NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has told Europe it should “keep on dreaming” if it thinks it can defend itself without the support of the United States.
“If anyone thinks here again that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can’t. We can’t. We need each other,” Rutte said during an address to the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday.
The NATO chief warned European nations they would need to increase defense spending to 10% if they “really want to do it alone,” adding they would need to build up their own nuclear capability, costing billions of euros.
Defend from who?
Russia (military budget of 145.9B) can barely invade Ukraine (miltary budget of 28.4B), meanwhile any 2 out of Germany (86B), UK (81B) & France (64B) can match Russia without even counting the rest of Europe.
The combined spend of just DE, UK & FR (231B) is inline with China’s (235B), again without the rest of Europe that has Italy (35B), Poland (28.4B), Netherlands (23.4B), Spain (19.4B), Sweeden (12B) & Norway (10B) which can more or less match Russian spending (128B) especially if you include Ukraine.
Europe alone basically spends the same amount as Russia & China combined, so unless the proposed attacker is the United States, the idea that European military budgets need to increase is ridiculous!
There is also a lot to be said for smaller better trained forces vs large meat grinders, especially in modern warfare, the scale of grift and job creation in US, Russian & Chinese armies is significantly larger than the equivalent in European armies.
And that’s all ignoring the nukes.
Now you are getting it
Now do the US since they’re likely going to be the ones at the front of the attack on the EU.
That’s the point he’s making. Just subtly. As not to disturb the very thin skin of the US leader in charge of the world’s largest active military with bases across the world.
If the US wants to invade Europe it can, there is no point in trying to outspend them.
However they struggled to occupy Afghanistan that spends a fraction of the money the US does, I think they’d have trouble holding Europe.
Trump’s going to be warring on Canada, as soon as he tips from “democracy” into proper dictatorship, using Greenland as a base to seal-off Canada from all EU help ( the REAL reason he “NEEDS” Greenland ).
EU’s … abandoned by the Americas, right then.
Putin, backed by BRICS & his African allies, will be rampaging on the EU.
Now multiply that by NO supply of ANYthing from Taiwan, because China’s going to be rampaging it while the West is … occupied …
The predictions about Russia’s capability were grossly-wrong.
I’m betting that the predictions about convention/status-quo continuing also are grossly-wrong.
Regional-consolidation begins soon.
It’ll take less than a decade.
The West chose to outsource all its key viability-capabilities ( Canada has zero chip-making capability, EU … same? )
AFTER regional-consolidation, then region-against-region WAR will begin, in the 2030’s.
_ /\ _
Just assume you need one third of the US defense budget. All the rest of that money is just given to contractors for white collar welfare, CEO mansions, private jets, and lobbying for corporate interests. You can do just as well by not being bought by rich dickheads.
Your analysis ignores the concept of purchasing power parity (ppp). I linked a SIPRI faq page below, #12 explains the concept of ppp as it relates to military spending pretty well. The second link I provided shows 2024 global military spend figures that account for ppp.
TLDR: your analysis underestimates European military spend compared to the US but vastly overestimates European military spend compared to Russia or China.
https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex/frequently-asked-questions#PPP
https://militaryppp.com/blog/
Even with those numbers, Europe can match Russia (400 < 183 UKR, 97 DE, 91 FR, 85 UK) or even China (570 < UKR,DE,FR,UK,PO 62, IT 61) without factoring in other European countries that spend at least 200B more in that list alone.
So even by those numbers in the only scenario In which Europe is outspent is if China & Russia attack at the same time, and it seems China has little interest in invading anywhere but Taiwan.
I also don’t really buy those numbers given Russian performance in Ukraine and the fact that China uses their military to provide employment I think they overestimated the military strength of both countries.
Additionally I don’t think anywhere else has the extent of pork barrel spending on the military the US does, so I don’t really believe those in numbers are accurate for PPP for European countries.
First two paragraphs, sure. I wasnt disagreeing with your conclusions, just pointing out that your analysis was flawed. I share your opinion that Europe is unlikely to be credibly militarily threatened by the US, CN, RU, or even CN+RU. I do think china is significantly closer to being a credible threat than your analysis indicates. Historically, how many expansionist empires have decided they had enough territory on their own?
As far as disagreeing with SIPRI figures… they have been the global academic authority on defense economics for almost 60 years. You are welcome to disagree with them based on vibes but there’s really no more to discuss if you don’t have a reputable source of evidence to back your opinion.
This last paragraph is entirely vibes based on my end, so don’t give it more credit than the opinion of some rando on the fediverse. I don’t know that I’d count on Ukraine to be ride or die with Europe in the future. The rest of Europe certainly has not acted in a way to engender that level of mutual defense with Ukraine in the past 12 years. Maybe the Baltic states have, but the larger European economies have spent 12 years appeasing their gas station dictator rather than fully supporting Ukraine. They are saints beyond what the EU deserves if they do fully commit to the EU defensive bloc in the future.