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.
If Russia was threatening my country next, I sure would too.
They can barely take the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, you really think they’re gonna invade the rest of Europe?
They’re only struggling because the West is arming Ukraine. The Ukrainians fought hard from day one, but they’d have been overrun and at best operating a guerilla campaign without being given heaps of equipment. Look what has happened while America stopped sending stuff over, and’s while Europe was still sending stuff. Europe’s arms industry is substantial, pretty much on par with the US in terms of value exported, but it’s lacking things like the ability to supply an artillery war like the one going on in Ukraine. Since the US doesn’t seem to be very reliable, Europe is gonna have to cover that base itself if it wants to be able to deter actions like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
I think Putin is willing to try.
Putin clearly started to believe his own country’s internal propaganda. Despite being inside the Soviet Union, and actually being part of the systemic lies to project false power, he started to believe what he was being told. As if the systems built on had fundamentally changed after the fall ad his rise to power.
There were a lot of delays getting international supplies to Ukraine at the beginning of the conflict, yet Russia still couldn’t get close to their goal even with an extended timeframe. Once those supplies began to arrive, Russia was never going to be able to achieve their goal like they thought, but Putin’s ego won’t let him admit he was fooled by his own bullshit propaganda machine.
Good point.
Better sacrifice your housing, education, infrastructure, and medical budgets for Raytheon shareholders just in case.
And what makes you think Europe is going to do that?
Where do you think that money must come from?
Every dollar that is spent on bombs is a dollar that doesn’t go into feeding, housing, and educating the people.
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 😮💨