EUROPE IS NOT SERIOUS: NATO chief’s speech was meant as a call to arms, but it was also a shameful admission for the alliance.
For all the stark warnings and ominous predictions made by the head of NATO today, one key fact remained unmentioned.
The West is still funding the Russian war effort to the tune of billions by buying oil and gas, funnelling vast amounts into an economy that is now fully militarised.
Russian gas exports to Europe went up by 20% last year and its LNG exports to the EU are now at record levels.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia is now making more money from selling fossil fuels than Ukraine receives from allies.
NATO’s secretary general Mark Rutte did not mention any of that. But he did spell out what Russia is doing with all that hydrocarbon revenue.
It is using it to put its economy onto a war footing that is now pumping out munitions at a rate that puts the West to shame, to the extent Russia could have the capability to take on NATO in three to five years, according to Mr Rutte.
Previously: Putin Has Retooled Russia’s Economy to Focus Only on War.
In the early stages of the war, the Russian president put the country on a footing for a long conflict. Putin retooled the economy to churn out record numbers of tanks and howitzers, while using sizable signing bonuses of up to a year’s salary to raise a massive army. At one point, more than a thousand recruits were signing up each day to fight.
This increase saved Moscow from the initial losses it suffered after failing to quickly capture Kyiv three years ago. Now it is helping Russian forces advance westward again, taking more than 100 square miles in the past month. The gains have given Putin the latitude to slow walk peace negotiations and shrug off direct talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, despite growing European pressure and Trump’s own exasperation with the lack of progress in ending the war.
But if or when Putin is ready to make peace, unwinding his military buildup could prove a trickier task.
Particularly if his interests don’t involve unwinding his military buildup.
In either case, Europe has had more than three years to get serious, and they are still almost all talk.
