borrell16_KENZO TRIBOUILLARDPOOLAFP via Getty Images_special meeting defense spending

Politics

Werk maken van Europese defensie

Jun 1, 2022 Josep Borrell

BRUSSEL – De Russische oorlog in Oekraïne dwingt de Europese Unie om reeds lang bestaande strategische uitdagingen aan te pakken. De meest urgente opdracht bestaat erin Europa onafhankelijk te maken van Russische energie. Dit proces is inmiddels aan de gang, met een geleidelijk olie-embargo dat de invoer van olie uit Rusland tegen het einde van het jaar met 90 % moet verminderen.

In een breder kader is het voor Europa ook zaak een doeltreffend veiligheids- en defensiebeleid te ontwikkelen, met de capaciteiten die nodig zijn om dat beleid uit te voeren. Deze ambitie was er al, maar heeft nu nieuw elan gekregen. De Russische oorlog maakt duidelijk dat we een omslag moeten maken en de investeringen in defensie meer moeten bundelen. Dat was de belangrijkste conclusie van de besprekingen van de Europese Raad over defensie deze week.

Politieke problemen zijn nooit identiek. Soms zijn ze zo nieuw en ongekend dat ze pas na een grondige beoordeling van het veranderde landschap kunnen worden aangepakt. Soms zijn de oplossingen bekend, maar ontbreken de middelen. Het Europese veiligheids- en defensiedebat behoort tot een derde categorie: de diagnose en het medicijn zijn duidelijk, maar de politieke wil ontbreekt.

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vic lai Jun 5, 2022

"The most immediate task is to end Europe’s dependence on Russian energy imports, ......"
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Doing the above will most probably subject the EU countries to US's persistent presence, interference and dominance in Western Europe in the coming decades, turning the EU nations into satellite countries or perhaps even colonies of the US far into the future.
The most immediate task should be to end Europe’s dependence on US's military troops now stationed in the NATO countries, by massively and quickly developing her own military forces which will be strong enough both to defend herself and to fight Russia.
If the NATO cannot establish and control her own strong military forces through rearmament and use them to defend herself, tomorrow's EU will become today's Japan.
On the other hand, if the NATO's own armies are strong enough, and her eastern and northern expansion can be stopped, the military and political balance of power between NATO and Russia can be established and maintained, Russia can keep trading with the EU and continue to serve as EU's most important economic hinterland, and the Euro will then have the chance of truly taking on the US dollar in the global currency markets in the future.
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Remember the final end of the brother of the leading female actress in the TV series Games of Thrones ?
His dependency on other people to get back his power has already sealed at the very beginning the tragic end he later had to face.
The simple lesson for any person or country bloc is that, as far as possible, rely only on oneself, and never on other people.
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- vic lai Jun 5, 2022
  
  The EU's current deteriorating relationship with both Russia and China will further strengthen the future close coalition between those two countries, essentially turning resource-rich Russia into China's Canada, instead of maintaining the status quo of keeping Russia as the EU's Canada, thereby empowering China that both the EU and the US initially strive to weaken, and also ending up much weakening herself.
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  It's said that the EU's relatively close established relationship with both Russia and China in the past 16 years under the leadership of Germany's Angela Merkel has completely evaporated in just the past 160 days, under the new politicians of Germany.
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  If today's rising China lacks a Chinese person like Otto von Bismarck, then today's EU lacks a geopolitically-sophisticated politician like Henry Kissinger.
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  - vic lai Jun 6, 2022
    
    If the EU doesn't want to restore her previous Merkel-era friendlier relationship with Russia (and China), but with pride and prejudice continues to poke the Russian polar bear through NATO's continuous eastern and northern territorial expansion, almost all the EU nations will have to incur more and more government deficits and debts over time to much strengthen her own military-industrial complex like that of the US, before she can really feel geopolitically safe facing her super-big eastern neighbor in the future years.
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    But if she chooses to replace those old and obsolete weapons sent to Ukraine not by developing and producing the advanced weaponry herself, but by importing them from the US military-complex instead, then in the coming years she has to keep relying militarily on the US as in the past, even though the American troops are no longer stationed in the NATO countries.
    Together with the much higher future prices of imported energies, food, fertilizers and commodities, the Euro's exchange rate will sooner rather than later fall to below parity with the US dollar as a result of the bigger and bigger current account deficits of the EU as a whole.
    And so, the EU will further import inflationary pressure from abroad, requiring the ECB both to start her rate-hike cycle and to stop her new QEs altogether, or to even start her QT cycle sooner than expected, which will then seriously hurt the EU's highly-indebted southern peripheral countries.
    The probable resumed interest rate spreads between the government bonds of the southern and Northern EU countries observed during the Euro Crisis a decade ago may be repeated one day in the future, increasing once again the possibility of a serious implosion of the EU project.
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Peter McLoughlin Jun 2, 2022

One crucial lesson humanity has not learned from history is: everybody eventually gets the war they seek desperately to avoid – their own destruction. Today, as in the Cold War, all states want to avoid nuclear war…
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
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Jag Patel Jun 2, 2022

This state-on-state war on the European continent yet again has changed everything.

Since the UK exited the EU, it is true to say that the remaining EU27 were proceeding ahead with plans to share military research & development, closer defence industry collaboration, alignment of arms export policies and common procurement of defence equipment so they could act independently of the US, if necessary.

Of course, it makes sense for the UK to maintain good relations with near neighbours and trading partners. But it is precisely because it has had a longstanding intelligence-sharing and military partnering arrangement with the US, stretching back to the start of World War II that stands in the way of a reinvigorated defence, security and intelligence relationship with the EU27.

Consider for a moment, recent military hardware procurements made by the UK. In the main, they have been acquired because of their commonality and interoperability with US armed forces which not only enables both countries to undertake joint operations seamlessly, but also offers certainty that replacement spare parts will be made available available to the front line via a common logistics supply chain – thereby reducing substantially, the burden of in-service sustainment costs, which can be in the order of four to five times the prime equipment costs over the whole life cycle.

But there is yet another, even more important reason.

The UK government has revised its defence procurement policy to consider buying, as its first and foremost priority, new military equipment for the armed forces which automatically falls in the off-the-shelf category – specifically because an off-the-shelf equipment is a fully engineered and supported technical solution which satisfies the key user requirements at no additional cost or risk to the Exchequer, that is to say, it does not require any user-specified modifications or related development work laden with risk to be performed upon it.

The reason, which it will not admit in public, why the government has moved away from its longstanding procurement policy of buying equipment designed to a bespoke technical specification requirement set by the military customer is because, it is no longer confident in the ability of its own people to identify, manage and control technical risks inherent in a starting-point for the technical solution that requires development work to be performed upon it – which has been the cause of persistent delays and cost overruns on equipment acquisition programmes for as long as anyone can remember.

Whereas the government would want to look at indigenous defence equipment manufacturers as the first port of call for entirely good reasons, the undeniable fact of the matter is that, after decades of unwavering support lavished upon them by political parties of all persuasions, none of them are in a position to offer suitable off-the-shelf equipment, because they simply haven’t got any – not least, because they have not been investing in product research & development or innovation which has resulted in them becoming seriously uncompetitive, both in the domestic market and in export markets.

In addition to the five off-the-shelf purchases which are currently well under way – namely, the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, Apache AH-64E attack helicopters equipped with AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles, MQ-9B Protector armed drones, E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft and BOXER armoured vehicles, the government has recently signed a contract to buy H-47(ER) Chinook heavy-lift helicopters – the last two, after first conducting a comprehensive market survey and then a comparative analysis of existing, in-service platforms. All of this equipment, except BOXER, is being sourced from US-based manufacturers and is identical to that operated by US armed forces.

It is believed that a quarter of the equipment budget is currently being spent on buying off-the-shelf equipment. This slice is set to increase dramatically by the end of this Parliament, as more and more projects which involve significant development work are side-lined, in favour of off-the-shelf purchases.

So, the UK’s military and economic tilt towards the US makes it less likely that it will be drawn into any joint venture with the remaining EU27 on the provision of common defence goods.
@JagPatel3
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alex Finch Jun 2, 2022

Alan Greenspan 2007: “Europe has elected to accept less material well-being in exchange for reduced competitive stress in the workplace and more income redistribution” - The Age of Turbulence page 504. Cheap Russian oil and gas financed a lifestyle of reduced working hours (in Germany the lowest in the world) and increased recreational activities. Getting serious will require longer working hours and reductions in income redistributions to encourage better work ethics. Getting serious will require a shift away from high taxation and generous welfare.
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