Promises of future spending are not the same as actual contracts, which would encourage European defense contractors to increase the speed and scale of production. And without European rearmament, NATO will simply doom itself to failure
– concludes the expert, adding that European leaders seem to be unaware of the possibility that NATO could fail in an actual conflict.
Polish President Andrzej Duda recently urged the NATO member states to increase their defense spending to three percent of their GDP, not two, in an opinion piece published in the American newspaper The Washington Post.
Similar opinions are appearing more and more often. At a recent panel discussion organized by the National University of Public Service, Arvid Hallen, co-founder and program director of Oikos, the only Swedish conservative think tank, stated that Europe would be in a difficult situation if it had to defend itself without the help of the United States, since many defense skills are simply not available to the European countries. The truth is that, with few exceptions, the European forces did not emphasize traditional warfare, explained the Swedish expert.
The only way we can show the US that we care about our own defense is to actually spend on our own defense
– emphasized Hallen, adding that the European member states of NATO should not take lightly the danger of having to fight a war without the broad support of the United States.
Cover image: Wreck of a tank (Photo: MTI/EPA/Sergej Kozlov)
