The alternative is stopping this comedic drip-feeding of tanks in batches of 4 out of misplaced expectation that Mr. Hitler will surely stop at Poland, and giving Ukraine the full support of European militaries and industries. This is by far the cheapest option. Thankfully, the latest developments indicate that things are heading exactly this way. Today, the EU agreed on increasing defense spending by 800bn. To put this into perspective: so far, Ukraine has received 64bn of military aid from the US and 62bn from Europe.
Are you suggesting that EU is purposefully limiting the military aid to Ukraine, maybe to drag out the war? I hope that's not the case.
> misplaced expectation that Mr. Hitler will surely stop at Poland
Well, US/UK did it once with USSR. They allowed SU control over Poland and east Germany.
According to iiss [1], Ukraine is "Equipped but not staffed" although they do mention "they will likely need significantly more weapons".
It is my understanding (I may be wrong) that their main shortage is artillery shells, which is mainly because EU can't actually produce enough, and have been ramping up.
The 800bn sounds exciting, and hopefully we do actually get 800bn increase since 650bn is
> “allow member states to significantly increase their defense expenditures without triggering” punishing rules aimed at keeping deficits from going too far into the red [2]. It is my understanding that countries may choose not to increase their defense as much, but hopefully they do as it's greatly needed in EU.
Well, US/UK did it once with USSR. They allowed SU control over Poland and east Germany.
You have forgotten the Cold War. The Russians stopped only where they were forced to stop. Western European countries set up an entire new international organization, NATO, for cooperation in case of a Russian attack on any of them, and permanently maintained massive armies to until the very end of the Soviet Union to prevent any further Russian creep west.
The US, UK, and others did not pack things up and go home at the end of WWII, believing that the Russians had their belly full with Eastern Europe and wouldn't push for more. The UK, for example, withdrew its last forces from continental Europe only in 2010. The US withdrew last combat forces in 2013.
Looks like Russia took that as an invitation to invade Ukraine the very next year.
