The war in Ukraine has shifted thinking — both among politicians and the public — on the need to spend more on defense.
The European public and politicians are in agreement that EU countries should do more to increase weapons production.
That’s according to the results of the latest Eurobarometer poll, obtained in advance by POLITICO Playbook, and a draft of the EU’s Strategic Agenda seen by POLITICO.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago has dramatically shifted the rhetoric around defense spending, pushing it up the agenda across the bloc — often at the expense of other policy areas like tackling climate change.
Eisenhower said it well:
Rest of the quote is even more explicit about it:
Yeah, great parting speech. Shame he spent his entire presidency letting MacArthur and Lemay do war crimes in Korea and propping up the military industrial complex.
Yeah, US presidents unfortunately tend to be either hypocrites, liars or open warmongers. Often more than one of the above 😮💨
To be fair, the US President doesn’t have nearly as much power to actually accomplish things like many people think, at least domestically. Congress has the actual power, whether they utilize it well or not. The President has to work with Congress to actually get things accomplished, and Congress controls the money.
International relations and war, those are things the President more directly controls, and even then Congress has some control of things like approving weapons sales (again, the money).
The Legislative Branch makes the laws, the Executive branch implements them (and the modern Judicial decides based on their personal beliefs whether they’ll let it happen, or find some flimsy justification to prevent it).