Ok so EU is half bigger than Russia but the thing is that Russia is 1 country and EU is 28 different countries.
Good luck convince german people to fight for Warsaw or spanish people to fight for Berlin.
Russia also influences EU politics, their friends rule in Hungary and Slovakia, and are strong opposition in other countries.
Also the people in Europe are soft, when you go to NATO base in Europe you can see luxury cars, luxury life of NATO soldiers/workers. Are these people capable of long, years long heavy war in harsh conditions? Not sure about that. On the other hand Russians are used to having a shit life, so being on a frontline in Europe is just as bad as their regular life.
Do not underestimate Russians my friend, in 2022 we could read here that Ukraine is too big for Russia to conquer, yet the Russians didnt read it and kept the war going.
Even if the USA are noping out, the rest of the NATO members is still technically bound by article 5 and would have to treat an attack on Poland or the Baltics as an attack against themselves. We all know the Turks wouldn't lift a finger, so let's leave them out of the consideration. Would the complacent Western Europeans find an excuse to give up the Baltics? Probably. But Poland would definitely be the end of the road.
First, because the Poles are staunchly anti-Russian, have one of the stronger standing armies in Europe and a populace which isn't cuckified.
Second, because the Germans and French would realize that they'd be next if they let the Russians run over Poland, so by that point, fighting Russia head on would become inevitable. And if they can no longer run away from the fight, they would obviously want the fighting and all the damage and devastation which comes with it to take place on someone else's soil.
A soldier life costs you:
-1 mln euro (European)
-0,2 mln euro (Russia)
When these 2 face each other on the Battlefield, the 1 european overpaid soldier doesnt equal to 5 Russian soldiers.
So when it comes to war, you cant just compare euros spent by each side. So PPP makes more sense in this case.
Europe still has the significantly higher industrial potential than Russia; we've just decided that the situation in Ukraine isn't serious enough yet to take drastic measures which would truly hurt our GDP, like seizing car factories and repurposing them to manufacture tanks instead. Our support for Ukraine has been super lukewarm and halfassed throughout this war.
Also note that the US had a stronger strategic interest in fighting this war than the Europeans. Deterrence against invasions was important with regard to China/Taiwan. Europe losing Russian gas and becoming more dependent on American LNG was bad for Europe and good for the US. Getting the Euros to finally ramp up defense spending was in America's interest. Wearing down the most combat-ready member of the neo-axis was in their geostrategic interest. And upholding their position as the global hegemon by leveraging their economic prowess and control over large parts of the global financial system would have been a major win for the US (that one was an abject failure, though). On the flip side, economic interest and their asses being on the line caused the Euros to take a more cautious approach to this war.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 6 2025 01:57pm