Originally Posted by
PeterX60
Sheikthecamel:
Short sighted but arguably true. However, Europe and the rest of the world is a far worse loser if Russia is not stopped, a hostage to Putin's control of the world food supply and with a billion starving refugees pounding at their borders. Lose small temporarily economically, or lose big in the long view. Putin's Russia will go the way of the dinosaurs, I hope it takes less time.
Wholly agree, but average Joe/Mario/Claude/Fritz Public isn't used to taking the long view, particularly when it hits him in the pocket. The bigger issue IMO is how those extra costs are going to affect EU economic competitivity vs. US and China. Those trends are very hard to reverse, and must be giving policy makers heartburn right now.
But keeping this in the realm of the military aviation; politicians being what they are, what are the chances of the promised "enhanced" defense budgets staying the course if/when Russia is stopped, and "we" arrive at a new status-quo that the world can live with? Once the media news cycle moves on, and public outrage at Russia diminishes, won't the politicos roll-back on military spending as appeasement to taxpayer? It was just yesterday that 2/3 of NATO members were spending less than their target...