The emperor does not have tanks

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Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The writer is an exclusive editor in FT and writes the newsletter for the scheme

Europe is in the midst of a significant increase in defense spending. Over the past decade, the military budgets in the European Union have multiplied. The justification, apparently, is clear. Europe’s defenses are dilapidated. The threat from Russia is real.

But stop for a second to consider the facts.

Before invading Russia, the contract was not a “lost contract” for soldiers in Europe. According to SIPRI data, the cumulative spending of NATO members in Europe for the course of that period has reached 3.15 trillion dollars, for $ 2023. Much greater than Russia. Today, it is agreed that Europe needs more deployed forces. But Europe already has 1.47 million men and women wearing military uniform-and this is more active than the United States.

The scandal is not that European defense budgets have not already doubled. The scandal is that Europe spends a lot and becomes very few for it – there is no effective deterrence, a few of the deployed forces, and no weapons stocks to provide it to Ukraine.

Imagine if Europe spent 3.15 dollars at the energy transfer. Four Biden -style programs similar to the Irish Republican Army returned back. But then, imagine that despite all this spending, we received a natural look studded with a varied variety of solar panels and air mills, but hardly any clean energy canable and lack of charcoal. It will be a scandal. Then imagine that our first idea, when facing a new energy crisis, was doubling the spending on this institution without a goal.

If this is the common sense, what is madness?

The optimistic may say that things are not bad as he claimed. In fact, Europe got at least some (Britain, French and Turkish), at least for the 3TN. With the late reorganization, even Germany can be on the way to a reliable deterrent installation. Agreement on the basics such as the joint air defense system, or a limited set of tanks, will make the difference. The tape is low. All Europe needs is to achieve the average level of inefficiency of the American military industrial complex to obtain strong strength.

On the contrary, mockery will say that exploring Baroque militak in Europe is childish. Just believes that military spending revolves around national security rather than profit. Waste is not a mistake – it’s an advantage. Otherwise, how does the pricing system explain the cost used to pay the price of manually, 17 million euros? Otherwise, how do you explain the fact that the vast majority of military purchases by the largest European countries are still within the national borders? Nobody is seriously interested in obtaining useless weapons, in an adequate amount at a decent price, which will continue this way.

Both optimists and attackers have a point, but it does not pass for a right sense at the present time. Good logic asks us to believe that the crisis in the European defense is real and urgent. After spending more than 3 meters over a decade, Europe has not really left almost any military capacity. To fix this position, the only option is to pour good money badly.

But if this additional spending should not be a recipe for the accumulated despair, then it must be linked to the theory of change. It is clear that Europe can gain savings volume through demand for larger batches. But this does not require more money, simply more cross -border cooperation. To justify this increase, you should believe that new money will convert the isolated effects in Europe and the isolated monuments in the twentieth century to the fighting forces in the twenty -first century. You have to believe that increasing the amount of spending will somehow lead to a qualitative improvement.

In these conditions, the issue of European re -arms in some respects is similar to the challenge of energy transmission. Energy transmission partnerships that were launched again in 2021 have been based on the idea that additional money from Europe and the United States will enable large emerging markets such as South Africa and Indonesia to achieve a fundamental transformation by buying established interest groups and wiping political political barriers.

“Quality in Quality” is a beautiful idea. But these partnerships believed an ambition in a few billion euros. Europe’s defense plans are hundred times greater and will impose great pressure on the already extended budgets. At the very least that European democracies owe their citizens are the transparency about the bet that they legislate.

This is not logical, and has long been affected by the expansion of a healthy military machine otherwise. This is the Multitrillion-Euro bet that more money will somehow fix a broken system.