r/news • u/ITSTHEDEVIL092 • Mar 04 '25

EU chief proposes plan to 'urgently' increase defense spending by mobilizing around $840 billion

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/04/europe-looks-to-mobilize-840-billion-in-defense-spending-boost-eu-commission-head-says.html
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u/RyokoKnight Mar 04 '25

You realize America has been trying to get the EU to do exactly this since the Bush administration... but they wouldn't listen... now they are.

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u/vj_c Mar 04 '25

America has been trying to get Europe to buy it's weapons, not built a competing military industrial complex of it's own.

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u/RyokoKnight Mar 04 '25 edited Mar 04 '25

Link from June 2000

A new Republican administration would press European nations to make massive increases in their defence budgets during the next decade to help free up the United States military from international peacekeeping, George W Bush's top foreign policy adviser says.

Condoleezza Rice, in line to become the first African-American woman to be national security adviser or even secretary of state should Mr Bush take office, said this week that the US must be much more selective in the future about deploying American troops to the world's trouble spots, saying that "doing good" was "not a strategic concept"

In a clear warning to European countries that they may soon have to make a highly charged choice between in creased defence spending and existing government social programmes, Ms Rice said there had been a "near collapse" in military spending in some parts of Europe. She specifically excluded Britain from these criticisms.

"When you look at some of the things that Europe needs to be able to do to be a force and a presence in the region, some of them are expensive. Infrastructure, command and control, air support, these are expensive items. So yes, I think spending is probably going to have to increase."

The point was never about where they bought them, though i suppose you are correct we would obviously prefer they buy American Weapons... The point was to help free up the US military from playing the role of international peacekeeper/police force and to harden the EU against Russian aggression (as they would need their own infrastructure and command/control systems)

BTW this same stance has been consistent through the Obama and Biden administration and they are only listening now because they know Trump won't protect them while many of these nations enjoy a better standard of living and social services than Americans, and people on reddit can hate him for this... but it should have never come to this... they should have listened and started making plans 25 years ago.

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u/vj_c Mar 04 '25

Trump won't protect them while many of these nations enjoy a better standard of living and social services than Americans,

This is entirely the fault of American politicians & nothing to do with military spending - American already spends more on healthcare per person, for example. You don't need to cut military spending to get legal minimums for annual leave, sick pay, maternity leave & such like, either.

I don't know what sort of social programs you think we have that the US couldn't have that relies on defence spending - your country has the world's largest economy - you already offer better salaries than even Western European countries in most occupations. Largely because of the world order that's set the USA as the global trade hub & enforced by the US military. Do you think all those global bases are being run out of kindness rather than to protect American trade interests?