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.
As a pacifist, I fucking hate this timeline 😮💨
Sadly, pacifism only work if everybody agrees to it.
Which shouldn’t be too much to ask for since everyone agrees that war is awful. Just not hard enough not to constantly make up excuses for why it’s ok to keep murdering people.
everyone agrees that war is awful
That doesn’t appear to be the case in Ukraine.
War is awful, but not as awful as living in Russia. Also there’s the little thing where the russians are committing a whole host of war crimes and committing actual genocide. So yeah the Ukrainians are very keen to stop them advancing, but would be even more keen for the russians to just go home.
Not really. Defense is easier than offense at this point. And offense becomes a lot cheaper in a world where everyone is keeping the prices of weapons lower.
Don’t be an economist, be smart and look at data to see where it goes. America vs Afghanistan. Using a ten million dollar missile to take out a guy with a hundred dollar rifle. Or look at Russia unable to beat a country right on their border that they greatly outnumber.
War is expensive, offensive war more expensive. Everyone armed means arms cost less money. We don’t require that the entire world be pacifist to get peace just enough, just like we don’t need every single person to agree to not commit rape to enforce rape laws.
What do you actually think is causing Europe to build weapons?
Do you think they are planning a era of conquest? Or maybe they’ve got an aggressor on their border and they feel the need to defend themselves.
Better familiarise yourself with the ins and outs of performing a blood eagle. I know I’m going to just in case. Also you should look into making Molotov’s and IEDs.
It would be stupid not to.
Not only is there absolutely no guarantee the United States will be there to help them, but if a certain candidate wins, it’s a guarantee we won’t be helping them.
But beyond that it’s an incredibly stupid idea to outsource your national defense, even to an ally.I think we almost certainly won’t help them since Trump loves Putin and wants to pull out of NATO.
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:
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
