Europe's Defenses Risk Faltering Within Weeks Without US Support

bloomberg.com

8 points·Bostonian··5 comments

By underspending on defense for decades, Europeans have increased their dependence on a man like Trump.

Europe's defense sector has both "underspend" and "corrupt and incompetent" problems. And without some pretty draconian oversight, firing up their spending will mostly fuel the latter.

So true.

According to global firepower.com Germany is _way_ behind Japan. Hard to explain otherwise, considering the amount spent?

https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php

I'm to lazy to calculate a firepower/defence budget factor. I'm sure that would point to several nations with still hidden corruption problems.

South Korea ranks even higher despite a smaller budget and even smaller population. The difference is less in how much money gets spent to buy new equipment, but in what happens to old equipment.

South Korea still has lots of tanks left over from the Korean War. Similarly, Germany used to have lots of Cold War-era tanks inherited from the combined arsenals of West and East Germany, but as they were considered outmoded and unlikely to ever get used again, the Bundeswehr sold them off. Then when a new use for them was found in Ukraine, some of them got bought back again.

My understanding is that S. Korea is one of the world's leading arms exporters, because they're perfectly capable of delivering good-quality stuff - on time, on budget, and at scale:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_South_Kore...

Perhaps they could be convinced to ramp up production ASAP, and maybe take over operation of some of Europe's underperforming arms factories?

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