Europe’s new political consensus: We need to make more weapons
Europe’s new political consensus: We need to make more weapons
The war in Ukraine has shifted thinking — both among politicians and the public — on the need to spend more on defense.
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.
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.
Who's "we" in this comment?
We is the United States in this context. Not you or I, but the nation I'm part of and pay taxes to. And the majority of those taxes go to the military industrial complex.
So even though I don't make any of the decisions and I personally don't agree with many of them, I still have to help pay for it whether I like it or not.
So, I'm reluctantly part of the "we".
As a pacifist, I fucking hate this timeline 😮💨
Sadly, pacifism only work if everybody agrees to it.
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.
Climate crisis is out of control and Putin ends up dragging us all off to war and weapons production. Absolute worst timeline.
I get your feelings. An arms race often lead to, well, wars. 😔
However we also need to stand up to bullies.
O man if you hate that don't think about how WW I basically happened the way it did because everyone spent the previous few years building up their militaries "just in case."
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.
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.
All we're saying is give war a chance!This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
National officials are finalizing it under the coordination of European Council President Charles Michel, and will meet again Friday.
And that starts with laying the foundations for an alliance-wide increase in spending on our collective deterrent,” U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said this week.
That's something that EU finance ministers are already working on by tweaking the bank's rules to make it easier to lend to defense projects.
The proposal doesn't mention using cash from the European Stability Mechanism, which provides emergency financial aid for members of the eurozone.
The change in defense thinking was driven by the war in Ukraine, and the Barometer poll, taken in April, finds overwhelming support for helping Kyiv.
The original article contains 537 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
More guns! Bigger guns! I'll take a snipex alligator please!
If the US weren't weapons dealers what would we have left to sell?
Other stuff.
This just in from the EU's Department of Stating the Obvious
ITT: People who can’t see forest, for trees.