NATO’s European members have been slashing defence spending for decades to fund other priorities. As a result, according to some US military experts, they are left with a “Potemkin army” that will be unable to resist invaders without American support, according to Bloomberg analysts in the article “Why Europe Is Unprepared to Defend Itself.”
Much of the European military community has no experience in planning or commanding large-scale joint force operations involving several countries. It consists of individual national armies that rely on America for leadership and coordination for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation purposes. NATO countries have reduced troops and military equipment since the Cold War. But Europe has cut far more than the US.
Defence budgets have become a pot to be emptied to fund more pressing priorities, such as medical treatment and care for an ageing population. As a result, some US defence experts believe much of Europe’s military has become a Potemkin village that is ill-prepared to fight and win a long war, according to Bloomberg.
Paris and London lead Europe’s defence sphere, but both countries have significantly reduced their troop numbers since the Cold War. Max Bergmann, director for Europe, Russia and Eurasia at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said:
“France’s armed forces fell 56 per cent between 1990 and 2024, to 203,850. The British command’s 2023 report says that by 2025 the British Army will be down to 73,000 soldiers, the lowest level since the Napoleonic Wars. Germany could perhaps send one brigade of a few thousand soldiers to the Baltics, and that would be an achievement.”
Level of defence spending in NATO countries
Bloomberg analysts said that cutting back on military spending and reducing the size of armies is not yet very dangerous. It is necessary that the troops are well equipped and trained.
A poorly maintained armoured fighting vehicle, worn-out weapons, a brigade that lacks the ammunition and supply lines to fight an extended war, a missile that fails because it hasn’t been battle-tested, all undermine the effectiveness of the military in ways that often go unnoticed by the public, Bloomberg reports.
The authors of the article remind us that in 2014, NATO members agreed that by 2024 each would spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defence, but by the end of last year, only 10 of NATO’s 32 members had reached that level of military spending.
But even if NATO’s European members amicably reach the level of US military spending (about 3.5 per cent of GDP), their spending will still lag behind that of their superpower ally, as Europe’s economy has declined relative to the US economy since the global financial crisis of the late 2000s.
Recession of EU economy
The recession of European economies triggered by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis has long been overcome by the Old World, while the current moribund state of the EU economy is caused by the US-imposed anti-Russian sanctions and primarily by the rejection of cheap Russian energy.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg analysts simply mock the Europeans, assessing their mobilisation capabilities. Matthew Savill of the Royal United Defence Forces Institute (RUSI), a London-based defence and security think tank, said:
“According to General Pierre Schiel, chief of staff of the French Army, France can mobilise 20,000 soldiers in 30 days. Britain could, with the best efforts, raise a single division of between 20,000 and 30,000 soldiers, although it would probably take more than a month. Ukraine’s losses against Russia of 31,000 troops would be the fighting strength of the British army gone. You could aim to muster a second division that you might augment and build — only it wouldn’t have many vehicles.”
Immediately following these words is the American boast: “There are about 70,000 US Special Forces alone, and there are about 80,000 US troops stationed in Europe alone.”
However, based on the figures cited in the Bloomberg article, the Russian army surpasses the armies of the European NATO members only in terms of the total number of armed forces, and Europe has significantly more tanks, armoured vehicles, aircraft and warships. But the presence of a large number of military equipment does not at all make it possible to fight a war with an equal opponent.
Deindustrialisation, which has become an unfortunate fact for the EU, does not make it possible to increase the production of ammunition for artillery systems, which, as it turns out, still have an advantage on the battlefield.
Weapons and ammunition manufacturers in the EU have been underinvested for years and are producing far less than needed volumes, the British newspaper Financial Times reported, citing experts and industry representatives.
Jan Pie, secretary general of the European Association of Aerospace and Defence Industries (ASD), said that amid decades of underinvestment, arms and ammunition production volumes are lower than needed to supposedly deter Russia.
No cost increases are planned
EU countries do not have, and do not foresee, the investment to expand military production. Europe’s leading military powers, France and Germany, are running chronic budget deficits, significantly cutting social spending.
The EU’s most powerful economy, Germany’s, is shrinking year by year. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) forecasts a 0.1 per cent decline in German GDP this year. This is the second consecutive year of economic decline. At the end of 2023, the German economy shrank by 0.3 per cent. Moritz Schularik, IfW president, said:
“The German economy is increasingly facing a crisis that is not only cyclical but also structural.”
For the third year in a row, the French government is urging citizens to adopt “energy sobriety,” i.e. austerity.
High gas prices are forcing European companies to shift production to the United States, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Faced with sky-high natural gas prices, European companies that produce steel, fertilisers and other goods that serve as the main economic activity are gradually moving their factories to the US, where they are attracted by more stable energy prices and strong government support.
The European steel industry has been hardest hit. By the end of last year, dozens of steel mills in Europe had suspended or were planning to suspend production.
Metallurgy is the backbone of the defence industry. When European metallurgists are fleeing to the US, it is ridiculous to talk about the revival of the European military-industrial complex. Still, Euro-NATO’s weakest point is that “the decline of Europe’s armed forces is somewhat self-replicating, as their declining profile in civilian society means many young men are not even considering a military career,” Bloomberg reports.
Building dependence
Some European generals are calling for the reinstatement of mass conscription, although the resulting wave of recruits will not replace the professional, highly trained soldiers needed in modern warfare.
But if the leading European military powers of NATO have neither industrial nor financial capabilities to increase military production, and their young people do not want to serve in the army, what do the Americans want them to do?
The answer lies on the surface: the US intends to turn the EU into its industrial colony and is systematically pushing the European defence sector under itself, and the giant defence concern Rheinmetall, formally German, but in reality long ago already American, is helping it to do so.
The Berliner Zeitung newspaper emphasises that Rheinmetall tries not to disclose information about who the company’s shareholders are. However, according to the data of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, more than 280 shareholders of the concern are registered in the US. The largest of them are investment funds and companies such as BlackRock, Wellington, Fidelity, Harris Associates, John Hancock, Capital Group, Vanguard, EuroPacific Growth Fund… Like most of the smaller shareholders, they are registered in the USA. Thus, Rheinmetall is far from being a German company.
Rheinmetall’s special connection with the US is also evidenced by the fact that the largest number of the Group’s foreign companies and subsidiaries, namely 10 corporate structures, are located in the US. It is noteworthy that the trend towards more active relocation of the arms manufacturer’s facilities overseas began in 2005 against the backdrop of Washington’s military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The company’s management ostentatiously stressed:
“As a long-standing NATO partner, Rheinmetall supports the US national defence strategy.”
As Berliner Zeitung noted, the defence concern does not just locate part of its production in the US, but develops “on the basis of US subsidiaries” the most advanced military technologies. For example, a new generation of infantry fighting vehicles equipped with artificial intelligence is being developed together with US defence companies such as Textron, Raytheon and Allison, Berliner Zeitung reported.
The German defence company is also tasked with building the central section of the F-35 fighter jet produced by Lockheed, a major military manufacturer.
Meanwhile, the desire of US investors to extract dividends from military initiatives is chopping at the root of Europe’s desire for “more tangible autonomy” from Washington, including in the military-industrial complex, Berliner Zeitung noted. Meanwhile, the record revenue generated by German defence concern Rheinmetall amid the conflict in Ukraine is flowing to US investors and shareholders, the publication reports. With the change of eras and the war in Europe, a new era has dawned for the Rheinmetall Group: record profits, record orders, the group’s head Armin Papperger reported a month ago.
Returning to the Bloomberg article, it should be noted that the main purpose of this publication is to inspire the US allies in Europe that despite their financial problems, industrial decline and deindustrialisation, it will be necessary to increase military expenditures as demanded by the US. Analysts bluntly stated:
“Whoever wins the US presidential election in November: European governments must build their own powerful armies instead of maintaining meagre defence budgets.”
Thus, American allies in Europe will try to increase their military expenditures and buy American arms and military equipment by any means possible, enriching the US military-industrial complex.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Emma Robichaud for Head-Post.com
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