Comment by JumpCrisscross

> What exactly are you trying to say here?

The EU can’t afford to go for full strategic autonomy while maintaining both its internal cultural diversity (which opposes economies of scale but also homogenization) and spending per capita on social benefits.

Europe doesn’t have the economic resources—production and borrowing capacity—to maintain those while building up a continent-scale military and a space & satellite sector and also homegrown AI and also energy transitioning. Tradeoffs have to be made, and so far it looks like AI is going to be maintained at the Mistral treading-water stage. (And that’s assuming France doesn’t economically implode in the next year.)

Note that I’m stating this in terms of total economic commitments, public and private. Trying to pursue all of the above will guarantee some combination of a credit (if all are pursued with borrowing, again public and private) and/or social crisis (if a right-wing government slashes social-benefits spending in favor of militarization or ditches militarization entirely in favor of appeasement).