Comment by Gomotono
5 hours ago
Its not propaganda when you can see it. We know what Putin showes in his Military parade and we know the stockpile of tanks they have and had due to satelite images.
My statement still stands, we do not need to increase defence spending to beat russia.
You said something different though: "We need to increase defence spending to have as little as human risk as possible".
I wouldn't call it naive, more optimistic. And even before Ukraine, we do have military. EU has high tec military.
Even before Ukraine, the EU spend more in military than Russia.
And regarding resources for Ukraine: We do fight a proxy war. We are not fighting Russia directly. This means some people don't want to spend money and resources on this, we are nog aligned across europe and it is always very unclear how and how much we help. This would look differently if russia would declare war against the EU.
It's not so much a matter of spending levels but what you get for that spending. Since the end of the Cold War, most European countries have treated their militaries as essentially government jobs programs. The money was thrown away to hold down unemployment, and any combat effectiveness was incidental. The current crisis is finally forcing a change in that mentality but it will take years to turn the situation around.
In nominal terms "we outspend them" is true, but it misses the forest for the trees.
Nominal spend is the wrong yardstick when one side builds at home for a fraction of the cost; Russian labour, steel and energy are far cheaper at the point of use, which is why PPP estimates put their real military output roughly level with the whole of Europe combined.
And spend isn't the binding constraint anyway: it's production. A budget line is not a full magazine, and we've spent years throwing our stockpiles into Ukraine while letting our shell and propellant lines wither instead of refilling them.
"We don't need to catch up" assumes the money on the page is already steel in the field. It isn't.
Russia is 3x poorer than germany and has half of our GDP.
Russia has power because of their nuclear arsenal which is unclear how well it is maintained.
But no we can fill up and build faster and better than russia.
And the war against ukraine is hurting russia now for over 1000 days. Russia even has to go so far to reduce mobile and internet. This alone hurts Russia as a whole.
[dead]