‘You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you,’ Donald Trump reportedly told top European officials while he was U.S. president. In the present situation, with a war not seen on this scale since 1945 being fought in geographical (if not yet political) Europe, it’s now imperative for the region to review its reliance on the White House, its assumed ally and source of support since the end of WW2. This time round, it may well have to fall back on its own reserves and stamina – but does it have enough of either? As Mircea Geoanã, Nato deputy secretary general pointed out recently, the problem is not just one of money but military industrial capacity: since the end of the Cold War, Europe has been living on dividends of peace, complacent such a situation would last.

In Russia, the current picture’s very different. After Putin’s early realisation that war against Ukraine wouldn’t be the shoo-in he imagined, a way around western sanctions on military components has been found, a plethora of intermediaries happy to supply them.

There’s a clear sense of optimism in Russia’s war industry

By the end of 2022, military manufacturing was building up steam in Russia once again. Some plants, like Uralvagonzavod (which produces military vehicles), started to work round the clock, while companies turning down contracts relating to the Russian army risk incurring up to eight years in jail for their executives. In 2024, a huge hike in defence spending is planned – up to 6 per cent of Russian GDP. Russia’s war economy, as Geoanã put it, ‘meets today’s needs’ – with the clear implication that, should requirements change, Russia has the capacity for ramping up production, at least for such more or less low-tech items as shells and tanks – not to mention the drones, shells and missiles coming to Putin from Iran and North Korea. There’s a clear sense of optimism in the war industry at the moment, with Sergei Chernezon, head of RosTekh – the main state industrial corporation – giving some staggering statistics in a November TV interview.  Tank production, he said, had increased sevenfold in 2023, artillery had more than doubled, and production of some types of munitions had shot up by sixty times.

Europe, however, is in trouble. Used to producing weapons on a peacetime footing – in relatively small quantities over a relatively long period of time – it now has to change its approach. Since the beginning of the war in February 2022, EU countries have pledged to spend more than €230 billion (£200 billion) on modernising their arsenals.

Some have been more successful than others. Poland, unsurprisingly, given its history and geographical position, almost doubled its spending in 2023. Warsaw has concluded a $10 billion (£9 billion) contract with the American firm Lockheed Martin for 500 HIMARS rocket launchers, at the end of which Poland will have more HIMARS rocket launchers on its territory than there are on American soil. And following the statement at the beginning of the war from Germany’s highest ranking military officer that years of neglect have left the army ‘standing bare’, Germany too has now stepped up, with defence minister Boris Pistorius declaring that the country’s status as Europe’s largest economy entails a special ‘responsibility’ to defend the Western Bloc. Although it has yet to reach the minimum of 2 per cent GDP for its defence budget, the German government has promised to hit the target this year: weapons manufacturing there is clearly on the up. By the end of 2024, Rheinmetall, the German automotive company, has scheduled a 33 per cent increase in 155-mm howitzer rounds, while Sweden, with its imminent Nato membership, has seen a rise of almost 30 per cent on defence spending.

But even with huge investments by the Swedes in hi-tech hardware, the reintroduction of conscription and new military bases, spending will not reach the necessary 2 per cent GDP threshold till 2026. And though the European effort is palpable and impressive – historically unprecedented in such a short time since the days of the Second World War – it still falls short of the two most vital things: upgrading its own defence systems while simultaneously giving adequate aid to Ukraine. This is the case even working with the US – let alone, without it.

The specifics of this are alarming. Last summer, Ukraine had a clear advantage in artillery fire, able to fire up to about 7,500 artillery rounds per day as opposed to Russia’s 5,000. Now its rate has slumped to 2,000 rounds a day, as Russia has increased its spending to cover up to five times that amount. Though the EU, according to European commissioner for the internal market Thierry Breton, can currently manufacture 400,000 rounds annually, Estonian defence minister Hanno Pevkur has pointed out that for the next ten years, an annual figure of more like 3 million is essential – to backfill stocks, support Nato regional plans and keep Ukraine in the fight. Here the US has a clear advantage – while American shell-manufacturing plants are government-owned, in Europe they are private contractors, slowing the process down.

Europe must get its act together, if Putin’s utterances are to be believed. On 16 January this year, he began to rail aggressively against the Baltic States, claiming Russians were ‘pushed across the border [there], it is a great security issue for our country.’ Worryingly, it’s altogether possible he intends to test European unity by ‘protecting’ the Russians in places like Latvia and Estonia. Not that this is likely to happen, at first, with the regular Russian army, but paramilitary groups of insurgents could well play a similar role to that in Donbass in 2014 – in hopes the Russian-speaking minority will back the invasion from within.

‘Threats against the Baltic states, Georgia and Moldova must be taken very seriously,’ warned Germany’s defence minister. ‘This is not just sabre-rattling. We could be facing dangers by the end of this decade.’ Meanwhile, Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to Nato membership effectively asserts control over the Baltic and Barents seas, a step no doubt to be termed a ‘security threat’ by Moscow too, with daunting implications. In a recent address to the nation, Swedish military supreme commander General Micael Bydén warned everyone in the country to prepare psychologically for war. Was this, one wonders, so alarmist?

It’s high time, therefore, to rethink things. Europe must change from its market-oriented approach to weaponry, and bring more of the industry under state control. A more flexible approach is also required, to minimise costs and maximise output. Precision ammo is all very well but doesn’t make much difference when fired from an ailing and overused gun barrel, and it will take leadership to distinguish between essential and non-essential requirements for repulsing Russian human wave attacks. As 2023 showed too, the retaking of Ukrainian territory is impossible without air superiority. The country requires not dozens of F-16 fighter planes, but hundreds of planes of various types. If the West is still committed to Ukraine returning to its 1991 borders, detailed and realistic discussions about how this might happen are long overdue. The alternative is splitting the country, encouraging the aggressor to return to the fray a few years down the line.

Granted, the average EU voter doesn’t want to hear bad news about the possibilities of war, or vote to increase military spending, but this too must pass. ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick,’ said U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt when asked his policy for enforcing world peace. Europe has talked a good war on Ukraine so far, its denunciations of Russia undented. It’s time now – it was time several yesterdays ago – to consider the second half of Roosevelt’s maxim.