The war in Ukraine has shifted thinking — both among politicians and the public — on the need to spend more on defense.
The European public and politicians are in agreement that EU countries should do more to increase weapons production.
That’s according to the results of the latest Eurobarometer poll, obtained in advance by POLITICO Playbook, and a draft of the EU’s Strategic Agenda seen by POLITICO.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago has dramatically shifted the rhetoric around defense spending, pushing it up the agenda across the bloc — often at the expense of other policy areas like tackling climate change.
What do you actually think is causing Europe to build weapons?
Do you think they are planning a era of conquest? Or maybe they’ve got an aggressor on their border and they feel the need to defend themselves.
Putin. Now why does Russia have so many weapons? Is it because they were doing well selling them for so very long?
Like I said, stop thinking like an economist. Follow the data. An economist will ramble about game theory and argue that the only two worlds are possible a. No war b. Always war. Someone actually viewing the data will point out that humanity has had decades of very little war. That the changes in human society have made conquest super fucking expensive and the only countries capable of a war anymore are the very rich ones. The more nations give up warfare the more expensive it will become.
The solution to a problem is very rarely more of the same problem. And the actual data we have doesn’t point to a situation where if one nation out of 190 decides war is good but the other 189 disagree that suddenly that 1 cheater wins. Put another way: if the US gave up it’s military tomorrow do you think Cuba would conquer the US the next week?