlocking billions to supercharge its military at a seismic moment
cnn.com
cnn.com
Odd, though, that when the phrase "the Germans are rearming" pops up the French and British are notably calm.
Germany must be having a spontaneously explosion of defense competence, just in the nick of time. We're going to see tangible results regardless of obsticles in the near future, I'll hold my breath for it.
Since the USA and companies based there are no longer reliable partners, Europe will stand alone in the future. This means that France and Germany are working together on a joint nuclear defense shield to ensure Europe's security and strengthen NATO's eastern borders.
Problem for the military is that money doesn't buy soldiers anymore for the most part and very few like to pursue a military career.
No, the money is definitely not meant for social programs, neither for affordable housing.
On the contrary, the debt brake was introduced to justify cutting social spending after the 2008 banking crash.
Social spending is still limited, debt financed military spending however is unlimited.
The money will go into fortifying bridges, roads for Truppentransporte, programs to protect civilians from disasters, emergencies, and armed conflicts. Military Keynesianism.
The political class is now debating ways to increase pressure on the population.. higher VAT, deregulate working hours, dropping public holidays, re-activate mandatory military service etc.
Could you share links to those discussions?
Going into debt for*
Next big buyers of German debt are individual European banks (members of the cartel) and pension funds (also known in Wall Street as “Dumb money”).
https://www.cfr.org/blog/first-time-us-spending-more-debt-in...
As I said, it is a "mystery of history" ... /g
The words would have been different if the proposal came from the political opposition.
Since that's going to be cut back Germany and to a lesser degree France are the only countries left to take up the slack.
I don't have a really strong opinion either way in terms of what's happening in the US or in Europe, but the argument claiming that there's no real reason to spend money on the military seem pretty disingenuous re. Russia.
What's the real chances that Russia would do something like a land invasion of Europe? Really, really small.... But military spending is the thing helping keep those chances very small.
The much more likely scenario that Europeans are wanting to prevent is a limited invasion in the Baltics or Balkans in order to politically divide and damage western democracies.
Imperialist Russia is in its final throws prior to becoming "a normal country," like the rest of Europe. From the European point of view, keeping those insane throws to a minimum is worth every penny, both in human and economic costs.
That is about as likely as "they're not going to invade" -- the guys picking up the piece after Putin look to be as, maybe even more, hardline and aggressive.
There is a reason someone tried to assassinate Dugin.
History shows that some of the worst actors in geopolitical history, Germany, Belgium, etc... can all become "normal countries" really quickly after they lose their final imperial war. Losing that last war was when the imperialist lunatics in their respective countries finally lost influence. It's very counterintuitive, but losing that last war is the key to long term success for most countries.
I guess you are thinking of the more western bits of Europe or the bits that are in NATO but there isn't really a fundamental boundary.
That seems to be a bit of a flaw in the current 'peace negotiations' - Putin just wants a deal to carve up Ukraine agreed with the US and not involving Europe or the Ukranians but I'm not sure they are ok with that.
Remember, part of being in NATO is the requirement to spend a % of your GDP on your own military, which the US will do regardless.
I wish that the USA did better on taking care of people, (because it sucks right now) but some on the left act as if there are no consequences to deciding to implement these things.
In my experience working with some former European entrepreneurs, the startup problem isn’t really directly related to anything about social democracy or safety nets or even taxes.
They talked about how difficult, painful, and risky it was for them to start and operate a company at every turn. Even things like bankruptcy and allowing founders to move on with their lives if their startup fails, which we take for granted here, are not a given in European countries.
It’s not just the government to blame. The private banking and even societal norms are very different in ways that we don’t even consider in the United States.
The US is very friendly to funding and building startups. I didn’t appreciate it until talking to ex-founders from various European countries as well as many founders here who explicitly left EU countries for America because they wanted to start a company.
I agree that it's not as simple as "regulation" and "taxes"- it's more fundamental than that.
Which is why I think it'll so so hard for the USA to implement a fair social health care system, even though it needs one so badly.
Elitism / classism might be part the reason why social democracy is possible- if you believe that there are simply a group of people who need help in society you might be more willing to give to them.
If everyone is completely equal it might seem like no one actually deserves anything "more" than anyone else.
It's most likely an artifact of smaller, less liquid capital pools and the fact that the US is a really easy large market to tap into, leading to European startups investing into the US market in preference to their own.
If the country were any bigger the domestic market becomes the defacto, limiting growth....
Also, if you are referring to Hitler's and Napoleon's failed campaigns on Russia, it's important to mention that those were fighting wars of aggression on multiple fronts against their European neighbors. It was not a united EU propping up defenses against real threats.
So while the left and center of the US largely views this whole saga as a catastrophic loss of the US brand and foreign policy aims, this kind of rearmament is exactly what Trump promised his base he'd make happen.
"We have a lot of leverage, and even if we don't, then we don't have to pay to be the worlds police" - is largely how I (also a european) have seen Trumps actions.
The "issue", is that this is a populist take.
It's weirdly not in Americas interest to take that stance, because they are a defacto world government with the amount of soft power they are able to exert, militarily and in trade.
So, the GP is quite right, people are waking up to the idea that this soft power was running kinda deep and we shouldn't just allow ourselves to get soft too.
Just like an insurance company will find a way not to pay: the US may never have actually come to the aid of Europe; and nobody thought about that, they just accepted most of what the US was asking in the hope that they would.
The lesson will be painful in the short-term, but I'm also hopeful that we take it seriously and start investing in ourselves.
If they can't trust us not to break our previous promises, why in the world would they trust us with their national security-critical business?
You really expect EU to stay friendly with the US when it is an active threat to its integrity?
We do not have to protect you forever, and us forcing you to step up military spending to comply with the UN mandates as there is an active war on your doorstep? Ensuring equal tarrifs from both sides?
I don't know why the US taking itself off massively taxing it's citizens and increasing government revenue through tarrifs, is called a "Trade war".
People seem to be so reliant on the US that the slightest sign that we aren't going to continue to hand out everything, people start getting hysterical.
Annexation of Greenland. It is part of Denmark as of now, even if it is not exactly a part of EU. The fact that you don't even seem to know that shows that you sre either arguing in bad faith or is ill informed.
> We do not have to protect you forever
Then leave. This arrangement benefits primarily the US.
> I don't know why the US taking itself off massively taxing it's citizens and increasing government revenue through tarrifs, is called a "Trade war".
You don't seem to understand how tariffs work either. Honestly, having this conversation with you is a waste of time.
> People seem to be so reliant on the US
Pehaps not anymore. We shall see. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
The thing is that I never expected the US to just willingly throw away what I (and many others) perceived to be its actual greatest source of strength. The US had built, along with its impressive military, an equally impressive web of friendly nations that allowed it to project its power to a degree that was impossible to match. Even in a world where China kept rising, they would have trouble to compete with the US in this field, because the window of opportunity to build this was like 70 years ago.
China was trying for the next best thing, wooing countries in Africa and Latin America to slowly build a web of friendly nations of its own. Not the same, if you ask me.
That the US would freely squander all their multi-decades investments in a matter of months was unthinkable.
I personally enjoy what is happening. As someone that lives in an EU country, I thought the EU needed this kind of nudge to further integrate, and the US influence always irked me. I am cautiously optimistic for the next few years here.
It's a catastrophic loss of influence. It's a good thing for Europe but terrible for the US. I think that Trump will end up fulfilling his promise is co-incidental. Trump's a lose cannon who's alienated all of America's friends, that he achieved some relatively minor goal is like being proud of losing weight because you have cancer.
Europe has a chance here to become a political superpower, strongly eroding the US centric world view and having influence though something other than brute force of money or military power, which is what China and US are trying to project.
Also, military spending can be reduced by reducing military costs in the USA. Wait until DOGE gets it's scalpel on the Pentagon's budget: likely much can be saved there.
Remember Eisenhower's warning about the "military-industrial complex"
https://www.bing.com/search?form=MOZLBR&pc=MOZI&q=military+i...
The defense industry has run rampant since long before Eisenhower's presidency. Trump is likely to make some serious cuts in the defense budget, deeper than we've seen in decades.
This suggests a cautious, surgical approach. So far DOGE seems to be wielding a chainsaw instead.
The US defense budget is around $850 billion.
Depending on the year you look at, the US defense budget is larger than around 7-9 of the next largest budgets from other countries combined.
If you add up all of the countries in the world, the global total is around $2.5 trillion. The United States makes up 1/3rd of that.
The US defense budget also hasn’t been a target for cuts, which is a topic of debate.
So while there’s a lot of headlines being made about other countries increasing their defense spending, the numbers are closer to a rounding error in the US defense budget than a massive global power shift. People scoff at the idea of the US being a global military powerhouse because they don’t like the idea, but the bottom line is that when you look at the numbers there really is a reason that the US military is so important, and it comes down to sheer size and spending.
Also it's not fair to compare the US to Germany. The US compared to the combined EU spending is more of a fair comparison.
US spending is 1/3 of the entire global spending.
US spending is higher than the next ~9 countries’ budgets combined
I only included Germany because that’s what this article is about.
A country with less of this cost disease could probably be competitive with 1/4 the spend or less, especially if they skip big heavy Cold War era tech in favor of faster cheaper stuff like drones and smart munitions. Aircraft carriers and manned fighters look cool but I’m not sure how much they matter anymore.
What I see from the EU is that while they do also have cost disease, it might not be as entrenched in that sector. They also have Russia directly adjacent to them, which motivates people to actually care.
If Mexico were belligerent with a history of imperialism, had nuclear weapons and a huge army, and had just invaded and taken Cuba, we’d be in a similar situation and similarly motivated. As it stands we have a “big beautiful ocean” between us and Russia and do not face a direct threat. The US is almost uninvadeable unless you sterilized it with nukes first, and we have those too.
The US and European defence markets are very different. USA has a larger pie, but it's also very fragmented. More fragmented means more contractors and subs, which keep adding more layers of pricing into the contract. European defence is more consolidated - you have the few big players who get all the contracts, so there's very little room for new entrants to come in but that also means less layers to work with. This makes the final product less expensive compared to the American ones, at the cost of fewer specialized features added in by niche contractors. That's in part due to the nature of the militaries too - the American military will request frequent changes and new features to new battle conditions on the go, to the point of making your product the equivalent of military SAP - very flexible and usable for any battlefield situation, but also very bloated to develop and operate. On the other hand, European military contracts are usually relatively static in comparison, which means that the burden of knowledge acquisition and operating under different situations falls on the operator and not the technology itself. The last bit is also what translates into budgeting - American products are delivered with significant delays and higher costs due to back-and-forth bureaucracy internally, while European products can be delivered sooner if there is a pressure to deliver - like if the customer is a priority customer who has paid significantly upfront (read, Arab militaries).
I would argue that the US military sector is artificially inflated, because it's a significant jobs programme for the huge network of firms, contractors and subcontractors. In a way, it's a military budget that's adjusted for the economy size and not for the actual needs of the military. That lets the US military also fund a ton of whacky pioneering technology that's at the forefront of the innovation (like the internet, or drones, or even social media manipulation), but it also leaks a lot of money through the cracks for ostensibly results that are only marginally better than European countries with comparable militaries such as the UK and France.
That being said, it's much easier and more lucrative to start up in the US than anywhere else, at least till now. Second would be the UK, although with their exclusion from the recent European defence loans programme, that's questionable now. France is increasingly pulling its weight now, and I'm expecting a lot of growth here. The French government has been exceedingly friendly for miltech companies for a while now.
I honestly feel that US military money is thrown around like you said in such a fragmented way, that I can't imagine other countries NOT being an order of magnitude more efficient. It kind of reminds me of our healthcare spending and how much we spend but for such little ROI compared to other developed countries.
I can. I imagine that, while the US military bureaucracy is horrible, it is not uniquely horrible. Other countries have bureaucracies, too, and they are not an order of magnitude better than the US ones.
Or so I imagine. I confess that I have no first-hand experience with non-US military R&D bureaucracies.
Why do people believe it would it be an economically good decision to buy land and build houses in Germany, a place with negative GDP, no long term energy independence solution except for returning to coal, sharp curtailments on basic free speech, press, and assembly, and a massive military build-up which will require high levels of debt, cutting social spending, or both?
Is it more about a question of national feeling and patriotism and the details aren't as important as the national pride, or is there an underlying economic analysis? It's also possible that Germany will simply deindustrialize, financialize, do debt-based stimulus, and accelerate the pace of mass migration further, which would indeed be good for home prices for remote owners who continue to live abroad.
Free speech is different in Germany than the US, that doesn't mean we don't have free speech in Germany. The US doesn't have the one and only true definition of free speech. And right now Trump is assaulting free speech in the US, so those lectures from Vance and others are just blatant, partisan rethoric.
We're not returning to coal. The economy could be better, but it's not as terrible as you imply.
Germany returning to coal would be a bitter pill to swallow, but insisting that Germany will remain competitive despite much higher energy costs which only get worse with scale by saying "it's not that bad" is not convincing.
Free speech, free press, and free assembly is under another round of attacks many places, including Germany, The United States, Russia, Israel, and Turkey, among others. Some are relatively better than others and some had very little left to fall, but all are in absolute decline.
As I'm in favor of free speech as a universal value and not an apologist for anyone's domestic authoritarianism, I don't consider the hypocrisy of the speaker to be a good justification to sweep aside mutually unflattering facts about state policy.
Impossible. Net zero was put at constitutional level to get the necessary votes from the greens. (And they were losing that voting power in the elected congress)
But, that is bad news for freedom if everybody else, so.
Germany seems like a better country to live in for most people. Plus, affordable Healthcare system and public education system.
Are you saying FIRE is teutonphobic and the report is false, that those were all irish nazis engaging in terrorist plots, or that immigrants should have fewer rights to speech than citizens?
So 99% of them probably don't care about this particular thing. They care about abortion, or "corruption", or welfare queens, or something else.
They have no idea the entire point of this exercise is to gut our public infrastructure so they can give hand-outs to their cronies companies to do the exact same job, but more expensive.
Most Americans who voted for this (and to some extent their representatives) genuinely and seriously do not think about this matter with any depth and don’t care about the knock-on effects one bit.
They lack any desire to know if the world would be screwed or not by US actions. They really just don’t care.
They (think that they) want isolationism, less trade, less immigration, less interacting with others.
This isn’t hubris — it’s simply ignorance.
Now? After spending billions funding Putin’s war with gas money. Especially after watching him annex Crimea in 2014, or taking Ukraine’s NATO’s membership off the table after Bucharest summit.
Now they finally see how dangerous he is! Better later than never I guess…
In perverse way they are also doing Trump’s bidding who chastised them for not investing enough in defense.
Are we expecting them to re-litigate this problem until the end of time instead of addressing the problem?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bucharest_summit
> The Alliance did not offer a Membership Action Plan to Georgia or Ukraine, largely due to the opposition of Germany
US govt warned Merkel to wind down purchasing gas and oil from Putin:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/trump-scolded-germany-for...
Currently as it stands for all great chest thumping for "supporting Ukraine" EU as a whole is spending more money funding the war by buying gas and oil from the Russian than helping Ukraine. But somehow in the media domain, they managed to position themselves as great friends and supporters of Ukraine. It's quite baffling.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/03/europe-russia-ukraine-w...
I dont pretend to understand it but I also dont think you should minimize it to just one or two transactions.
Nobody can predict the future when thinking about international politics. We cannot apply human level rules to interaction between countries.
I think no matter how complicated when it comes to regular citizens, not those who have a political science degree, there should be some basic understanding. One doesn't need an advanced degree to see things things like hypocrisy, corruption and lies.
One would expect that when a politician goes on camera and says "Putin is a killer! We support Ukraine" then turns around and writes $1B to Putin every month, people would be a bit dismayed at the hypocrisy. Especially when they got a fair warning about it. One might suggest that we hide the fact that we supported Putin and strengthened the dependence on Russian energy for so long in order not upset the public too much as it's too controversial and disturbs the peace, sure. However, at some point that made-up fantasy has to collide with reality, and that's what is happening now I think. The longer we live in a fantasy world the harder the crash with reality will be later on.
This is Germany/Bundeswehr we're talking about. They already decided on 100 billion after the Russian attack in 2022, a plan that didn't really pan out. The Bundeswehr is famous for its overspending, backwards/lazy ethics, rampant right-wing/neonazi ties. German, and let's be honest, EU government is - even now - in "play it safe" mode, not even big on words, even less on actions. They fumbled virtually every crisis since the 2000s. They let Orban/Putin puppets run rampant and veto most of the botched little help they provided, and still think he can be reasoned with after 15 years. They thought the same of Russia right up the second until a full scale invasion of Ukraine, 8 years after it started to attack it.
Europe is just hopelessly fractured, with no identity, hazy goals and an increasingly degrading economical power. I wish it weren't so, but we didn't manage to unite the forces of these 27 nations beyond some superficial economical agreements.
I'm afraid humanity is blowing it for good with this.
Solar won and it’s the storage of cheaply generated power than now needs maximum investment and support.
Nuclear continues to be discussed mainly because it reverses the decentralisation of energy reliance that’s occurring as solar spreads.
The costs of remaining at +2C are several orders of magnitude higher than going back to +1C.
And in all cases the most impacted ones due to climate change effects or climate change fight expenses are the ones at the bottom.
Yay for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis !
[1] https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/covid-lockdown-caus...
I understand the political necessity of setting a concrete 1.5 degC warming target and messaging it as an all-or-nothing kind of goal, but “we missed it” isn’t an absolute. It’s not the line between “hellfire and brimstone” and “salvation”: there’s still a range of outcomes and behavior still matters.
The fatalism strikes me as counterproductive and paralyzing: people can and will continue to try to survive, even if there are wildfires now, or hurricanes, or heat waves, or worse. Better, it seems to me, to focus on what actually is changing, how people are responding, and how to mitigate and adapt.
1- in 2008 the invasion of Georgia
2- in 2014 the first invasion of Ukraine
3- in 2016 the shift in American politics and its disinterest in Europe
then a small re-militarization would have been more than enough to avoid the second invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and all what has unfolded.
Instead, Europe is now fighting for its survival and is reacting rather than acting - in such desperate times, climate change can wait ...
What makes you think this hyperbole is true or useful?
The EU is explicitly called out as an enemy of Russia and America by its ruling parties’ elites.
The current US president already threatened annexation of Greenland, which is a Danish territory, not to mention the ongoing trade war.
There's no hyperbole there.
Delaying was a reasonable choice given the information at the time, hoping that Putin was not a moron and that he would not take control of the US. They are reacting adequately, at a deliberate but not reckless pace, in response to the new information.
From what? There's no serious indication of a russian threat to invade western europe.
> climate change can wait
That's actually the exact opposite of the truth. Like "rust never sleeps", neither does any other ongoing chemical process. Climate change will keep on chugging 24/7 and receive exactly the amount of productive attention it's already received, which is none. Every effort by equity since the broad awareness of this reality has been to obstruct any action that would disrupt current revenue streams.
Any educated, and even marginally objective person cannot deny the ongoing disaster of human environmental devastation in all forms, and it's ever increasing impact on all human activity.
However all major investors in the status quo are also clear on another fact: they're old enough to be dead before the worst of the consequences come to bear. So they advocate burning it down for profit today, and fuck the future.
I'm also old enough to not have to face to worst of it, but I actually feel we should steward our environment, not just burn it down for this quarters returns.
All of this is in addition to the reality that peace is more economically productive, and war is just one big murderous disaster. The use of military force through the so called cold war, and into the present, has left us with these festering military operations that are depriving all of us from a peaceful and productive life, and for what? So some hyper-rich asshole can have more. That's what "glory of god and country" is all about. Getting the idiot herd to dismember itself to see which ruling class asshat gets more stuff.
The current US president threates to annex Greenland. This would be an act of war. EU has to be able to defend itself.
As for the rest of your comment, I think at this point climate change is a secondary concern, when you need to stand up to threats from east and west.
Well, either you are not following the openly stated intentions of the Russians or you are not taking them seriously. The former would be sheer ignorance, the latter would be a grave mistake.
The same was said of Ukraine. It made no sense, people thought Putin wouldn't be so self destructive, but here we are.
Given the stakes and consequences of being wrong, Europe is doing the right thing. Even a 5% chance of Putin invading Europe is worth buying an insurance policy for, given that Europe's existing policy has proved worthless.
> All of this is in addition to the reality that peace is more economically productive, and war is just one big murderous disaster.
You make it sound like war is a choice one makes, and that laying down arms, appeasement or surrender is a solution. It's been proved time and again that that just leads to more war.
1- I believe that Americans overall, whether left or right, let alone far right, can't disagree with that statement - that Europe doesn't (didn't) take its security seriously and Americans don't want to be involved anymore
2- Europeans? I don't know, maybe some still live in their bubble and all is good? Reading some of the comments, I can see such people but that's certainly surprising to see a majority
3- And then the rest of the world ... the ROTW doesn't care much about what's happening in Europe, and climate change is the least of many people's problems.
Ironically, Hitler wanted to establish a third Reich - basically a new Roman empire that spanned all of... Europe. Funny how these things goes. Old wine in new bottles.
So, it is nor like there would be another choice.
German is at least teaching about own atrocities as about atrocities. Other countries have massively bigger problem to admit their past might have been ugly.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/01/31/g...
https://rmc.bfmtv.com/actualites/international/on-l-a-fait-e...
The historical german inability to correctly read geopolitical currents, anticipate their domestic dynamics, or understand international perceptions of Germany seems to be intact. It's true that The Atlantic Council and other US cultural-state entities aren't making it easier, but this is egregious.
No one looks to Germany for leadership on rule of law, or human rights, least of all Germans.
Your last link is about AfD being supported by Elon Musk. And second about other parties not wanting to cooperate with AfD - and while fascism is up everywhere, in America there is basically no functional opposition.
I know exactly what's in the links, what I don't know is why you believe it's logical to assume that every other human being must be a cheerleader for one group of corrupt authoritarians or another. Supporting either government as such is shameful and your descendants will be as ashamed of you as you are of yours.
A world war will not be the result of the militarization, just like it wasn't a result of the militarization Britain undertook after the 1938 Munich crisis.
Isn't the opposite actually the case? Hegseth has called it a "division of labor." [0]
Ultimately when war breaks out with China, and a year in to that conflagration Russia (ever the opportunist) decides to take a few bites out of the Baltic states, who's going to defend Europe? The US military isn't omnipotent.
[0] https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/%204064...
The opposite? You mean, the United States is increasing its integration with and support for its allies in the global conflict against the aggression of the Russian-centered alignment?
No, that's 100% not what is happening.
> Hegseth has called it a "division of labor."
Probably a lot more useful to look at concrete policy actions than Hegseth’s vague, content-free characterizations.
And it concrete reality, the US is cutting support for those who have been on the same side as it has, in some cases threatening them with violence and annexation, and provide aid and comfort to the aggressor that is the opponent that it had been working with others to defend against.
No, you're confusing wishful thinking fantasy justifications with concrete reality of actions and material effects.
> if you think the US can upend 70 years of foreign policy in the blink of an eye and without a fight, you can believe anything.
If you think it can't do that at the whim of the President (with or without a fight, since no opponent can win that fight), especially after a massive purge of the military leadership, you have an even more exaggerated fantasy view of the power of the "deep state" than even the paranoid fantasies -- that those presenting them don't even believe -- used as a pretext for the purge.
Yes, radical breaks in policy are possible, and the Trump Administration has been doing them in virtually every domain.
Fear of Russia in Germany is pure hysteria.
Russia is also paranoid, but at least it has historical reasons.
Based on what data? Or is this just speculation as usual?
But this is similar to what other expert say, that the more concerning weak point in NATO is political. And if Russia could successfully drive a wedge between the NATO states it becomes vulnerable even if the total conventional military of its members is superior to Russian forces.
I don't understand why don't we talk more about achieving that, instead of blindly preparing for WWIII. NATO shouldn't even exist since the URSS collapsed.
From a game theory point of view how is that supposed to bring peace? That just shows Russia that they can do whatever they want and reach their goals. We already had the Minsk agreement Russia violated. Why should Russia stop when we give in to their demands? What‘s the logic there?
At some point you have to show strength. And earlier is probably better if you want to prevent WWIII
Sure, EU combined already spends three times as much as Russia in "showing strength". I'm sure there must be a way to use what we have without tripling the expense. If nothing, because showing that we need 10 times their military expense to keep up with them would only show that we are in fact weaker.
Unless the goal of rearmament is only to make a few weapon manufacturers richer, then I'd say we've found the most efficient way to do it.
I do think that Ukraine is instructive in terms of Russia not being as almighty as they might seem, but in terms of outcome Putin is scary close to achieving practically all of his war aims short of Ukraine ceasing to exist. I learned that Putin is patient. He can take it step by step. He does not value human life. And that’s dangerous.
At great cost to the Russian people, sure, but does Putin care? Another five to ten years and he can give something else a go. And suddenly he is in the Baltcis or at the Polish border.
Sure, EU combined already spends three times as much as Russia in "showing strength". I'm sure there must be a way to use what we have without tripling the expense. If nothing, because if we need 10 times their military expense to keep up with them we'd only show that we are in fact weaker.
We've been friends for decades with the US, Israel, Turkey, and more, after all.
I understand Russia is a bit low in terms of amount of civilians killed, but we could make an exception for them if it avoided WWIII.
They take what they want. They are appeased. A couple years nothing happens. They take what they want. They are appeased … etc.
Invading Ukraine should be a clear warning that Russia will not just stop. For appeasement to end and for Europe to seriously look for viable paths to peace. Not just yearlong pauses in fighting that allow Russia to regain strength. That is not peace.
Also, obviously I hope that this time around it’s not too late to prevent facists from burning Europe to the ground before we can defeat them.
Do you dispute that showing strength is an element to peace? (I’m not talking about killing people or invading other countries. I’m talking about a demonstrated and credible willingness to defend your values and alliances.)
They won the war, the goal was clearly defeating the axis. Did you have a shower today or did you achieve a just and long lasting personal hygiene through water?
You should at least be brave enough to say it like it is: you want to win the war.
The only problem is that this time the enemy has enough nuclear weapons to trigger a new ice age, so you resort to Newspeak.
> Also, obviously I hope that this time around it’s not too late to prevent facists from burning Europe to the ground before we can defeat them.
For how I see it we got them already in the commission and doing all they can to burn the EU to the ground.
Also, there is no need for ad hominem attacks. Contrary to what you might think, they don't actually serve any purpose in putting your point across.
So yesterday and the day before that were rainy, therefore we come to the conclusion that it has to rain tomorrow as well, am I right?
If only we knew a bit more about how the weather works!
> Also, there is no need for ad hominem attacks.
The "unless you are an ignorant" wasn't directed at you, I just used it to make a point.
Except in this scenario it's still raining as we speak. What data do you have that Russia will stop?
> What data do you have that Russia will stop?
I’m not the one suggesting we throw away €800 billion, excuse me for asking why. Still, I'll try to explain.
Russia has lots to lose and nothing to gain from a direct war with NATO. The last thing it needs is more land and resources, so we can exclude that as well. I also genuinely think the cause of this war is Russia feeling threatened by NATO expansion and a civil war on its border, whether you consider that legit or not.
The only reason for Russia to not stop is if we don't allow it, at this point.
And does it really seem like the USA is going to come to the rescue if Russia pushes into the Baltics? Heck at this point they may very well use the distraction to invade Greenland.
So what's the deterrent but for Europe to buy its own umbrella?
We already have an umbrella and it costs 3 times as much as Russia's umbrella, while being much less effective. So before burning another €800 billions Iwish we'd put some effort in finding ways to make our current $450 billions of yearly expense work.
Seriously, if we need 10x Russia's budget to keep up with them we've already lost.
On the other hand, if the ultimate goal isn't to make Europe safer, but just to enrich a bunch of weapon manufacturers, then I'd say this plan works perfectly.
History.
In general, divide and conquer (aka defeat in detail) is an excellent way to test and break the resolve of a military alliance, or a poorly organised but massively overpowering enemy in the aggregate.
Is it really so outlandish to think that Russian irredentism[0] will continue?
Food for thought from 2014(!): https://youtu.be/HLAzeHnNgR8
If we need to spend more than a trillion € to keep up with Russia's measly $145 billions, then we've already lost.
Russia can attack with ten million men armed with knifes and clubs. They will March on, kill and destroy, until they starve to death or someone stops them.
We won't defend by sending twenty million similarity armed persons into the meat grinder. We will want to arm and armour our troops so that there is minimal loss of life and limb.
Russian may attack with chemical weapons, we are not interested in hitting back the same way.
Russia will target hydro dams and other civilian infrastructure with potential for mass destruction. We care about protecting those things to avoid harm to our citizens, Russia does not care.
The conflict is assymetrical on many levels.
This is just baseless propaganda and you know it. What a shame would it be for the west and Ukraine if an army of men armed with clubs was able to stand its ground against them.
> Russia will target hydro dams and other civilian infrastructure with potential for mass destruction. We care about protecting those things to avoid harm to our citizens, Russia does not care.
Of course, just like we did with Iraq's infrastructure[0] for example?
I suggest you use the effort you put in writing such uninformed rethoric in informing yourself, it will pay out at some point.
- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_to_Baghdad_during_the_I...
Now there’s propaganda.
Whataboutism is of course another clear sign. Ironically your example would imply Iraq should have built up its military to defend from such an attack.
Not making excuses for all the wrongs done by US and allies before, during and after the invasion. It was a terrible idea, badly executed. But it didn't come out of nowhere, Saddam had a history of attacking his neighbours, he and his party had it coming.
From retaining most of the historic Russian Empire?!
(Putin 2007 in Munich, Wikipedia)
This is kind of paranoid. But there are historical reasons:
Poland/Lithuania (Władysław), Napoleon, The German Kaiser, Hitler
"The King of Poland, Sigismund III Vasa, declared war on Russia in response in 1609, aiming to gain territorial concessions and to weaken Sweden's ally. Polish forces won many early victories"
"Sigismund's son, Prince Władysław of Poland, was elected tsar of Russia by the Seven Boyars in September 1610, but Sigismund refused to allow his son to become the new tsar unless the Muscovites agreed to convert from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism"
In fact, I don't have an overview of all the wars and carnage in which Russia and neighboring countries were involved.
It should simply come to an end.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Russian_War_(16...
It’s pretty insane to go back 400 years, to a war where none of the pretexts could apply today, and claim that’s a reason to be afraid of NATO.
Take this study[0] as an example: austerity measures in Greece led to 10,000 avoidable infant deaths. Plenty of other studies show similar results, cutting social spending costs lives.
So how many deaths will come from shifting €800 billion from social programs to military budgets?
It’s a sure thing that this will cause suffering and death, while the idea that we need all that money for defense is just speculation, especially when the EU’s combined military budget is already far bigger than Russia’s.
But it is much smaller than the US' military spending, who is at this point a hostile foreign nation.
Right now we have top diplomats like Kallas saying publicly that we need to find a way to beat China, all while we already have problems with Russia and the USA. They are putting us in a corner against the rest of the world, and for what? Who has to benefit from this?
The EU is a democratic institution. Its leaders are elected (or appointed by those who are elected). The way to hold them accountable is during elections.
I don't think that anyone campaigning on a platform to spend money on defense in EU would have been very successful prior to 2025. Things likely changed now.
I don't understand how Von Der Leyen got "elected" again then, given her horrible performance, and that only a 37% of Europeans views her favourably[0]. The catastrophic situation we find ourselves in developed under her commission, after all.
> The way to hold them accountable is during elections.
Given that VDL was elected by the EU parlament with secret ballot, how do I know which MEP voted her, so that I can vote someone else at the next EU elections?
- [0]: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/04/03/von-der-leyens...
The president of the commission is appointed by the EU council (which is generally formed by the government of each member state), but has to be formally approved by the EU parliament.
If you are unhappy with how your countries' elected members of parliament (or how its head of state conducts your country position within the EU), you can vote to change it.
This includes decisions on which votes are by secret ballot.
Why is VDL ruling the commission if her previous performance was terrible and she isn't viewed favorably by the majority of Europeans?
Why was she appointed by MPEs with secret ballot?
Given the current situation, do you really believe the democratic system in place for the EU provides efficient mechanisms for holding elected officials accountable for their actions?
I'd honestly expect better from the supposed "cradle of democracy".
I provided an explanation with no particularly condescending tone. I have no idea how your arguments were not addressed.
> Why is VDL ruling the commission if her previous performance was terrible and she isn't viewed favorably by the majority of Europeans?
The opportunity to change is in the regular elections, both at national and EU levels. That's when unpopular leaders are replaced.
The fact that a particular leader is unpopular does not mean much, as they are indirectly elected (as so happens in paliamentarism).
> Given the current situation, do you really believe the democratic system in place for the EU provides efficient mechanisms for holding elected officials accountable for their actions?
Yes, I do. Depending on what you mean by "held accountable", of course. People sometimes use this jargon in a very loaded manner.
The main problem I see is not the "accountability", as the commissioner is accountable to the council that picked them.
The main problem is that the council is formed by national government representatives. This mixes EU politics with local national politics. I may vote for a given party in national elections for local reaasons (e.g.: housing and transportation), but I may disagree with their stance on the EU level.
I don't know a good way to resolve this dissonance outside of some sort of federalization of the EU (something I think would be positive btw).
You realize that cannot work when both the council and the commissioner play on the same political agenda? For the council to hold the commissioner accountable it would mean to admit their own guilt. There is no incentive for them to do this, so there is no mechanism for accountability at all.
One example? VDL privately conducting EU business with Pfizer for a vaccine purchase on her phone (illicit) and refusing to provide the text messages to the EU's general court. All while her commission is supposedly based on defending standards of transparency, efficiency and so on.
What about her countless delusions about Russia's economy being about to collapse while all she accomplished was to send EU in a recession?
Or her blindly pursuing a policy of dependence on the USA and hostility towards China, only for the US to dump us as soon as they got a new president?
Please tell me where's the accountability in all of this.
Or why now, given her track record made up entirely of failures, we should trust her to guide the EU into a new very delicate historical phase.
Not sure where the conversation would go on from here. You will just keep being angry.
We're still not behaving collectively as much hogher than idiotic monkeys fighting in a cage. Defense from our neighbors is still a primary concern. We'll all die burnt with a heat wave.
After WW2 the US wanted the European powers under its wings rather than rebuilding their own militaries to the level of a global power. There were to be two powers: the US and the Soviets.
It suited the US interests to force Europe in a dependent position. Partly for good reasons like preventing us fighting amongst ourselves starting another war. Which we’d just done twice, so fair enough.
But also to stop us from coming under communist influence voluntarily. And, just for imperialist reasons. They were just more modern and subtle about it than the empires they replaced, most notably the British Empire. The almost-century of western Europe being effectively part of an US empire culturally, financially and militarily is now coming to an end. How we’re gonna deal with that? No idea. It’s going to be pretty damn hard in a lot of ways.
Having less mouths to feed is a positive (if viewed from this selfish point of view) side-effect.
And then maybe Putin.
Putin has proven time and time again he will exploit any perceived weakness. He did so in 2014 with Crimea and when Europe (and the US) failed to react it provoked him to try it again in 2022. There is zero evidence Putin is going to wind down after Ukraine. He has stated multiple times publicly he thinks the biggest tragedie of the last century was the collapse of the large Russian empire.
Unfortunately, Russia seems a very real threat to many European countries (particularly those with Russian minority population). Germany needs this this money e.g. to actually setup a NATO brigade in Lithuania.
While all this military spending indeed is lost money, it seems that cost would need to be split and this is not even consensus inside the EU.
Germany has already become the target as its physical and digital infrastructure is under constant attack while feeling unable to defend ourselves. This is not about WWIII, but actually to prevent it happening.
Even if the US and Europe made huge emission cuts, the rest of the world will not. I’m sure developing nations will stay poor if we ask nicely. “Hey Africa. We know about the three centuries of exploitation and colonialism but hey… could you do us a favor now and stay poor to fix the problem we mostly created? Thanks!”
There is no chance of this happening.
There’s only one realistic solution. If renewable plus storage or some other non carbon based source can actually be cheaper and easier to deploy than coal and gas, it might replace them. As it stands coal and gas remain the cheapest sources of power (though the gap has narrowed) in most regions. They are also easy to deploy with a global market in both generation equipment and fuel and a huge global talent pool of people who know how to do it.
Never has the world been so heavily armed. We have nukes that can wipe each other out at the press of a button. The result? A period of peace unprecedented in human history.
Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought he could win easily. Countries don't risk their existence in that way unless lead by madmen.
Likely a prolonged period of espionage and subterfuge by the Russians to gain control of those nukes would have ensued. Maintaining control would be difficult especially in Eastern Ukraine where the Russian language predominates.
Putin wants to recreate the military conquests of previous Russian leaders. He thinks he's Peter the Great but his situation is more akin to Don Quixote de la Mancha in his later years: I imagine that he sees all those nukes, regrets how much they cost to make and maintain and that he hasn't launched them (each launch moving a line item from a debit column to a credit column). He may not yet realize that the fuel from one nuclear warhead in a nuclear reactor could supply a small city with electrical power for years. IOW he's sitting on a fortune and doesn't know it. Sad.
Did you know that for the past two decades, 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States has come from Russian nuclear warheads?
https://www.npr.org/2013/12/11/250007526/megatons-to-megawat...
Also:
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/us-nuclear-warhead...
Russia is enormous geographically, has wonderful resources and people who are bright and creative. A shame they're getting killed in Ukraine. The only good news is that there will be more women for each young man and, once they return from war, each will be tasked with the need to create a new generation of Russians. Good work, if you can get it. If they don't, the Chinese will move in from the east (probably will anyway, already doing it de facto).
as a European, I’m cautious optimistic about this, especially given headlines like these. Europe should be able to stand on its own
what he is is opinionated and narcissistic with a highly unusual, but predictable - and successful - way of operating that people still somehow fail to recognise. if you think he's stupid, he's winning because you're not seeing his real intentions.
I will also point out that he's a political obsessive, including when it comes to foreign policy, and it would be once again quite obviously impossible for someone in his position to not know how US foreign policy works. he quite clearly just doesn't care about losing the benefits of world influence and prefers the long term idea of a different system, one where the US is more self-reliant and his businesses have less competition from foreigners.
obviously most economists will tell you that that is stupid, and I'd mostly agree, but it's a far far softer kind of stupid than not understanding the incredibly basic central tenet of US foreign policy for the last 80 years.
I ask sincerely, because I would love nothing better: can you point to an interview where he demonstrates any depth or nuance to his foreign policy decisions, that would indicate he pays attention to any of the details we’re discussing?
He’s clearly a political obsessive, but that doesn’t guarantee knowledge. Rather I think he operates on a set of brutish principles that appeal to a certain sets of people.
To your example, it’s easy to espouse a simple idea like isolationism and obsessively work towards it without understanding the finer implications.
first of all, I shouldn't have to, because what we're talking about is a surface-level issue that a child could understand, not something deep or nuanced.
but anyway, here's one example: a while ago Trump suggested that there's a chance the US won't support NATO in the case of an invasion of a member state. can you yourself analyse the real intention and actual result of this foreign policy decision?
He's smart at scams and self promotion, anything else he's intellectually lazy about.
He cares a lot about influence at least while he's in charge but he undervalues or ignores soft power and just tries to bully allies.
Germanies foreign reserves are nearly all treasuries. We might (naturally) diversify away. By taking on a large amount of debt we will simultaneously create an alternative safe asset (bunds).
He is involved a lot ... just more on the fascist side then on the Democratic side.
They are much more friendly with China on all levels compared to US and its deepening since his first term.
But now US can be sure as hell Europe won't give a flying fuck if such conflict would happen. We were fractured and weak but as all psychologists know a common enemy can solidify a society like nothing else. A recent stab in the back can be interpreted that way. And we're half a billion and rich market which once dominated all known world.
It just shows that in order to be a good respected politician adding value to one's own country, one need to be way more than some nepo kid with daddy issues, reality show host, hyper arrogant narcissistic investor who made hundreds of millions of his father into billions (while crashing handful of casinos).
At the same time USA stopped investing in its military (as compared to Cold War times) and, what is equally important, its European allies did the same (with exception of Greece and to some extent France). As a result whole Euro-Atlantic alliance become weaker and heavily dependent on China.
This was a long, slow process, stared in the '2000.
Trump tries to revert this trend, but makes unnecessary mistakes, most notably, he is hurting USA soft power and is conflicting USA with its European allies, which gives an impression that "something" happened suddenly now.
US non-interventionism was the norm for the longest time. Hence US entering WWII late - the US had no interest in helping their European cousins for a long time.
Perhaps this is just the US going back to its natural state.
US practised non-interventionism when wasn't the dominant world power. It's existed for 229 years, only in the 75 years after 2 world wars dethroned Britain did it become dominant. Since then its pretty much continuously projected it's power using miliary means across the world.
Look around, and you'll notice most countries are non-interventionist. That includes countries that were once attempted to colonise the world - like Britain, France and Spain. I guess once it was clear they could not take on the USA single handedly, they stopped spending on their military. Looked at as an asset that generates a return, what use is it if you have to ask the USA for permission to use it?
The corollary is if the USA loses it's "dominant military power status" military spending will probably drop back to the levels of other countries. It's held the position for 75 years, but if current trends continue it won't make 80 years.
I guess the obvious candidate for taking on the role of "dominate power" is China. Given they way they've been building up their military, it's almost like they are preparing for it. Their major competitor for the position will be India.
The post-9/11 forever wars were really disasters. We spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan to end up with ISIS rising in Iraq and the Taliban back in charge in Afghanistan. It’s really soured the US on interventionism.
Ukraine is viewed differently by many but that’s kind of an exception, and support for actually committing significant US troops there would be soft.