Europe will now spend more on it’s own defence which is very good for the West and just horrible for Russia. Invading the EU is a different proposition to invading Ukraine. Invading a well-armed Europe is almost impossible.
The problem is that Europe is a vassal. If Russia invades then the US will have to help defend Europe. Trump was right that European countries should spend more on defence, but at the same time very dishonest about the quid pro quo going on. Free rein for US companies, the Mastercard tax, the Visa Tax... Also for too long European defence spending actually means buying weapons from the US. Europe should spend more on defence and spend it at home, but that is the opposite of what Trump wants.
Two main reasons for European increase in military spending (in no particular order):
1. The latest Russian invasion was a wake-up call. Much bigger than in 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea and East Ukraine. Especially Germany and France have been attempting to reach a lasting peaceful relationship with Russia through trade and agreements. Any hope anybody in Europe might have had of that has evaporated now.
2. Fear that the US will not be there to defend Europe in the future (Trump threatened to leave NATO - and might be re-elected). One of the (fair) reasons behing Trump's threats were European NATO countried not paying their fair share (2% of GDP in 2014 agreement).
Russia is the only threat. EU countries together outpace Russian military spending with large marging. Russia has no capability to act outside it's borders in high intensity warfare. Even limited involvement in Syria is wearing down their aircraft.
European defence has structural problem: scattering military resources all over the Europe. Spain, France and Belgium should keep most of their main battle tanks in Poland and send troops to train there. Russian amphibious attack from the North Atlantic is not a threat.
This is the complacency that has meant Europe is almost entirely dependent on the US for credibile defence against Russia. Europe is not well-armed, as shown by the panicked response to Trump's threat to let NATO allies be attacked if they don't contribute enough to the budget, and it will take a long time to re-arm properly in the current economic climate. (For clarity, I think Trump's threat is terrible in many ways, but it has exposed NATO's fundamental dependence on the US)
You do realize the EU has a mutual protection clause similar to Nato. Russia can't exactly invade. It's economy is smaller than Italy's. I don't think the EU depends as much on US defence as some Americans would have one believe.
Coincidentally, this whole Russia Ukraine war has pushed most NATO nations to build up their military and re-arm. If Europe can actually defend itself, the US's obligation there reduces significantly.
Look no further than Ukraine. Was Europe as eager to sabotage itself when the US invaded two fucking countries based on idiotic lies? No, almost everyone had to help the invasions in one way or another. We actively helped the bad guys.
This time we're tripping over ourselves to to make life harder for the Russians no matter the cost, seemingly lacking any self awareness.
During last 3 decades Europe got heavily demilitarized. Army in Germany became dysfunctional money sucking black hole without working equipment. Ukraine with its forces never posed a threat to Russia. And yet russians decided to invade. Looking for a job now and can tell, that defence companies are seriously hiring in Germany at the moment. Thanks to russians European NATO part will be armed to the teeth soon.
We have very little military spending. The ukraine invasion was a very successfull testrun for Putin.
We in Europe we keep ourselve weak and defenseless. Why?
Europe, with the exception of the countries directly bordering Russia and Greece (buying weapons to point at fellow NATO member Turkey), has spent decades underinvesting in national defense, arguably freeloading under American hegemony. Now that that's coming to an end, expect things to get worse.
Russia has a military budget of 60bn, Germany and France spend 52bn each. Within the EU they are on home turf, with existing rail and road infrastructure. The EU isn't equipped to fight in Russia or to fight a nuclear war (even though France has nukes), but I don't see why the EU shouldn't be able to defend it's own territory in a conventional war.
Europe actually has a significant defense capability. More trained soldiers than the US or Russia. Arms r&d, lots of aircraft, ship building etc. It doesn't spend as much as the US and only a couple of European countries have projection, namely France and the UK, and not that much at that. But the idea that Europe as a whole would be unable to defend itself against Russia's conventional military is pretty much just hawkish propaganda.
Also look at what is happening in Europe and the Ukraine war.
After the weak and inept leadership shown by France and Germany in their response to Russia's aggression the hopes for a EU defense capability is all but finished.
Eastern European countries would rather have the US to defend them [1].
And I think more appreciation needs to be given to the US for supporting Ukraine in those early days because if Russia over-ran Kyiv it's quite possible that Belarus, Moldova, Estonia etc could have been next. US military leadership can credibly be argued to have saved Europe.
Nobody was doing that until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Europe was unilaterally disarming itself. Armies like Bundeswehr saw a 5x-10x reduction in manpower, artillery, tanks and other weapons between the end of the Cold War and 2014. Europe hosted 5000 US tanks in 1980s. The last one left in 2013. Russia invaded Ukraine the next year.
The funding is less of a problem. European countries spend a lot. It's just very diverse. The US has one army and one commander. Europe has 20+ armies and as much commanders. Around 250 billion a year is for example a lot more than what Russia spends. There are France and UK with nuclear weapons. Each of them has their own nuclear weapons and their own technology. Their nuclear weapons are not EU weapons, they are not designed to defend the EU. The UK isn't even anymore in the EU. The Brexit was also fueled by the UK not wanting to be part of an EU Army.
There is simply no EU army, the EU is not a nation, the EU is not a defense union. Several EU countries are neutral, several countries make their own military decisions, based on the constitutional law, etc.
For most purposes, NATO is the main international military organization for European countries, not the EU.
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