Germany, which overcame its initial reluctance to support Ukraine to become the country’s biggest European supplier of military aid, looks poised to change course as the finance minister said the government would slash future assistance by half in order to fulfill other spending priorities.
That appeared to be Berlin’s unequivocal message to Ukraine on Wednesday as the government detailed its preliminary 2025 budget, in which military aid to Ukraine is slated to be cut by half to just €4 billion, according to a draft seen by POLITICO.
I cannot exaggerate to you that this 100% fulfils the negative perceptions of European governments that American isolationists have. The article says they cut Ukraine funding to fund social programs. The right-wing narrative in America is that needing to have the huge military is why we have a weak social safety net (not true btw, med4all for example would save Uncle Sam money) which is framed as “we pay for European social programs.” But here’s a government… literally cutting military spending in the middle of aiding a real war that could be highly consequential to the country in question to fund social programs.
How is an American supposed to argue in favor of funding the defense of Europe when the richest country in Europe doesn’t want to fund the defense of Europe? If Germany gets to decide to go for “Germany first,” how long until “Britain first?” “France first?” “Italy first?” Will Ukraine funding just be a hot potato that everyone will claim is important but nobody actually wants to do?
When European countries started raising military spending in response to a threat, it weakened American isolationist arguments. But this strengthens them. I hope no other European countries pull this shit.
There is no Europe entity. There’s the EU and NATO with Ukraine not being a member in any of them.
I don’t have any more special connection to Ukrainians than you have because I am European. They are foreigners to me just as they are to you. This goes for most Europeans except maybe for Slavic people.
The rest support Ukraine for the same reasons the US do. Because Russia is a geopolitical rival. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is immoral but it’s not the actual reason for any support of Ukraine. EU countries and the US can live happily with people getting massacred in other countries with Gaza being the most prominent but far from the only example.
So Germany will support Ukraine up to the point its not inconvenient for them. They don’t have any special kinship nor any legal obligation to assist more.
If Russia had performed better in the war Germany probably would feel urged to spend more both in Ukraine to win time to rearm itself. As things stand, Russia cannot threaten Germany and whether it occupies parts of Ukraine is not the end of the world (for Germany).
The US won’t “stop funding the defense” of EU or Taiwan or any other country. That’s the basis of US power. Trump might be compromised, other right wongers might be interested in trading USA’s dominance in the world for remaking of according to their fantasies but they are going to meet pushback from the establishment, including right wingers, including the military. Not going to be alright in any sense but the US military won’t just withdraw.
Germany is increasing military spending. Not by as much as the defence ministry would like, but it’s definitely not a cut.
As to the Ukraine aid the government is pointing at those Russian central bank funds, interest on those more than makes up for the shortfall: They’re in fact estimating that the money they budgeted won’t even be used up now that that stuff is available and, unsurprisingly, has priority. Why should Germany spend money when we can make the Russians spend it.
Seriously? Don’t bother. We’ve written you off as fickle bastards long ago and are completely prepared for a Trump re-election and the US going full isolationist. Russia will react with a renewment of effort, Europe won’t falter, Putin won’t know what’s happening (completely convinced that you somehow rule us), he will be replaced not by kinder but at least a bit saner people, war will end.
And definitely don’t wait for us to shape our policy to be convenient for your own political struggles. We’ve got more important stuff to do.
Also, do have a look here. Germany spent around 40bn so far, the US 70bn. The US has about 4x the population. We’re spending more than twice as much as the US per capita, and that’s not even counting in that most of what the US sent was military hardware that they would have decommissioned, anyway, valued at replacement cost, not what it actually cost you: Negative amounts, because you don’t have to spend money on actually decommissioning it.