Indeed. Meanwhile Europe, despite having a war at its doorstep, is not just holding all the cards but even gets stronger by all of this. Money and assets are getting transferred out of the US into Europe and its allies as they’re more trustworthy and stable, there’s a social movement towards EU (or generally non-US) products, a wave of EU patriotism, independence of nonsensical economical US ideas, countries like Canada shifting their trading partnerships to EU and Asia, braindrain towards the EU, pushes towards a unified EU military (who, combined, would be 2.6 million soldiers strong)…
Seriously, his slogan should’ve said “Make Europe great again”.
Europe is saying all the right things but actions are another matter. When it comes to war, you can’t defeat the enemy by throwing money at them. You actually have to build the factories and manufacture weapons. Europe has been extremely unwilling to do that, instead preferring to buy weapons from the US.
Ukraine to their credit have been going all out to build their own military industrial base. Their domestic drone production is accelerating. They still need a lot of help with air defence systems, artillery shells, small arms, training, and logistics.
That already shifted since 2022, in eastern European countries even since 2014. Granted that these things take time, although companies like Rheinmetall are currently getting investments like hell to build production lines quickly.
In general EU military usually gets sold as too weak for a multitude of reasons. We indeed cut too much investment in the national militaries for too long, however European arms manufacturers are going strong. There’s also the general notion especially in western Europe (and especially in Germany) of not wanting to be seen militaristic but humanistic, which is generally a good thing until someone from the outside tries to take advantage through military force (among other things).
That said, Poland now got a lot of influence in Brussels regarding EU military politics, as other nations had to admit they were right about Russia and their own military strategy all along. And they’re rather blunt about what’s necessary as far as I know.
Indeed. Meanwhile Europe, despite having a war at its doorstep, is not just holding all the cards but even gets stronger by all of this. Money and assets are getting transferred out of the US into Europe and its allies as they’re more trustworthy and stable, there’s a social movement towards EU (or generally non-US) products, a wave of EU patriotism, independence of nonsensical economical US ideas, countries like Canada shifting their trading partnerships to EU and Asia, braindrain towards the EU, pushes towards a unified EU military (who, combined, would be 2.6 million soldiers strong)…
Seriously, his slogan should’ve said “Make Europe great again”.
Europe is saying all the right things but actions are another matter. When it comes to war, you can’t defeat the enemy by throwing money at them. You actually have to build the factories and manufacture weapons. Europe has been extremely unwilling to do that, instead preferring to buy weapons from the US.
Ukraine to their credit have been going all out to build their own military industrial base. Their domestic drone production is accelerating. They still need a lot of help with air defence systems, artillery shells, small arms, training, and logistics.
That already shifted since 2022, in eastern European countries even since 2014. Granted that these things take time, although companies like Rheinmetall are currently getting investments like hell to build production lines quickly.
In general EU military usually gets sold as too weak for a multitude of reasons. We indeed cut too much investment in the national militaries for too long, however European arms manufacturers are going strong. There’s also the general notion especially in western Europe (and especially in Germany) of not wanting to be seen militaristic but humanistic, which is generally a good thing until someone from the outside tries to take advantage through military force (among other things).
That said, Poland now got a lot of influence in Brussels regarding EU military politics, as other nations had to admit they were right about Russia and their own military strategy all along. And they’re rather blunt about what’s necessary as far as I know.
God I hope our dear leaders do something with all those cards they now hold though