Neither Europe nor the United States are prepared for a full-fledged military conflict with the Russian Federation and have no such plans. Therefore, peace with the West must be concluded not only with security guarantees in the form of treaties, but also with territories. Lyubov Stepushova, columnist for Pravda.Ru, writes about this.
German Defense Minister boris pistorius In an interview with Der Spiegel he stated that “Russia produces as many weapons and ammunition in three months as the entire European Union produces in a year.” And this in the context of the October statements of the former head of the British Foreign Office. David Cameron during a debate in the House of Commons, that if you add up all the GDP of the NATO coalition countries, “we outnumber Russia 25 to 1.” Therefore, according to Cameron, “it is not impossible for us to increase sufficient military production.” That is, time passes, but the problem is not solved.
If we analyze the US military budget for 2023, we do not see any militarization of the economy during the two and a half years of the Northern Military District. The share of defense spending in 2024 reached its lowest level since 1940, with no signs of expansion (3.6% of GDP in the second quarter of 2024), writes an independent financial analyst on Telegram Pavel Riabov.
According to their analysis, missile production in value terms from January 2022 to the second quarter of 2024 increased by 2.4% in nominal terms, but decreased by 2.7% in real terms, taking into account inflation. In the case of armored vehicles and military equipment, the decrease was 6% and, taking into account inflation, 10.5%. The only expense item that saw a large increase, 28.8% at par and 13.8% after inflation, was ammunition. Of course, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have had an impact, but even within this category, costs are 10% lower than in 2020 and more in line with five-year cycles of inventory accumulation and distribution.
“All defense spending growth is driven by personnel benefits, service operations and intellectual property, but it is physical weapons, equipment and ammunition that are trending downward.” —concludes Pavel Ryabov.
Why is this so, even though the situation in Ukraine is claimed to have existential significance for the West? Its military machinery is extremely slow, since it is in private hands. The main thing for a private owner is to earn income; investing in investments is extremely expensive. It is another thing to increase the selling price per unit of weapons and have huge sums fall into your pocket without any expansion of production.
238 billion dollars – this is the amount that the American military-industrial complex sold in weapons in 2023. Poland, for example, bought Apache helicopters for 12 billion dollars, and also paid 10 billion dollars for systems of Himar high-mobility missiles, $3.75 billion for M1A1 Abrams tanks and $4 billion for integrated air and missile defense control systems, BBC reports citing government taxes United States. files. Poland is solvent, unlike Ukraine.
If Ukraine had existential meaning for the West, the economies of the United States and Europe would have long ago been put on a war footing and the Armed Forces of Ukraine would have received everything necessary and free of charge, but no one is doing it. , they are just saying.
What is a war economy? According to SIPRI, in 2021 the share of defense spending in Ukraine’s GDP was 3.43%, increasing tenfold and reaching 37% in 2023 in GDP and 58% in the budget. Exports of goods and the outflow of capital from Ukraine are controlled, the sale of basic food products is rationed, production is planned and the increase in some prices is limited.
According to the same institute, the share of the Russian Federation’s GDP allocated to defense increased from 3.7% in 2021 to 5.9% in 2023 and should reach 7.1% this year; 29% of the Russian federal budget goes to military needs.
While in France, which announced the militarization of the economy in 2022, defense spending will reach 2% of GDP this year alone. The Defense Programming Law (LPM) 2024-2030 plans to increase defense credits to 2.5% of GDP in 2030.
All the rhetoric we hear about the need to speak to the Russian Federation in the language of force, especially from France, is a form of warfare in the information field, where the West controls the mainstream. The purpose of this war is to intimidate and achieve consensus by inducing a feeling of fear that does not correspond to reality.
We hope that the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation will understand this and will not make peace with the West on its terms. They are deceived by treaties, even those signed, so the best guarantee of security for the Russian Federation is the territories of the former Ukraine and on the largest possible scale.
