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 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.
Afghanistan and Iraq both had governments the US effectively destroyed and replaced with something worse. They then occupied each of those territories for decades.
Neither had infrastructure, roads, or active US military bases that the EU has. Neither are conveniently located near bodies of water where the US has 7 of the 10 aircraft carriers that exist on the planet. Neither were convenient to invade and dispose the government of, but the US is literally batting 1000 on doing that to whatever nation it wants no matter how remote and inhospitable its terrain.
That’s what you should be taking away from Afghanistan. Not that the US occupied it, that they easily fucked it up for generations. Something they’re now doing domestically, and loudly announcing they want to export.
