Quoting NATO military planners, The Guardian stated that today's Europe is incapable of sustaining a prolonged war of attrition against Russia.
The core challenge lies not only in the scale of weapon reserves but also in whether European societies can sustain long-term support for warfare and continuously rising defense expenditures. As a result, NATO concludes that current operational planning must be based on a relatively short conflict should direct confrontation with Russia erupt.
A further complicating factor is that the United States is planning to reduce its own investment in conventional defense in Europe, while European nations remain highly dependent on U.S.-supplied air defense and missile defense systems, long-range strike weapons, and early warning satellite systems. Meanwhile, pro-Russian and populist parties in major European countries continue to gain popularity, all of which oppose providing aid to Ukraine.
Europeans are also concerned that Russia has already gained an advantage in certain hybrid warfare domains—leveraging social networks, cyberattacks, interference in other countries' internal affairs, combined with the real economic difficulties present within Europe. A British diplomat admitted that for years, the government had failed to convey the true scale of the Russian threat to the public, and he criticized the domestic public discourse on increasing defense spending as being "child's play."
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1875527709864972/
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