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Notes -
Spending is irrelevant. The Allies won WW2 because of capabilities, not expenditure. Europe already spends a lot more than Russia does, yet this spending isn't translating into Europe performing well. The UK and Germany alone spent more in 2023, according to the dollar figures. But they're not stronger than Russia by themselves.
The problem is not 'Europe is not spending enough', which implies that Russia is somehow outspending Europe. They are not. European NATO is spending about $400 billion a year, which is far more than enough to defend themselves. It makes zero sense that $400 billion is insufficient to defend against a foe spending about $100 billion in wartime. It makes zero sense that an alliance of 600 million could be threatened by 140 million.
The problem is that European spending is being allocated wastefully and that European strategy is muddled. Raising defence spending won't fix anything, what's needed is a plan to achieve specific capabilities and integrate them into a broader political strategy.
Adjust those spending figures to PPP and they become quite a bit closer. Europe is spending lots of nominal dollars (or Euros), but those dollars don't go nearly as far in Europe as they would in Russia.
This is certainly another piece of the puzzle. If we could wave a magic wand and make Europe a single country like the USA, then a lot of these issues would be fixed. Reducing duplication and having a clear strategy would be great force-multipliers, but in absence of someone having that magic wand, increasing spending is a much more plausible solution in the short and medium term.
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