Nice tanks you bought there, Europe—received anybody to drive ’em? Such are the taunts the continent’s generals may need to endure following the announcement of a splurge in defence spending anticipated from the NATO summit in The Hague on June Twenty fourth-Twenty fifth. Assuming European governments don’t bin their commitments to larger defence budgets as soon as some form of peace is agreed to in Ukraine—or Donald Trump leaves the White Home—spending on their armed forces will roughly double inside a decade. A disproportionate slug of the bounce from a 2% of GDP spending goal to three.5% will go in direction of buying gear. However armies are about individuals, too. Attracting kids to a profession that includes getting shot at has by no means been straightforward; a little bit of forceful nagging (identified in army jargon as “conscription”) is already on the playing cards in some international locations. Even dragooning recalcitrant teenagers into uniform won’t clear up an issue that’s lurking deep within the continent’s psyche. Europeans are happy with their peaceable methods. If struggle breaks on the market, will anyone be there to combat it?
