Europe must defend itself

For too long, the United States has provided security to Europe.

In the aftermath of the Cold War, European countries made significant and sustained cuts to their defense budgets.

Estimates suggest that if the continent had maintained Cold War levels of military spending, it would have spent an additional $8.6 trillion on defense over 30 years.

As America’s defense budget approaches $1 trillion a year, we are beginning to see the money Europe is not spending on defense for what it really is: an implicit tax on Americans to keep Europe safe. You should see it.

Nothing in recent memory illustrates this more clearly than the Ukraine war. Frankly, there is no good reason why we need aid from the United States.

Europe is made up of many large countries with productive economies.

They are supposed to have the ability to deal with conflicts, but decades have passed and they have become too weak. America is being asked to fill the gap at great cost to its own people.

At a cost, this conflict revealed the alarming weakness of the defense industrial base on both sides of the Atlantic.

In Europe and America, fragmented defense industries produce limited quantities of the most advanced weapons on the planet, but they produce heavy weapons at the speed and scale needed to win large-scale conflicts. I’m having a hard time.

There’s a lot of talk about who spends the most on defense as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), but Russia currently spends twice as much as Europe and the United States combined. The company produces more than 1,000 shells every month.

Defense spending and defense preparedness are two different things.

For example, Germany spends significantly more on defense each year than France, but there is little to show for it.

The French army includes six highly capable Allied brigades ready to deploy and carry out combat missions, while the Bundeswehr is struggling to muster a single combat-ready brigade. I can barely do it.

The question European countries need to ask themselves is: “Are we ready to protect ourselves?”

The question the United States must ask is, if its European allies cannot even defend themselves, are they allies or vassals?

These issues go beyond budgetary mechanics and attendance at trilateral summits. They demand concrete military and industrial power.

London is the banking capital of Europe, and perhaps the world. But wars are not fought with dollars, pounds and financial derivatives; they are fought with bullets.

Germany is Europe’s most important economy, but it relies on energy imports and military borrowing.

U.S. leaders support Europe in all areas and recognize the value of a multigenerational alliance. But as we watch European power wither under American protectorates, we wonder if our support has made it easier for Europe to ignore its own security. Of course.

Now let’s talk about Ukraine.

In the press, discussions of burden sharing are often framed in financial terms. In other words, countries should decide who should spend what and how much.

However, this hides the actual resource constraints. Wars are won with troops and supplies.

Let’s start with the materials. We’re not making enough. At current production rates, it will take years to rebuild the military stockpile after this war—and it certainly should, even if we halted transfers of critical defense reserves today.

A determined commitment to reindustrializing Western countries, training skilled workers, and rebuilding productive capacity is needed.

Ukraine also needs more men.

The average age of Ukrainian soldiers is about 43 years old. Former Supreme Commander Valery Zarzhny recently said new military mobilization is needed. Ukraine will only be able to continue this pace for so long before Western forces are called upon to answer the call.

To be honest, we have a responsibility to our European partners. Americans want allies in Europe, not vassals, and our generosity in Ukraine is coming to an end. Europeans should regard the end of the war there as an urgent matter.

They must continue to rebuild their industrial and military power. And Europe should consider concretely how it will coexist with Russia after the Ukraine war ends.

In the United States, the justification for war often relies on the modern domino theory. The idea is that unless we stop Putin in Ukraine, he won’t stop there. But the time has come for Europe to become independent.

That doesn’t mean China must be isolated, but it must not continue to use America as a crutch.

background

• In remarks at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, Sen. Vance sounded a “wake-up call” to European nations about their contributions to NATO, the current state of the Western defense industrial base, and the need for the United States to change its structure. Ta. Strategically, we will focus on East Asia.
• Senator Vance also discussed that “there is an incentive for Ukraine, Europe and the United States to come to the negotiating table” to end the war in Ukraine peacefully.