168
Trump lambasts ‘weak’ and ‘decaying’ Europe and hints at walking away from Ukraine
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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Russia still outproduces all of NATO in artillery shells, tanks, etc. And most European countries only have enough stocks to survive an Ukraine style war on their own for a few months without help (if they can fight as efficiently as Ukraine which is not a given). That's why unity and further ramp up is so important. Most of the really impressive production is happening inside Ukraine. But it's also generally not up to Russian rates. It will be some time before Europe is really prepared to go it alone and that's only if they really start producing now, which I wouldn't say is really happening yet.
Just note that you can not calculate like that. At war the whole economy switches over, instead of only a tiny fraction.
The question then is when Europe will realize it's at war and start producing like it.
The EU is not at war.
I disagree. We are being attacked on a regular basis.
A state, let alone a union of lots of states, are not at war because you feel like it. wiki: war
So what makes you think the EU is at war and why are all the implications that would have missing?
Note that "being attacked" is something different than being at war, as per above, but I am not going to start a new discussion before we have not finished this one.
Call it a covert war or what you want, but the EU is under attack by Russia and has been for some time. Just because one side has started a war campaign against the other and the other hasn't responded in kind doesn't make the war not real.
Those are perhaps hostile actions, but that is far away from war or "war campaign".
So what it's only war when war is formally declared?
Did you not read the definition above? It is pretty much the opposite. Just because 2 nations are formally at war with each other does not mean shit, there is a wiki article with absurd examples.
That's kind of my point
There's already a war going on against the EU. The fact that its leaders aren't admitting it yet is a big mistake.
Without a qualitative measure, those numbers are nearly meaningless. It's also worthwhile knowing how much of that materiel actually gets to the front lines. Command economies are notorious about claiming to hit production targets, yet nothing actually changing downstream. Nobody wants to tell the boss they missed their production quota, since doing so can lead to defenestration.
They are certainly of lower quality, but in the words of Stalin, "Quantity has a quality of its own".
I don't think Stalin actually said that. I can't find a good source anyway.
One of the reasons they're producing so many tanks is the high attrition rate of tanks in the face of Ukrainian resistance.
Similarly, counting artillery shells is a crude measure of how effective their use has been. Blowing holes in the ground where the enemy isn't is just burning money.
With the qualitative advantages of European materiel over those of Russia, especially fighter planes, how likely is a protracted war? And what would happen to Russia's productive capacity in those first few months? It's likely that those factories are very near the top of target lists, right after command and control centers and mobile air defense installations.
A war will last as long as Russia is willing to throw bodies and materiel at it. Same as we see in Ukraine. If they can keep going until their adversary is out of men and/or materiel, they will eventually win. It's unlikely to happen if the western alliance stays together, but considerably more likely on a country by country basis if they don't.