The problems (or realities) pointed out in this substack are concerning enough. By way of emphasis I add my own take on the dynamics they are unleashing.
Suppose a car plant is converted to manufacture of artillery shells. The car plant kept going because the market for cars expands or is refreshed as cars wear out. How does the artillery plant justify continuous production? It too needs an expanding or refreshing market. As the US shows, the military-industrial complex is implicated in war-mongering helped by the CIA and congressional hawks manfacturing pretexts to invade Iraq etc. And morality is suspended in overseas arms sales, the other feature of the need to expand the weapons market needed to sustain an arms industry.
A purely defensive arms economy must eventually stagnate. There are only so many anti-tank defences needed along a border. The implications of a war economy need very careful consideration. And by the time a war economy ends the state is burdened by high levels of debt. Europe was bankrupt by the end of WWII. Without the US Marshall Plan it would have remained so for a very long time.
European economies are already highly indebted - some economists think dangerously so with limitations of the kind Rachel from accounts finds herself wreslting with - and re-arming at pace as they propose is a good cover for even more borrowing not otherwise justifiable. Increasing defence spending by a percent or two is one thing. Shifiting in effect to a war economy is a reckless something else not least because the clowns in Brussels have, I am sure, no idea of how to manage the dynamics unleashed.
The so called peace dividend from the end of the Soviet Union was an excuse to incease welfare spending which Western progressive governments allowed to become unsustainable, and the need to re-arm will, perhaps, be an excuse or cover for trying to scale that back, but it will be by a little only. They have enough trouble with populism as it is.
I think it was Milton Friedman who pointed out that open borders and a welfare state were an either/or choice. You cannot have both as the dangerously indebted Euopean states are finding out the hard way. It is dangerous in all sorts of ways to have done this while de-industrialising at the same time as manufacture was outsourced to China. Yes, re-indusrialising is necessary but to do so at scale and pace by way of borrowing is reckless and it is hard to see the clowns in Brussels managing this any better than their already disastrous management of their economies to date.
Europe has indeed become a more dangerous place as the elites seize the opportunity to escape their mismanagment - for now.
I cannot see these Eurocrats who run Europe could ever get themselves organised to run a chook raffle let alone arm themselves. When Germany tried to buy tanks they needed them to be able to carry pregnant women and it all came to nothing. They have some tanks but not nearly enough. The other issue is getting enough troops to actually fight. The immigrants? The Young that don’t think their country is worth fighting for, let alone, Ukraine?
An excellent point about the moral weakness of the EU in the face of Russia and the cynicism with which they have seized this new raison d'être like a drowning man. Certainly there is a sense that everything that the respective national elites have neglected, or simply deferred to federal level have become urgent and critical – the point about Germany’s transport infrastructure is a prime example. My main question is about the domestic political impact of all this. If the EU are serious about this programme of rearmament how will they will square this with the abandonment of Net Zero that re Industrialization will require, and how they will sell this and a readoption of heroic values to the wider Clerisy; will this group simply obey, or will we see a backlash from this group? I wonder what impact this will have on ‘informal’ migration, or vice versa?
Would it be naif to suggest that Brussels has finally realised that net zero is a non starter, and this is their quite unsubtle way of producing a new crisis to replace their moribund CO2 fantasy, so they can continue to hold the entire European population in thrall to their dictates?
What I find extraordinary is that, having, ever since the end of WW2, avoided, evaded, or otherwise corner-cut their way out of paying any thing like their fair share of providing security for their nations, the leaders of Europe seem now to have suddenly switched to full "We'll show 'em!" mode.
It lacks seriousness and is, of course, potentially very dangerous.
Why is everyone getting exercised about producing weapons? Weapons are for destruction, death and injury - for sorrow , loss and devastation. Eradicate the word "war" with its connotations of medieval barbarism. Invest in intelligence - you can bring a country to a stand still by hacking into its computers. Use trade deals a la Trump. Stop with the posturing and chest thumping, use your head. Talk, listen. Really listen. Lose the old outdated mindsets.
The problems (or realities) pointed out in this substack are concerning enough. By way of emphasis I add my own take on the dynamics they are unleashing.
Suppose a car plant is converted to manufacture of artillery shells. The car plant kept going because the market for cars expands or is refreshed as cars wear out. How does the artillery plant justify continuous production? It too needs an expanding or refreshing market. As the US shows, the military-industrial complex is implicated in war-mongering helped by the CIA and congressional hawks manfacturing pretexts to invade Iraq etc. And morality is suspended in overseas arms sales, the other feature of the need to expand the weapons market needed to sustain an arms industry.
A purely defensive arms economy must eventually stagnate. There are only so many anti-tank defences needed along a border. The implications of a war economy need very careful consideration. And by the time a war economy ends the state is burdened by high levels of debt. Europe was bankrupt by the end of WWII. Without the US Marshall Plan it would have remained so for a very long time.
European economies are already highly indebted - some economists think dangerously so with limitations of the kind Rachel from accounts finds herself wreslting with - and re-arming at pace as they propose is a good cover for even more borrowing not otherwise justifiable. Increasing defence spending by a percent or two is one thing. Shifiting in effect to a war economy is a reckless something else not least because the clowns in Brussels have, I am sure, no idea of how to manage the dynamics unleashed.
The so called peace dividend from the end of the Soviet Union was an excuse to incease welfare spending which Western progressive governments allowed to become unsustainable, and the need to re-arm will, perhaps, be an excuse or cover for trying to scale that back, but it will be by a little only. They have enough trouble with populism as it is.
I think it was Milton Friedman who pointed out that open borders and a welfare state were an either/or choice. You cannot have both as the dangerously indebted Euopean states are finding out the hard way. It is dangerous in all sorts of ways to have done this while de-industrialising at the same time as manufacture was outsourced to China. Yes, re-indusrialising is necessary but to do so at scale and pace by way of borrowing is reckless and it is hard to see the clowns in Brussels managing this any better than their already disastrous management of their economies to date.
Europe has indeed become a more dangerous place as the elites seize the opportunity to escape their mismanagment - for now.
I cannot see these Eurocrats who run Europe could ever get themselves organised to run a chook raffle let alone arm themselves. When Germany tried to buy tanks they needed them to be able to carry pregnant women and it all came to nothing. They have some tanks but not nearly enough. The other issue is getting enough troops to actually fight. The immigrants? The Young that don’t think their country is worth fighting for, let alone, Ukraine?
An excellent point about the moral weakness of the EU in the face of Russia and the cynicism with which they have seized this new raison d'être like a drowning man. Certainly there is a sense that everything that the respective national elites have neglected, or simply deferred to federal level have become urgent and critical – the point about Germany’s transport infrastructure is a prime example. My main question is about the domestic political impact of all this. If the EU are serious about this programme of rearmament how will they will square this with the abandonment of Net Zero that re Industrialization will require, and how they will sell this and a readoption of heroic values to the wider Clerisy; will this group simply obey, or will we see a backlash from this group? I wonder what impact this will have on ‘informal’ migration, or vice versa?
Would it be naif to suggest that Brussels has finally realised that net zero is a non starter, and this is their quite unsubtle way of producing a new crisis to replace their moribund CO2 fantasy, so they can continue to hold the entire European population in thrall to their dictates?
Absolutely spot on!
What I find extraordinary is that, having, ever since the end of WW2, avoided, evaded, or otherwise corner-cut their way out of paying any thing like their fair share of providing security for their nations, the leaders of Europe seem now to have suddenly switched to full "We'll show 'em!" mode.
It lacks seriousness and is, of course, potentially very dangerous.
Why is everyone getting exercised about producing weapons? Weapons are for destruction, death and injury - for sorrow , loss and devastation. Eradicate the word "war" with its connotations of medieval barbarism. Invest in intelligence - you can bring a country to a stand still by hacking into its computers. Use trade deals a la Trump. Stop with the posturing and chest thumping, use your head. Talk, listen. Really listen. Lose the old outdated mindsets.