Originally Posted by
sheikhthecamel
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...
At a minimum there will be a need for years of replenishing weapons and ammunition to pre-war levels, and likely pressure to increase those levels in view of the experience of how quickly they were used up. The E European states will be very vocal if they see the West easing back, and it will be difficult for politicians to renege on firm pledges e.g, Scholz putting extra100 Mrd into the Federal budget for defence. That kind of official commitment is very difficult to erase, and cannot be done "under the table ".
There may be some trimming but I would expect most to go through.
This is a major issue; UKR apparently wants to roll-back to pre-2014 borders.
Cannot see this happening. Even if Russian forces collapsed in the attack, UKR would not have the necessary manpower to liberate Crimea/Donbas unless those populations rose up united to say they wanted Russians out. Even if Putin were to disappear suddenly, any successor would have to - at a minimum - state that Russia would hold onto what it occupied.