That is because in countries like The Netherlands, 100 square meters will cost you about €500 000 at the moment. Warming my house on natural gas costs me €10 a day. In the grocery store, the avarage item price is now €3,-. We must have health insurance (good thing!) but if you can’t afford it, you have the option to gamble on higher “own risk”. That means paying more out of your own pocket. Gasoline is €2 a liter. We also have to reduce CO2 but don’t have enough capacity on the grid to support all the green initiatives. Meaning electricity prices go up. Immigrants fleeing from terrible conditions are very welcome here (also, good thing!), but they need to be paid for somehow. Life is expensive and spending more on military means higher taxes or worse services.

Personally I don’t have it bad at all and most people still don’t, but I can understand why some people see this as a hard pill to swallow.

Most countries have announced increased defense spending with support across the political spectrum and EU defense stocks are one of the few safe havens left during this tariff nonsense. France has offered a nuclear umbrella to its neighbours. Poland is up to 5% GDP on defence. Not sure what you mean by limited support but maybe I misunderstand.

They don’t even have to leave NATO formally, just undermine confidence in article 5 enough that it’s no longer a deterrent.