Summary
European officials are preparing a multibillion-dollar defense package to bolster regional security and support Ukraine, announced by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at the Munich Security Conference.
The package, potentially valued up to 700 billion euros, will fund military training, arms deliveries, and security guarantees amid concerns over Russian aggression and diminishing U.S. contributions to NATO.
The move follows calls for Europe to boost its own defense spending while U.S.-Russian talks, which exclude Ukraine and Europe, on ending the Ukraine conflict continue.
A brilliant move from Europe.
About time they pull their weight
Where was this three years ago? Europe wants to make sure every last Ukrainian man is thrown into the meat grinder.
Better late than never.
Our leaders have been too complacent, for what I think is a simple reason: It’s easier to depend on the Americans so your own national budget doesn’t take a hit and cause you to lose the next election.
Now that we’ve seen that the US is an unreliable ally and (rightfully) wants to reduce its’ own military aid spending, they’re hopefully seeing the bigger picture.
But why did Europe wait for America to bail before suddenly pulling a trillion dollars out of their pocket?
If Ukraine was supposed to win Europe should have thought about ponying up that cash a bit sooner.
Because they didn’t need to. As long as the United States was spending money on their truly vast military and was using that military capacity to defend Ukraine there was no requirement for any other the country do anything.
Now that the US has decided to become a pawn of Russia, it has become important.
They did need to. Ukraine is losing the war bigtime. They needed more weapons at the start before Russia ramped up production.
If Europe sent the weapons at the start they could have broken the stalemate. Filling the American deficit does nothing to help Ukraine win.
Because as soon as you propose spending billions of dollars on defending another country, people will generally say “but I don’t wanna pay more taxes or lose out on any comforts”, which causes you to lose your position of power in case of a democracy. It all comes down to selfishness in the end.
Why did they wait? Because if all this support started on day 1, a lot of folks would have feared nuclear retaliation and there is no way back from that.
The Russo-Ukrainian conflict is too complex to use your oversimplified perspective, and thus only useful to throw oil on the fire. There are serious nuclear threats, Putin’s unpredictable actions, it also involves many (very different) countries standing up against tyranny. The bureaucracy may be slow in its responses, but efforts are being made to ensure careful moves that prevent escalation. Labeling European leadership as bloodthirsty is misleading in my eyes; they are actively working to protect democracy.
Why would you think European leadership aiming for more dead Ukrainians? Why would they still provide financial and humanitarian support? And increase it now?
So you are saying Europe does not want Ukraine to win because then Russia uses Nukes…
This is great but IMHO they really need to start building industrial capacity to produce millitary stuff as well. Money’s no use when nobody wants to sell you weapons for it…
Errrm, 5 of the worlds largest exporters are European
Zut alors! Vastly outclassed by France, Scheiße!
Oh, thanks for the heads up. That’s good to know.
Some of the most iconic and renowned weapons of the 20th and 21st centuries were made by European countries. HK is a German company for example.
We (EU) should have unleashed our defense industry 3 years ago. Hopefully, the US MIC received the message, their profits are going to sink unless the orange turd starts to provide military aid to fucking Russia.
I am an American and I am willing to endure the pain caused by the rest of the world telling our orange turd to fuck off. Please do it. Please make it so incredibly painful that even those who love Orange Turd will start to smell it and reject it. Make it sooo sooo bitter!
Trump could literally start world war 3 and his supporters would still back him.
MAGA cultists will gladly eat up all the shit that’s served to them, and even gleefully ask for more of they think there’s even a passing chance that a Dem/liberal/leftie would smell their breath.
The US willing descent towards Gilead has been horrific to watch, as an outsider.
The sooner the rest of the civilised world decouples from that insanity, and hopefully bands together around the common ideals that the US used to (at least pretend to) represent - the better.
The sooner the rest of the civilised world decouples from that insanity, and hopefully bands together around the common ideals that the US used to (at least pretend to) represent - the better.
The problem is that I feel the rest of the civilized world is going down the same path, and is just several big steps behind…
It’s a lot harder to do in some other democratic structures. 100 % for sure we have not yet reached end-game governance styles, no one and nothing is immune to sustained malice, but (for example) multi-party cabinets are a lot harder to ‘flip’ then just stealing one election and press the fascist button, which is what this ( States of Murica politics ) kind of feels like from a distance.
That well may be the case, all we can do is hope that the rest of the world can bulwark against the rise of Fascism long enough to watch it fail in the US - at which point, it should hopefully diminish its allure.
That’s true. Much like Brexit in the UK stopped other countries’ appetite for their own brexits.
In the UK the parties and the politicians who pushed for brexit are now having serious problems because they can’t justify it. The vast majority of people who supported it now think it was a disaster.
Well, there are some in the EU who are hoping to bargain with Trump so that we reduce our import taxes on American cars (US has them at 2.5%, we have them at 10%, so we’ve been doing exactly what Trump is trying to do, at a smaller scale), buy more weaponry from them and as the US ramps up its’ gas production, we could buy more of that from them as well - if Trump in return does not put 25% tariffs on everything made in the EU.
It’s not a bad deal for either side, really, though it sorta defers the whole making more of our own weaponry part of trying to be more independent of the US. And I’m sure both the automakers and MIC would do what’s in their power to persuade Trump to take it.
Please factor in Putin. The EU is under a two prong attack from the USA and Russia and any reasonable or fair deals will be ignored. When you examine the US auto manufacturers, they have nothing to offer for the majority of consumers in the EU. We could apply 0% tariffs to US manufactured automobiles and they would end up sitting at the dealerships.
When you examine the US auto manufacturers, they have nothing to offer for the majority of consumers in the EU.
Yeah, they’ve shot themselves entirely in the foot. Used to be every other car was a Ford Sierra, then later Ford Mondeo… Opel was pretty big, but GM sold them so now it’s a Stellantis brand and Stellantis is more French/Italian than American…
Still, there’s market for muscle cars and trucks. And Teslas in recent history, but probably no longer.
Hey I’m American and I’m all for EU paying for the war in perpetuity and for our mic sinking all the way to the bottom on Mariana trench.
What’s mic?
Military Industrial Complex
In a way, it’s what I was hoping would happen. The US backs off its own defense spending and stops acting like the world police force. The flip side of that is that Europe and the rest of the world picks up their own defense.
What I had in mind as an end game is that the US would be at a table of equals. That’s not at all what this is.
What the realistically means is Europe will be starting it’s nuclear weapon programs in earnest again. France and the UK have a handful, but it’ll need a lot more to be an actual deterrent for Russia.
Russia only cares about Moscow and st Petersburg. Britain and France have more than enough to turn those two cities into glowing glass craters.
Not saying it’s not the right thing to do, but I hope America is ready for the loss of jobs that will come with scaling back the military. There will be a lot of associated small businesses and stuff you wouldn’t have thought of that will also get defunded outside of direct military spending.
The answer to that is we pick it up in other ways, like universal health care or building schools, which would benefit the economy in other ways. There’s nothing special about military spending that makes it more effective at Keynesian economics than anything else. In fact, it’s probably worse.
Not that Keynesian economics was anything other than keeping capitalism going past its expiration date, of course.
Universal healthcare and building schools in this brave new America? They are killing off “woke” spending on renewables so I would not hold your breath for the former.
I think the reality is that new destitute communities will be created next to the former factories that used to supply the MIC.
Destitute communities come with a lot of political instability which probably has to be channeled into something, which despite what everyone’s been thinking so far, has sort of been, to mixed or poor success with basically every succeeding administration. The protests keep getting bigger, basically. You get a big or well-organized enough one of those, and then there’s a chance that you get something much more serious than chaz, or you get a politically galvanizing one-sided massacre, or something else to that effect.
considering the meeting that just took place in Saudi Arabia, I fear that is entirely possible.
Realistically, the only actual solution to this problem in any long term would probably involve stationing nukes, which nobody really wants to do. A combination of not wanting to risk pissing off putin, because everyone thinks that he’s an insane trump-level idiot that will engage in mutual self-destruction over ukraine, combined with the post-soviet destruction and hollowing out of the ukranian economy into private enterprise, an economy which wasn’t exactly doing hot before. So it’s pretty clear that most everyone doesn’t actually give a fuck about ukraine or the ukranian people at all. Everyone’s just gonna use this as an opportunity, as with every conflict, to pawn off old military hardware, bury the receiving country in a huge amount of IMF bank loan debt, and scale up their own domestic military production while paying off a bunch of private contractors which are, hmm, suspiciously close to the levers of power inside the real government. Weird how that happens. What a noble sacrifice.
I dunno, the wheels turn.
This is the best thing about a Donald Trump presidency: sometimes good things happen by accident, and it’s definitely a good thing for the EU to be depending less on the US.
Same thing that happened with Canada. This man is so stupid it’s coming full circle
The funny thing is he whines about the trade deficit being $200B (which is a lie, because that’s all he ever does) he may actually cause the trade deficit to actually be $200B.
Happening but not happened quite yet. It’s still a minefield at the grocery store to shop for things not partially or fully prepared in the US. For seemingly ubiquitous things like cream cheese or pickles, from recent outings.
Finally Ukraine is getting the help they need! Kick out Russia once and for all!
Most of that money will likely go into expanding the defense industrial base and infrastructure. That includes not just buildings but training and hiring engineers and technicians.
Lots of essential things in NATO are run by USA. Airlift capability is a big example. Luckily Ukraine has some serious capability there and cooperation has been done for a long time already. Building an independent intelligence infrastructure, satellites, and so on is a major task as well. Command organization is built around the US and will need to be built as well. Training of Air Force pilots also happens in the US for most European militaries. That means building air bases, infrastructure, hiring and training additional staff, etc. Nuclear weapons and delivery systems are another big concern.
Europe has capabilities in all of this already, but it’s dwarfed by the US.
Europe will likely have to spend double the rumored 700 billion to achieve something credible.
Europe will likely have to spend double the rumored 700 billion to achieve something credible.
So, what you’re saying is that this spending package for defense is NonCredible?
Finally Ukraine is getting the help they need!
This might actually be the silver lining of it all.
There has been an uncomfortable disparity between words of support and actual support. I heard many times that the ultimate goal the Pentagon wants to achieve is Russia not losing the war. Out of (comprehensible) fear a falling dictator might throw a last Tantrum235. Germany has also been firmly sitting on the brakes from the start. Remember 5000 helmets? And the (for some Ukrainians literally) gut-tearing discussions at each and every step, wether this is Putins red line, or that is Putins red line, wether this or that might escalate the war, all while Putin escalates the war.
Now that the DSA have kissed themselves goodbye, Europe seems to finally realize what’s at stake and oops they can do something about it. So there is hope Germany might get it’s fat ass off the track. There is even talk about Germany taking a leadership role, though given the context, this must be dark humour. Gotta love that.
Fingers crossed Europe unites in action and Ukraine is getting the help they need! Doing otherwise would send a strong signal to the new Imperialists in east and west that you can pick and chew at our borders, be it the Baltics or Greenland.
Germany is the 2nd / 3rd largest contributor with about €15 billion. And you bring up 5000 helmets? That’s just pathetic and false.
Also, make sure to use per capita numbers.
Not sure how 0.00006 helmets per capita is the better figure, but there you go.
Yes, I mean, for Germany, being the 3rd largest economy in the world (only surpassed by the USA and China), it would be a real shame if they were not among the topmost supporters in total. Here, it makes much more sense to use per capita numbers, relate to GDP or whatever. Compared to it’s economic potential, Germany is merely #15 in supporting Ukraine with Denmark, Finland, and the Baltics doing at least twice as much.
If you deem the bit about the 0…6 helmets per capita to be false, what’s the correct take?
Germany has also been firmly sitting on the brakes from the start. Remember 5000 helmets?
Remember how it took like two days to overturn 70 years of precedence of “no weapons delivery into crisis regions”? Without us actually having a debate about it because there was an overwhelming majority for it from the get-go? Those 5000 helmets were part of the initial “find what we have and what we can legally send” order, which then arrived in Ukraine in the same shipment as the first actual weapons.
The, say, tank situation is ambiguous, I don’t have enough insider information to actually make a judgement. Either Germany said “only if the US says it’s ok” or Germany said “let’s put some political pressure on the US to get into the game, to commit”. Ultimately, Germany shipped everything but Taurus. I think we should – and much of the parliament agrees. Majority, actually, but not the governing majority so as is tradition parties voted against their own actual position. I guess that it’s being held back so something is being held back so that certain peacenik SPD parliamentarians can be assuaged.
So there is hope Germany might get it’s fat ass off the track.
FDP is probably out and with that ideological (instead of merely populist) sentiment against spending money, Black-Green looks quite likely and in case anyone is confused yes the Greens are hawkish AF about this one. The discussions around Yugoslavia turned them from singing kumba ya into liberal interventionists and I haven’t heard “olive-green” used as an insult in quite a while.
Just curious, how can a right wing-green coalition be viable? Don’t they clash on many major issues? Or to they succeed at walking the narrow tightrope of compromise?
The Greens in Baden-Württemberg are to the right of the CDU in Schleswig-Holstein. The Greens aren’t a left-wing party as such, they’re liberals. Not neolibs but soclibs but liberals nontheless, and the CDU is perfectly capable of getting into coalitions with the SPD which is to the left of that. Well, at least on paper.
Remember how it took like two days to overturn 70 years of precedence of “no weapons delivery into crisis regions”?
Oh, thanks. Yeah, now I remember making that jump, too, although it took me more than two days. Wild times.
Hofreiter (Greens) put it quite well … something like … not our ideals have changed, but the world has changed, brutally so.
I think you did well in dialing back my comment and adding more context, although I still think there was truth in it.
Hofreiter (Greens) put it quite well … something like … not our ideals have changed, but the world has changed, brutally so.
Now that’s the kind of Greens I like to see.
Don’t forget to save some for the war against America.
The war against America will be fought by poor American SOB’s like myself before it reaches our allies.
We’re all hoping it doesn’t come to that, but the divisive nature of our current political climate is unprecedented… We’re all a day away from never speaking to certain family members again. It’s just fucking nuts what’s going on.
People like to compare us to Nazi Germany, but it’s nothing like that. Well, except Elon Musk. He’s larping as a Nazi pretty openly right now, compete with Seig Heils. That’s part of their plan to divide and conquer. Only I really think it’ll follow our old motto, and we will simply all fall.
What the tech Bros think they’re heading for is nazi Germany. But don’t forget they’re in bed with the fundamentalists. You’re actually looking at a Christian version of modern day Iran. Once musk and trump have exerted control over the population, they’ll be “taken care of” and you’ll get Vance for the next 11 years.
It’s the same investment fund. I assume that’s the main reason for it’s existence. Donald Trump and his MAGA baffoons are driving America in the ground faster than a plane during his administration. They need to be ready and they will fight unlike many cowards here.
Numbers are growing in the U.S. but the time needed is also fighting the time that his administration devours media sources and telecommunication systems. Surveillance today is near insurmountable, but not yet
Eh, America would ally itself with Russia anyways. Might as well invest into weakening the Eastern front first.
Would have needed to start saving 50 years ago for that
Perhaps the best time was back then. The next best time is now.
French nuclear program: Fin!
Thank you, Europe. God, let this be what Ukraine needs.
This is also what Europe needs. Europe needs to seriously increase their domestic military manufacturing capabilities now that the US has proven they can’t be trusted.
If this money is invested in European military industries then they will need to considerably ramp up their production and overall it will strengthen European military power.
They also need to cut the US out of any involvement in Ukraine
I think we should give a nuke to Ukraine. One would be enough to stop all this BS.
Funny enough, when the USSR split up, Ukraine did have nukes, briefly. It was, you guessed it, the US that convinced them to give all their warheads to Russia.
Yeah, I heard that. But I think that Ukraine couldn’t actually use the nukes so they were of limited use, like maybe they could have been repurposed or something. But yeah no doubt about it, Ukraine got screwed and now they’re finishing the job. I hope they sell their resources to anyone else, China or North Korea before they let Russia or the US have them.
Them not being involved in the peace talks underlines again how indispensable nuclear weapons are, sadly.
The DSA playing hopscotch with whose ally they are underlines how worthless a shared nuclear umbrella can be.
So a grim lesson for Ukraine, Europe, Taiwan and pretty much any country with any border tensions, or anything another aspiring imperialist might find desireable: Get nukes, own them yourselfes, or risk being thrown aside or being steamrolled. Trump undoing decades of existential anti-proliferation work in mere days.
One won’t be enough. If they use it, Russia will at least hit the whole frontline with tactical nukes, maybe wipe out a city or two. That means Ukraine can’t use it, making it as valuable as a paperweight. For credible nuclear deterrence a country needs a few dozen nuclear weapons and more than one delivery method.
Noone who has nukes can use them, but that’s not the point. Just the threat is enough. One nuke with enough juice to get it to Moscow would be enough. I’m pretty sure if any country ever used a nuke, the whole world would explode.
There are air defenses that could potentially shoot down a missile before it hits its target. So one means there’s merely a probability of destroying Moscow. A psychopath like Putin may be willing to take that risk, and even if Moscow got nuked, Russia would still exist (though obviously it would be significantly diminished), and he’d have justification for using nukes on Ukraine.
For MAD to apply you need enough nukes to be an existential threat to another country when you’re dealing with psychopaths that would be fine with potentially millions of people dying if it means they come out on top in a war.
I think he’d be smart enough to not want to take the risk of destroying so much. Yeah he’s a psychopath but who would gamble with that kind of destruction… I guess if the nuke failed to explode that’s another consideration but I’d assumed even if the air defences worked in any sense, the nuke would still detonate? If that happened in the air, wouldn’t it kill/maim a lot of people and taint land with the radioactivity?
What worries me is that the UK nukes are (I think) unable to be used without US authority so at the moment they’re essentially useless even as a deterrent. I saw Kier Starmer giving that speech recently and yep, we’re in trouble lol, he’s no good at hiding his feelings. I almost feel sorry for him, except that I remember what he did to become the labour leader.
I keep hoping the Palestinians will get their hands on one for the same reason.
so what would you think hamas do with nukes?
The same thing every other country does with nukes.
Genocide?
Is that a serious point you’re trying to make?
I thought you put it together already. Hamas’ willingness to sacrifice Palestinians is only second to IDF. They’d drop that bomb without hesitation if that meant the final defeat of Israel.
I think your analysis might be the silliest thing I’ve ever seen. A nuclear bomb in both nations’ hands is the only thing that is going to end this war. It’s called ‘Mutually-Assured Destruction’.
But thank you for response.
The limited military capabilities of Palestinians has restrained Israel’s actions.
How should Palestinians use that nuke?
The limited military capabilities of Palestinians has restrained Israel’s actions.
If you say so.
How should Palestinians use that nuke?
They shouldn’t use it, per se.
Just make threats with it, like most countries do. Having a nuke is a deterrent.
I don’t think Israel would care. Or the USA
I mean, if you’re assuming the worst, a nuclear strike could pretty much wipe israel almost entirely off the map. With a more conservative and realistic positioning, you know, one singular, small nuke, probably sourced from somewhere else, then you’d still be looking at probably 20,000 people dead or injured if it were to hit the downtown of any city. You know, ten times the amount of october 7th. That would be a huge international incident, especially seeing as how the nuke would have to be provided by some other foreign government, which means that there could be a chance of a probably unpreventable follow-up attack at almost any time. It would be a pretty big deal, even if they were credibly threatened. I mean, that’s part of why Iran isn’t allowed to have a nuclear program.
Package… and will EU also print new soldiers on its factories? Even properly and sufficiently training the existing ones takes years.
It’s a bit premature to announce this, but yes VonderLeyen has announced the preparation of a defense package of approx. 700 B via this legal fiscal venue. Together with the EU Competitiveness Compass plan at around a minimum of 750 B, they will likely be aimed to reinforce each other. In addition, other parallel plans are being prepared, pending current developments.
added: Context: EU defense is now at 326 B in 2024 (consilium EU). Though Europe also includes UK and other countries ofcourse.
This newly announced extra package is like a minimum extra budget.
Don’t sigh before any papers are signed, but…
…while they may get stuck for a while passing a measure of this volume (or someone will need to lure Orban out of the room while others push buttons) - the volume is doable.
For comparison, the NextGenerationEU budget allocation (spent in a dozen ways) to help countries recover from COVID damage) was worth 2 trillion euros, and it was possible to pass.
The actual part? Probably multipronged:
- supercharging EU and Ukrainian arms industries, especially ones that can be expanded fast (drones)
- reducing formalities that need to be followed
- buying the weapons some members have in reserve for a Russian attack (because some do)
- buying the weapons Turkey and Greece have in reserve for each other
- subsequently, raking the global market (including the US) for weapons that come loose for money
- allowing Ukraine to pay really attractive salaries to its own soldiers and foreign soldiers
P.S. And jokingly - buying all the optical fiber available in South-East Asia.
subsequently, raking the global market (including the US) for weapons that come loose for money
Ultimately they will have to come round to producing their own, no?
buying the weapons Turkey and Greece have in reserve for each other
Ok, this one amuses me
I know a way to increase the support even more than that:
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