Even India can now be snarky towards Europe.

Here's the situation: According to a report released by the European Defence Agency, on the 3rd, the Indian media outlet Eurasia Times noticed that the total defense spending of the 27 EU countries has surpassed China and Russia, second only to the United States; however, at the same time, the size of the armies of the EU countries has not changed significantly.

Regarding this, the Eurasia Times used a very snarky tone to claim that although the number of troops has remained stagnant, EU defense spending has seen a significant increase.

So, how absurd is the growth rate of EU defense spending, making the Indian media mock it like this?

Now even Indians can mock Europe

According to a report released by the European Defence Agency in September, the total defense spending of the 27 EU countries reached 343 billion euros in 2024, not only increasing by 19% compared to 2023, but also being 1.5 times that of China's defense spending in euros during the same period, and more than three times that of Russia's. It is expected that the total defense spending of the EU will grow to 381 billion euros by 2025.

More notably, in 2014, the total defense spending of the EU was only 189 billion euros, far lower than that of China during the same period. In other words, the EU's military spending has not only nearly doubled in 10 years, but also exceeded China's.

Specifically, among the 25 member states that agreed to increase military spending in 2025, 16 countries saw their spending increase by more than 10% compared to 2023. Poland is the EU member state with the highest military expenditure as a percentage of GDP, followed by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania respectively.

By the way, today Macron is once again clamoring to send troops to Ukraine

The sharp rise in EU military spending is largely related to the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as pressure from Trump, who urged Europe to protect itself.

But what baffled the Indian media is that while the EU's military spending continues to set new records year after year, the size of the armies of European countries has not changed significantly.

Not to mention comparing with various new weapons displayed at China's September 3rd military parade this year, even compared to 2023 data, the total number of military personnel in the EU only increased by 1% in 2024, while the total defense spending increased by 19% during the same period.

The European Defence Agency attributed the unchanged size of the army and the lack of modernization of equipment to "member states have invested all the money in arms purchases."

However, the Indian media pointed out again that except for the number of main battle tanks and armored vehicles, which is higher than the US, the EU's air power, including fighter jets, refueling aircraft, and early warning aircraft, both in quality and quantity, cannot match the US.

Many EU countries seem to take the threat from Russia seriously only in Poland

As for the navy, there's no need to say more, the combined navies of the EU countries are still less than one-eleventh of the US Navy's 11 carrier strike groups.

Therefore, an interesting phenomenon has emerged: despite the EU's paper defense spending having already exceeded China, China recently displayed a large number of new weapons at its military parade;

While the EU claims to expand its military forces to guard against Russia, it seems that only Poland takes this seriously, and other EU member states have not added much weaponry to themselves in recent years.

A typical example is Germany. In 2022, then German Chancellor Scholz allocated 100 billion euros to upgrade the German military, but soon this special fund was exposed to be "eaten away" by loans, interest, and inflation, causing opposition parties to question it.

In contrast, other EU member states are just going through the motions

By 2023, German Defense Minister Pistorius claimed that the 100 billion euros was not enough, and the defense budget "may need to be increased by another 25 billion euros."

To be honest, the situation in Germany where "a lot of money has been spent, but few results have been achieved" makes one think of the UK's High Speed 2 (HS2) project, which started being discussed from 2009, only officially started in 2020, and is expected to be completed by 2029, but the cost has soared to 106 billion pounds.

Therefore, among the current EU member states, apart from a few countries like Poland who really intend to expand their military, most of the member states are just shouting loudly about "anti-Russia," but when it comes to the army, they are still the same, and when it comes to sending troops to garrison in Ukraine, they are quick to back down.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7546525347693478426/

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