NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has warned that the Alliance must move beyond its long-held 2 percent of GDP defence spending benchmark, citing the accelerating rearmament of Russia, the growing defence cooperation between China, North Korea and Iran, and the urgent need to address capability gaps.
Speaking at a doorstep interview in Vilnius ahead of the B9–Nordic Summit, Rutte said the upcoming NATO Summit in The Hague will focus heavily on defence spending, industrial production and warfighting readiness.
“The old 2 percent we agreed in 2014 is not nearly enough to reach all the capability targets we need to fill the gaps in our defence system,” Rutte said. “We can defend ourselves now against Russia, but we can’t in three to five to seven years.”
He added that Allies must also consider wider defence-related spending: “including military mobility, whether our societies are ready, and building up the defence industrial base.”
At a later joint press conference with President Gitanas Nausėda of Lithuania, President Andrzej Duda of Poland, President Klaus Iohannis of Romania, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, Rutte praised Lithuania’s record-level spending.
“You invest more than 4 percent of GDP in defence this year, and I welcome your plans to spend between 5 and 6 percent starting from next year,” he said. “This sends an incredibly powerful message of commitment to our collective defence.”
Rutte confirmed that the focus of the upcoming NATO summit will be strengthening deterrence and defence, including “pivoting towards full warfighting readiness,” and delivering “new, ambitious capability targets.”
The Secretary General also reaffirmed NATO’s support for Ukraine and restated the Alliance’s commitment to Kyiv’s eventual membership, calling Ukraine’s sovereignty “essential for Euro-Atlantic security.”
Looking ahead to The Hague Summit, Rutte said: “I expect Allies to demonstrate their enduring commitment to our collective defence – by deciding to boost defence industrial production and increase defence investment.”
Clearly he hasn’t heard about our bold plans to make the Army ten times more lethal…
I’m assuming your against making the army more lethal then?
Most people here will see right through “10 times more lethal.” It’s a classic media friendly line — short, dramatic, easy to quote and designed to play well with the broader public, especially those who don’t follow defence matters closely.
But let’s be honest: it’s about deflecting and distracting.
Looks like it’s already done the trick for you though Jim 👍
Just like the 12 SSN that won’t be here for decades, till many of us are dead, they’re so far away, and will take so long to build after the last Astutes and Dreadnaught. And many a government down the line who could scale back or cancel.
But it is a headline grabber the government want the public to focus on, makes them look tough, and gives Starmer another rambo moment.
That is politics.
Evening mate,
this might be a bit left field, but, I would imagine that we will start building the first AUSUK SSN sometime in the early 30’s. Astute’s Reactor is scheduled to last until 2035 give or take, with no refuelling. So unless we are taking a further capability gap the next SSN we will receive should be somewhere between 2034-36.
As a rule of thumb, once Dreadnought Hull 2 is out of the DDH, SSN hull 1 will be building. The 18 month build rate is required to supply both AUS and the RN with the new SSNs.
It will be interesting to see how the various SSNs are going to be allocated between the RN and AUS, given that we will ideally require 3 between 2035 -40 just for the RN.
Evening Deep.
Thanks. J also wrote an interesting possible timeline for the 12 boats.
Exactly.
Exactly, Danielle.
If they wanted a real headline piece to roll out alongside the SDR, there were plenty of perfectly good options. But instead, they went with the safer route: aspiring to have up to 12 SSN(A) submarines in decades was the easier option for them. That, along with the ridiculous universal soldier crap (great film though), seems to have done the trick for now and bought them some time.
That said, one positive takeaway from the SDR is how heavily they leaned into our commitment to NATO. Whatever percentage they land on at the summit, I can’t see any outcome other than us hitting it.
Hi Deep,
(I’ve only been on here a few days and can’t see how to reply directly to you but hopefully you see this).
I thought the plan was for Australia to build the submarines domestically, has that changed, or have I misunderstood?
@JJ You can’t reply directly at the moment. Recently changes to the site have limited the thread depth.
Yes. The plan is for Australia to build its own submarines, with Rolls Royce UK providing the reactors. The only case I can think of where we’d build whole subs for the Aussies is if the Americans can’t provide the interim Virginias they offered. Not in particular the two second hand ones, but they are looking to provide one new one, and possibly two more if Australia is slow in building their SSNA. There have been suggestions that the UK could provide one or more SSNAs instead if the US changes its mind. I haven’t heard anything official on this.
Hi Jon
Ah ok, I thought it was because his original message wasn’t for me. But can see what you mean now.
Thanks for the info, appreciate that 👍
I would rather walk way from NATO than piss 5% of GDP up the wall on defence.
No one in the public is going to accept the kind of tax rises and spending cuts that’s going to take to deal with an illusionary enemy that is using Donkeys to advance a couple of hundred yards into Europes poorest country.
Mark Rute and NATO is in danger of going the way of Greenpeace, always wanting more until the public tunes out.
Talk of NATO forcing Keir Starmer to spend more is as best disingenuous and at worst a bare face lie. NATO has no such power and all NATO decisions are by unanimous consent.
Pretending otherwise just adds to the anti American fervour.
Try telling Ukraine that money spent on defence is wasted…
The motto of the Royal navy might enlighten you more on this subject
May I recommend the Army Rumour Service (ARRSE) website to you. You might feel more at home there.
Russia has dramatically increased its production of ballistic missiles, developed its military installations on its border with Finland, attempted to install its own Presidential candidate in Moldova and conducted espionage including the murder of a British citizen, badly injuring a British policeman, in this country within recent memory.
Putin’s demographic imperialist expansionism is all that is keeping him in power. He will not, cannot, stop. So it falls to us.
If he moves on Lithuania, as he well might in due course, what actions would you recommend to Lithuania’s NATO allies (us)?
May I recommend an App on your phone, it’s called Google Map’s.
You will note there are 400 million well armed people with the world’s largest economy between us and Russia.
Zero need for anyone to spend 5% of GDP. Unless we have a mass draft it would be physically impossible to spend 5% of GDP on defence.
We can’t even recruit 73,000 soldiers and we have multiple ships in port from lack of crew.
What would we spend an extra £60 billion a year on if you can’t get more people.
I think the recruiting problem could conceivably be solved by using the extra £60bn to pay people more and look after them better? Or am I missing something?! As for it being ‘physically impossible to spend 5% of GDP on defence’, are you nuts? 5% was the norm as recently as the 1980s.
Long gone are the days when the EU was the largest economy in the world. The US alone is now about 50% bigger, not to mention China.
I’ve seen reports of Russia producing about 1,500 tanks per year. For all the strength of ENATO, that is a formidable force on its doorstep, and as much as Russia was shown to be a paper tiger, I think ENATO mightn’t far much better given the known issues with old equipment and serviceability across many ENATO militaries who have underfunded for decades. I think our vastly superior airpower would overcome Russia time, but ground would be lost and Europe’s relatively inexperienced forces would have a very bad bloody nose in the short term. Plus the effect on European economies would be catastrophic.
So you would prefer to fight in your back garden or someone else’s?
Deterrence is key and that is best achieved by a credible forward defence alongside our allies.
We know what to do. We’ve done it before. It achieved ‘The Long Peace’ 1945-2014. It works.
You are part of the 5th column.
If the rest of the alliance agrees to 5% then we have a golden opportunity to create thousands of well skilled, well paid jobs for life. The other countries particularly in Europe will need planes, ships and the like and we are well positioned to fill in the gap that the US is creating. We could become the premier industrial powerhouse of the continent.
As much as I would like to see that, without a seismic shift in culture I think Germany and Eastern Europe would fill that role. Britain has little interest in making things any more, apart from some very specialized bespoke high tech projects.
We have the worlds 2nd largest defence industry. We are interested and do make many things.
China says ‘hi, please remember me’
Even if you can fiddle the numbers to make it look like that on paper, the reality is different. We can’t even make new tank hulls and are getting Germany to supply parts for the Challenger 3 refurb. We closed down the gun factories and now import rifles from the US. Even in the high tech space, we sold ARM to the Japanese and Reaction Engines went bust. The UK is not going to be the arsenal of democracy. There is not going to be a British Anduril, SpaceX or even a British Glock any time soon.
Why? A socialist/outsourced economy, national apathy, and an education system that churned out generations of people who would rather do media studies than engineering. Those things aren’t necessarily all bad, but you can’t do that AND be a manufacturing powerhouse. Britain does have plenty of talented and driven people, but they have limited opportunities and many emigrate. Yes, it’s that bad.
I think you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head there. However, that position, and those long term benefits to the UK as a whole, require joined up thinking, and massive investment.
For starters: – The government shells out £4.5M+ every day on the ‘migrant issue’. The NHS is in deep lumber. Public transport is shite. The waterways are totally banjaxed, with Thames water supposedly £15Billion in dept… the list goes on and on. Therefore I think it’s fair to say that the country is bankrupt. Therefore, the current incumbents are in no position to invest in anything.
The problem is that the defence budget has been grossly underfunded for decades and we’re playing catch up.
You are correct that some people exaggerate the threat and make it seem like Russia is going to invade the UK. We don’t have a land border with Russia. However, alliance commitments mean that the UK IS going to be involved in a hypothetical war, and without strong naval/air forces we are vulnerable to Russian attack. That’s the reality.
For centuries British foreign policy has been to prevent the domination of Europe by any one power, and the reasons for that are still valid today.
Everyone including China, USA and especially Russia is playing catch up.
Everyone has been enjoying the peace dividend.
That’s how we lifted more people out of poverty in thirty years than the entire history of humanity.
‘That’s how we lifted more people out of poverty in thirty years than the entire history of humanity’
Not in this country, we didn’t. Nor in the US either. The peace dividend went to the rich.
Most of that occurred in India and China. They didn’t have a cold war peace dividend, they just embraced capitalism. And relative to the rest of the world they are both now much bigger players militarily, unlike the peace dividend cold war veterans who all subsided.
Jim,, one of the reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire was excessive taxes to pay for their military and wars. The US has a growing wealth gap and can not stop growing especially with the Big Beautiful Bill
Between 1969 and 1988 defence spending was in the range 4% to 5.5% of GDP. That was a period where there was no major war in continental Europe and where there was no daily cyber attacks on British industry and infrastructure.
And while the Warsaw Pact has collapsed and most of its members have now joined NATO, we face a Russia that is resupplied by China and Iran, and deploys North Korean troops to fight for them.
We are in a far more dangerous position than we were in the 1980s. The public will accept an increase.
You are joking right, in the 1980’s we had 3 million fully mobilised Warsaw pact troops just a few hundred miles from Britain and 27,000 nuclear warheads pointed at us. The Soviets had 400 submarines.
We now have Russians using donkeys and e scooters to take a few yards of ground backed up by a whopping 10,000 North Korean conscripts that were annihilated in days by one of the poorest countries in Europe.
Russia lost a naval battle to a country with no navy
It’s just not the same as the 80’s.
27,000 nuclear warheads… Aaahh the days when we all got told 3 doors lent against the hallway wall would be all we needed to survive.
Jim, and just before then, the world also went nuclear except a Russian sub officer refused to fire his nukes at Florida from Cuba
By 1990, the collapse of the Soviet Union coincided with the first generation of political leadership that didn’t remember the Second World War. John Major was still in short trousers even when the Korean War ended. He didn’t understand that nature abhors a vacuum and if the West didn’t have the hard power, someone else would grow into it. Or he didn’t care. So reversing that, even going back to 5% spending on GDP for a few years wouldn’t be too outrageous, as long as the public can be persuaded that it’s not money stolen from the NHS as some will surely paint it. I think we can get away with 4% if NATO doesn’t facture and we move quickly enough.
I agree with the government that Defence can be an engine of growth, although I don’t believe that’s its primary purpose. We have to spend more of the budget in the UK and create a more robust Defence industry and doing so will help boost growth. We don’t need an FDR-style New Deal, but it won’t hurt to boost our economy. Let’s not forget that if the fight-tonight military wins short wars, it’s industry and the whole of society that wins the long ones. If increasing both military and industrial capacity helps deter the next big war, even by spending beyond what might immediately seem reasonable, it will most definitely not be a waste.
“…Russia lost a naval battle to a country with no navy…”
The ruZZians have still got a credible, and growing navy in the Atlantic and Baltic, which the SDR spelled out that is a threat to the UK and Norway!
Which will still be after the Ukraine War ends.
We need to get the social care budget under control. It’s been spiralling since COVID. A few estimates suggest there is £50B to be saved there – HUGE figure! Nearly everywhere else the social care budget obviously spiked during 2020 to 2022 and then came back down, however in the UK it has stayed and carried on increasing.
I never understand why there is no discussion of limiting other spending departments to a per cent of GDP. How about limiting the state pension or the social care budget to x% of GDP? No increase in GDP = no pension increase = no increase in NHS spending etc.
The issue with Healthcare spending is it’s directly proportional to how long everyone fancies living.. we could get the NHS budget back to 1980s but we would all have to agree to die a decade earlier.. essentially almost all our healthcare costs occur in the last decade to keep us bimbing along in our 70s and 80s..so as long as we all shuffle off at around 73 instead of 83 we can go back to 6% of GDP on healthcare.
Because pensioners have the government by the balls. There are ever-increasing numbers of them, and the buggers always vote. Starmer can’t even means-test the winter fuel allowance so only the needy get it, without the rest screaming blue murder and looking to voting fascist.
The plain truth of the matter is that all of Europe needs to spend more on defence if Putin’s legacy is to survive him for the next decade or so. Complaining about the costs does not get more troops on the ground and new advanced technologies into service. The UK, along with its allies, are right back in the mid-1930s facing a growing German threat and niff-norring about, ‘Will Hitler go to war or not?’ Even the Americans are taking the Roservelt route of supporting free Europe without having to put US service personnel in direct danger, as constantly reiterated by Trump and the Ukraine war. One dividend Putin is banking on is the weakening of NATO as each member fights off domestic budget demands for more welfare. The democratic European states have one major drawback, and that is democratic voting for their governments and as their respective elections approach, so do the social demands. The UK has another four years, other states have much less, and the risk of cracks in the alliance increases exponentially with every defence budget increase and this is to Russia’s advantage. At the end of the day, it’s peace or bread.
Yes like it or not you are right we will be tested hard these coming years. Far too many people say Putin won’t invade Britain but they miss the point Ottoman type control over client States would change our lives and liberties immensely at the very least and worst case scenario Russia invades Norway the taking of which would transform their strategic position opening the North Sea and Atlantic to their submarines and even surface ships open up the Baltic and would put the rest of Scandinavia in a scary position. Our main area of support will be that Scandinavia and in particular Norway in any northern move by Russia to outflank NATO and if we fail to have sufficient sources to do so and the US fails to intervene then we would have them closer to the Shetlands that mainland Britain is and likely indefensible in that scenario. Yes that’s worst case scenario and America would have to be totally mad to stand by but in a decade would it be unthinkable especially if many, many thousand Koreans are available as cannon fodder and the US has an even madder President. I was only reminded recently that had Lindbergh won the Presidential election not Roosevelt the US back then would probably been more likely to join Germany in the war than support Britain and the nightmare scenario some fear now if we get this wrong would have already happened 75 years back. Let’s hope we never have to suffer Margery Taylor Greene as their first female President or whoever her male equivalent might be, geez we could have had Cruz.
The Labour SDR is a gutsy programme and should be supported, even though some backbenchers are already becoming uncomfortable about the increase in defence spending. Some European countries could face civil unrest due to increased military spending and that’s understandable if people go hungry for the sake of the gun. One positive outcome of all this could be Russia holding back from further escalation outside of Ukraine, as to do so would most certainly awaken Europe’s population and fill it with resolve.
Look at map, you can’t really invade Norway without getting Finland and Sweden.
Yesterday’s SDR was a buzzword salad, in a similar vein to the last 4 or 5. Where was the urgency? where were the orders?
Let’s see if orders develop over Summer, they had damn well better start to build up.
Would hope so Spyinthesky. Especially when Trump can’t be trusted
Details about orders will come in the equipment plan in the Autumn.
That’s not quick enough
I honestly cant see how this is true. Russia is struggling against Ukraine. How are they stronger than NATO? European countries need to take defence seriously but statements like this dont make sense.
Am I the only one who finds what Rutte claimed is a problem. Either the media is feeding us a load of bull or Rutte is exaggerating big time.
1) we are told that Russia economy is on its knees
2) that cannot keep up with the demands of Ukraine.
3) if Russia had spare war fighting capability, why aren’t they using it in Ukraine
4) they are loosing huge manpower in Ukraine.
5) they have lost huge amounts of equipment in Ukraine which they will have difficulty replacing with western sanctions.
The Ukraine war is not going to be over anytime soon and given the weak Russian economy how are they going to rearm retrain several tens of thousands of men in three short years.
Or am I missing something?
how are they going to rearm, train and re equip to take on NATO in three years.
The Ukraine war is not going to be over anytime soon
You are missing the fact that people tell you different things for their own reasons. Not all you hear is true and none of it is absolutely true. The real world is complicated and we can’t always successfully reason in soundbites. That’s as true of what you hear about Russia as it is of what you hear from Mark Rutte. The short answer to some of your question is that Russia hasn’t fully mobilised and can sustain its losses. But that’s a soundbite too and almost as much bs as the rest of it. Geopolitics isn’t easy.
If we get it wrong one way, we spent too much money on Defence, much of which will boost the economy but not by as much as we spend. Some people will get poorer. If we get it wrong the other way and we fail to deter a major war, millions could die and the economy will be shot for a generation. You pays your money and takes your choice. At least, the government does.
Let me cut and paste from a recent BBC article interviewing a German general, following a statement that NATO could be at war within 4 years, just to give you the opposing story to the one you painted:
[General Carsten] Breuer said that Nato was facing “a very serious threat” from Russia, one that he has never seen before in his 40 years in service. At the moment, he said, Russia was building up its forces to an “enormous extent”, producing approximately 1,500 main battle tanks every year. “Not every single tank is going to Ukraine, but it’s also going in stocks and into new military structures always facing the West,” he said.
As much as I’m all for prioritising defence early rather than late, it’s hard to see how Russia, having depleted decades worth of equipment and munitions, reaching deep into their reserves whilst taking immense casualties at great economic cost, is in any position to launch an invasion against NATO anywhere in the near/medium future. By all means still a threat but they aren’t going to be in a position launch an invasion any greater in scale than the one in 2022 against NATO, which is a far larger force with far higher readiness, even if there are some critical issues like munitions stockpiles and equipment which has been poured into Ukraine instead.
Trump has been asking for this for st least 8 years, Trump is right yet again.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day!
Don’t think Mr Rutte should be broadcasting what Nato “can’t do” in 3 to 5 years and out loud right now. He might inadvertently give encouragement and timelines to Russia to go bigger and sooner. I think language should be focused on the “can do” and “will do”. Fix the issues behind closed doors. My 5c.
Seems a little like we’re intentionally overstating the problem to keep the solution out of reach.
Until someone figures out how to advance on a position defended by artillery, deep air defences and fpv drone operators we can just focus on piling those on the NATO so Putin knows there’s no chance of any sneaky bite and holds to test NATO resolve.
That said we do need to figure out what the end of the current dynamic looks like so we don’t end up in a Maginot line v Blitzkrieg situation.
So this is where the headline statements become unbelievable..NATO could not defend against Russia in 3 years..that is simply not true.. NATO can and would crush Russias ability to undertake meaningful offensive warfare in a very short period of time…but
1) NATOs major weakness is political and Russia would attack using political warfare.. the three Baltic states are rip for this because of their large ethic Russian populations.. ferment unrest, create civil strife and funnel in money and support to Russian separatists..NATO would have a hell of a time deciding what to do about civil wars. Russia would offer NATO nations an opt out and would believe many would take it breaking NATO.
2) if Russia answer NATO did enter a kinetic war..Russia would have little ability to actively conquer NATO territory..as most of its effectors for this would be overwhelmed..but equally NATO would not be able to invade and conquer Russia due to the fact it has a huge nuclear arsenal and so NATO would never risk MAD by invading..
3) Russia has the space to hide capabilities..so it could keep sniping at Europe and a long war would be crushing to European and wider world economies.
Essentially the actual danger is Russia would push its political warfare to far due to perceived lack of will to fight in NATO and end up in a war with NATO.. Russia could not win..but with the massive nuclear risk NATO could not knock Russia out completely.. therefore essentially you would get a long drawn out stalemated war..in which both sides snipped at each other ( for different reasons ) as their and the world’s economies slowly went down the toilet.. what would be interesting is that it would not even be a true attrition war as European NATO is 10 times larger and with the US 25 times larger.. it would essentially be a nuclear stalemated kinetic war..which is something we have never had before.
The other danger relates to WW3 and contagion….essentially china wants to go to war and is just looking for the most advantageous time.. NATO and the US distracted by a Russian war would be idea.. it would be the same for North Korea and Iran.. it’s also the other way around..if china kicks off it’s war with the US Russia may see an opportunity to start its major political war offensive in the Baltics. We always think about WW2 as a war that just happened between two Large Alliances..but it was actually a slow building conflagration that nations gradually joined as they used the opportunities of the developing conflict to use force for their own ends.
I’ll push back on this:
Theory of victory is complicated, and I’d very much offer the thought that from a NATO perspective “defeating Russia” means in any shooting War driving Russian forces back across the Status Quo Ante-Bellum borders. So while Russia is in no way going to march on Paris (or even Warsaw) any time soon, a conflict that opens and see’s Russia grabbing Narva, Voru, Daugavpils and squatting on the outskirts of Vilnus is very believable. And if that happens, I think NATO at present would struggle to dislodge them completely, especially if TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) goes back to being a draft dodger, NATO might struggle with the higher level fires and commands needed for the fight. (And the magazine depth).
Hi Dern I would say that possibly you would get some small movement and yes that baltics are a bit exposed.. but in the end Russia would loss it’s ability to undertake significant offensive action and NATO and Russia would settle into a a long slow stalemate.. in the end Russia on its own would loss in the end as NATO simply has more wealth, population and industrial capacity.. and Russia would be forced into treaty to give it all back.. its a war that will either end in treat or MAD. So yes NATO may loss the odd battle or land on its periphery .. but whether it can defend itself is more a function of would it win a war and get the better terms.. it’s really about how you define defend and that is generally it considered as a requirement to defend and hold every bit of land..
Its not really believable that NATO could not rapidly defeat Russia with conventional forces now. Russia has proven itself utterly incapable of co-ordinating combined arms tactics, generating a winning war plan and executing that plan.
The Russian military is now bogged down fighting a losing attritional war in Ukraine vs an enemy of their choosing, who is fighting for home, country and family and has proven themselves far more agile, flexible, adapatable and innovative than Russia. The Ukrainian military is causing disproportionate casualties upon Russia. Sure the Russian army is soaking those casualties up but there is a time of reckoning coming when conscription, volunteers and press ganged wont be enough to replace their loses. That time probably already passed when Russia requested North Korean and seemingly “volunteer” Chinese special forces to swell their ranks and make up for their reduced fighting power.
NATO especially European NATO is now focussed on Russia and countering it. We have a population of 500 million people and a GDP x5 that of Russia. It is inconceivable that even with our reduced militaries now we couldn’t rapidly defeat Russia. The European NATO militaries are going to be spending a combined 650 billion per annum by 2027 on defence and military forces- that should provide a huge chunk of war fighting capability, overwhelming military might, certainly enough to defeat Russia by 2027. More can and should be done but the Europeans are being open and actively trying to change the narrative. Baltic states and Poland spending well over 3% already, France has committed to doubling its military by 2030, even the laggards that are Germany are stepping up efforts so they can feasibly put 2-3 divisions into the field fully equipped and with supporting air power and artillery by end of 2027. More can and should be done- I think Germany wants to get to a deployable force of 5-6 armoured divisions or their equivalent by 2030- which is a step in the right direction but still lagging behind Poland, who are fast emerging as Europe’s premier land super power.
So things are improving, Russia isn’t really a military threat to Europe whilst it is fighting a brutal and exhausting war in Ukraine and once that war is completed by whichever means, Russia will need a prolonged period of time to recover, retrain, re-equip and restock provisions and munitions before it can even consider opening another campaign.
Many analysts Ive spoken too think Russia’s war production has now peaked, they’ve put on extra shifts in all factories, run their production lines at full capacity, thrown what money and resources they can scrap together at it and still produce no more than 300 T90-M tanks per annum, 1000-1200 other armoured fighting vehicles (APCs, MRAPs, Armoured cars, Scout and IFVs) per annum and around 200-300 SPGs and 200 rocket launchers per annum- far far far less than their running loses in Ukraine. With munitions they are maxed out with artillery shell production and cannot produce more cruise and guided weaponry owing to the microprocessor shortages, sanctions and China not wanting to openly be supporting Russia with wholesale massed production for the Russian armaments industry.
The result of this is that realistically even if the war in Ukraine ended tomorrow Russia would not rebuild its military might to threaten a NATO country within probably 3 years and even then they would need any conflict with NATO to be rapidly over and not draw in the full might of the alliance.
The only way for Mad Vlad to redeem this situation is either 1) make peace and end the war in Ukraine- he cant do that as he hasn’t achieved anywhere near his war aims. 2) withdraw from Ukraine as a lost cause- cant do that as it would end him and his oligarch cronies gravy run and likely end with a bullet in his head 3) grind out a costly victory of sorts in Ukraine in the next 3+ years with massive casualties and huge failures of tactics and then regroup and rearm. 4) declare a total war, call up mass conscription of nearly every fighting aged man, woman and child and march them to either the factories or the frontline equipping them with whatever they can muster and pouring them into the blood bath in the hope of crushing Ukraine once and for all.
I think he will go for option 4 or potentially option 5) end the deadlock on the front by using WMDs (biological, chemical or nuclear weapons)
Russia’s strategic intent is to establish a Union State of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, 250 million souls, encamped on the borders of the EU.
We have been here before
‘An Atlantic community paralyzed by its military inferiority in Europe could only wring its hands as Soviet power and influence moved
unimpeded into the so-called Third World, portions of which provide the materials upon which the industrial, economic, and social health of the industrial West depend……So even if one believes that an attack on Western Europe is not a very likely scenario, he still cannot view the growing strength of the Soviet Army in Eastern Europe without a certain uneasiness. For that Army not only serves the Soviets’ legitimate security interests, but it also exercises an influence on the Atlantic Community that could be in the long run as fatal as naked aggression. The Soviet Army in Eastern Europe is an awesome military machine, and as such it is a powerful political instrument. It is a vital element in the modern strategy of the Soviet Union.’
We know what to do. We have done it before. It achieved ‘The Long Peace’ 1945-2014′. It works.
And we also know how much it costs. It requires, at the very least, 5% of GDP to be spent on defence.
The alternative is to have our foreign and domestic policies dictated from Moscow.
Make no mistake, Moscow views the conquest of Ukraine as vital to the survival of Russia itself.
They will not stop, will have to be stopped. The cheapest way to do that is through a credible conventional deterrence based on readily observable mass.