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It's more that most European countries had little reason to spend money on defense. Until recently, Finland and Sweden were small countries close to Russia but

It's more that most European countries had little reason to spend money on defense. Until recently, Finland and Sweden were small countries close to Russia but outside NATO, and their defense spending was similar to West European NATO members. In other words, nobody saw any real military threats to Western / Northern Europe, and the NATO security guarantees had more political than military value. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the threat environment changed. I'm less familiar with the situation in Eastern Europe. Many countries joined NATO as quickly as possible, because they understood the Russian doctrine and saw a real threat there. Russia tries to surround itself with puppets / friends / allies, by force if necessary, to avoid having to fight in its own territory. Many East European countries didn't want to be part of that so soon after the fall of communism. But it looks like the idea of being in friendly terms with Russia instead of fully committing to the West never went away.

spwa4 8mo ago
You know, we're saying the same thing. The TLDR is that Europe systematically refused to spend even token amounts on defense, despite agreeing to spend more in international treaties (and then cheating on what little spending they do, e.g. "raising a bridge" for a tank to pass under it, as defense spending. Coincidentally doing this saved the maintenance spending that the government had unlawfully delayed. And most countries raised more bridges "for tanks" than they had tanks in the first place, and widened them to boot. This then was the promised defense spending ...) They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion". The idea of all these is slightly different, but boils down to that because first the cold war ended and then communism "died" with the Soviet union, democracy would just win everywhere without any effort from anyone (or at least, no effort from anyone but the US). Because of this wars and militaries and ... would just end. Because why would you have these between trade-based democracy? Let's just leave some military rescue units in place and get rid of the rest! In reality it was progress that ended. Or, at least, a lot of technological progress ended with the end of defense spending. For example, the EU (technically France), was the first nation with a starlink-like satellite network. Of course it was version 0.01beta of starlink, not remotely close to the capabilities of the current version, but it did do packet transmission over very long distances). I have helped write software to make it's use more tolerable. They let it wither and die, just like everyone since.
- mopsi 8mo ago
  > They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion". Who is this "they"? * "The end of history" - coined by Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist. * "The unipolar moment" - coined by Charles Krauthammer, an American political columnist. * "The peace dividend" - older term, popularized by George HW Bush, an American president. * "Military-to-civilian conversion" - older term, popularized by Seymour Melman, an American professor of industrial engineering.

spwa4 8mo ago

You know, we're saying the same thing. The TLDR is that Europe systematically refused to spend even token amounts on defense, despite agreeing to spend more in international treaties (and then cheating on what little spending they do, e.g. "raising a bridge" for a tank to pass under it, as defense spending. Coincidentally doing this saved the maintenance spending that the government had unlawfully delayed. And most countries raised more bridges "for tanks" than they had tanks in the first place, and widened them to boot. This then was the promised defense spending ...) They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion". The idea of all these is slightly different, but boils down to that because first the cold war ended and then communism "died" with the Soviet union, democracy would just win everywhere without any effort from anyone (or at least, no effort from anyone but the US). Because of this wars and militaries and ... would just end. Because why would you have these between trade-based democracy? Let's just leave some military rescue units in place and get rid of the rest! In reality it was progress that ended. Or, at least, a lot of technological progress ended with the end of defense spending. For example, the EU (technically France), was the first nation with a starlink-like satellite network. Of course it was version 0.01beta of starlink, not remotely close to the capabilities of the current version, but it did do packet transmission over very long distances). I have helped write software to make it's use more tolerable. They let it wither and die, just like everyone since.

mopsi 8mo ago
> They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion". Who is this "they"? * "The end of history" - coined by Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist. * "The unipolar moment" - coined by Charles Krauthammer, an American political columnist. * "The peace dividend" - older term, popularized by George HW Bush, an American president. * "Military-to-civilian conversion" - older term, popularized by Seymour Melman, an American professor of industrial engineering.