Europe’s new political consensus: We need to make more weapons

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.

BeMoreCareful, (edited )

If the US weren’t weapons dealers what would we have left to sell?

afraid_of_zombies,

Other stuff.

realitista,

This just in from the EU’s Department of Stating the Obvious

credo,

ITT: People who can’t see forest, for trees.

Viking_Hippie,

As a pacifist, I fucking hate this timeline 😮‍💨

Rooskie91,

O man if you hate that don’t think about how WW I basically happened the way it did because everyone spent the previous few years building up their militaries “just in case.”

wewbull,

Sadly, pacifism only work if everybody agrees to it.

Viking_Hippie,

Which shouldn’t be too much to ask for since everyone agrees that war is awful. Just not hard enough not to constantly make up excuses for why it’s ok to keep murdering people.

credo,

everyone agrees that war is awful

That doesn’t appear to be the case in Ukraine.

Colour_me_triggered,

War is awful, but not as awful as living in Russia. Also there’s the little thing where the russians are committing a whole host of war crimes and committing actual genocide. So yeah the Ukrainians are very keen to stop them advancing, but would be even more keen for the russians to just go home.

Viking_Hippie,

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    UsernameHere,

    He’s saying not everyone is in agreement on being pacifist because if they were there wouldn’t be a war going on in Ukraine. I can’t believe that needs to be explained to you.

    credo, (edited )

    Putin you fuck. Putin doesn’t agree.

    Viking_Hippie,

    deleted_by_author

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    credo, (edited )

    deleted_by_moderator

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    jordanlund,
    @jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

    Removed, civility.

    afraid_of_zombies,

    Not really. Defense is easier than offense at this point. And offense becomes a lot cheaper in a world where everyone is keeping the prices of weapons lower.

    Don’t be an economist, be smart and look at data to see where it goes. America vs Afghanistan. Using a ten million dollar missile to take out a guy with a hundred dollar rifle. Or look at Russia unable to beat a country right on their border that they greatly outnumber.

    War is expensive, offensive war more expensive. Everyone armed means arms cost less money. We don’t require that the entire world be pacifist to get peace just enough, just like we don’t need every single person to agree to not commit rape to enforce rape laws.

    wewbull,

    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.

    afraid_of_zombies,

    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?

    fluxion,

    Climate crisis is out of control and Putin ends up dragging us all off to war and weapons production. Absolute worst timeline.

    Colour_me_triggered,

    Better familiarise yourself with the ins and outs of performing a blood eagle. I know I’m going to just in case. Also you should look into making Molotov’s and IEDs.

    pepperonisalami, (edited )

    I get your feelings. An arms race often lead to, well, wars. 😔

    However we also need to stand up to bullies.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    If Russia was threatening my country next, I sure would too.

    alcoholicorn,

    They can barely take the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, you really think they’re gonna invade the rest of Europe?

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I think Putin is willing to try.

    alcoholicorn,

    Good point.

    Better sacrifice your housing, education, infrastructure, and medical budgets for Raytheon shareholders just in case.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    And what makes you think Europe is going to do that?

    alcoholicorn, (edited )

    Where do you think that money must come from?

    Every dollar that is spent on bombs is a dollar that doesn’t go into feeding, housing, and educating the people.

    Viking_Hippie,

    Eisenhower said it well:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a968f942-0496-4f8c-9b9f-0a1d5b402665.jpeg

    Rest of the quote is even more explicit about it:

    The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

    It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

    It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

    We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

    We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

    This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

    This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

    alcoholicorn,

    Yeah, great parting speech. Shame he spent his entire presidency letting MacArthur and Lemay do war crimes in Korea and propping up the military industrial complex.

    Viking_Hippie,

    Shame he spent his entire presidency letting MacArthur and Lemay do war crimes in Korea and propping up the military industrial complex.

    Yeah, US presidents unfortunately tend to be either hypocrites, liars or open warmongers. Often more than one of the above 😮‍💨

    halcyoncmdr, (edited )
    @halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

    To be fair, the US President doesn’t have nearly as much power to actually accomplish things like many people think, at least domestically. Congress has the actual power, whether they utilize it well or not. The President has to work with Congress to actually get things accomplished, and Congress controls the money.

    International relations and war, those are things the President more directly controls, and even then Congress has some control of things like approving weapons sales (again, the money).

    The Legislative Branch makes the laws, the Executive branch implements them (and the modern Judicial decides based on their personal beliefs whether they’ll let it happen, or find some flimsy justification to prevent it).

    halcyoncmdr,
    @halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

    Putin clearly started to believe his own country’s internal propaganda. Despite being inside the Soviet Union, and actually being part of the systemic lies to project false power, he started to believe what he was being told. As if the systems built on had fundamentally changed after the fall ad his rise to power.

    There were a lot of delays getting international supplies to Ukraine at the beginning of the conflict, yet Russia still couldn’t get close to their goal even with an extended timeframe. Once those supplies began to arrive, Russia was never going to be able to achieve their goal like they thought, but Putin’s ego won’t let him admit he was fooled by his own bullshit propaganda machine.

    Skua,

    They're only struggling because the West is arming Ukraine. The Ukrainians fought hard from day one, but they'd have been overrun and at best operating a guerilla campaign without being given heaps of equipment. Look what has happened while America stopped sending stuff over, and's while Europe was still sending stuff. Europe's arms industry is substantial, pretty much on par with the US in terms of value exported, but it's lacking things like the ability to supply an artillery war like the one going on in Ukraine. Since the US doesn't seem to be very reliable, Europe is gonna have to cover that base itself if it wants to be able to deter actions like Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

    alcoholicorn,

    made-it-the-fuck-up All we’re saying is give war a chance!

    Chainweasel, (edited )

    It would be stupid not to.
    Not only is there absolutely no guarantee the United States will be there to help them, but if a certain candidate wins, it’s a guarantee we won’t be helping them.
    But beyond that it’s an incredibly stupid idea to outsource your national defense, even to an ally.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I think we almost certainly won’t help them since Trump loves Putin and wants to pull out of NATO.

    EinfachUnersetzlich,

    Who’s “we” in this comment?

    Skua,

    They're American

    EinfachUnersetzlich,

    That’s the bit I was missing.

    Chainweasel, (edited )

    We is the United States in this context. Not you or I, but the nation I’m part of and pay taxes to. And the majority of those taxes go to the military industrial complex.
    So even though I don’t make any of the decisions and I personally don’t agree with many of them, I still have to help pay for it whether I like it or not.
    So, I’m reluctantly part of the “we”.

    fed0sine,

    Hey, uhhh, this sounds an awful lot like taxation without representation.

    halcyoncmdr,
    @halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

    Oh there’s representation, but it’s been co-opted by corporations paying for it, and the people are willing to accept that, either because they actually believe the propaganda, or since most people don’t vote, via sheer apathy.

    Colour_me_triggered,

    More guns! Bigger guns! I’ll take a snipex alligator please!

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