God I hope not.
From Unherd, September 28:
“Paper tiger”. That is how Donald Trump described Russia during his UN speech on Tuesday, but judging by their performance, that put-down could equally be applied to most of America’s own allies. That became clear enough earlier this month, when 21 Russian drones flew into Polish airspace, triggering a Nato air-intrusion alert, the closure of Polish airports, the scrambling of fighters to intercept them — and a hard look at combat readiness right across the alliance.
Dutch F-35 fighters bagged four of the drones, and the others went down by themselves: they were not bombardment drones, just plastic decoys without explosive warheads. Debris aside, in fact, the only damage was the destruction of a house near Lublin, caused not by the Russians, but by a sophisticated $1.9 million US air-to-air missile. It had been launched by a Polish F-16 fighter at a drone — and missed.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, was quick to use the Russian incursion to call for more defence spending, urging Nato members to spend 5% of their GDPs on defence. This week’s latest apparent drone incursion, this time over Denmark, has raised the pressure even further: especially now that Scott Bessent, the US Secretary of the Treasury, is warning that Trump has no plans to send more troops to help out his European allies.
But simply raising defence spending will not turn Europe’s states into genuinely effective military powers. For one thing, the GDP criterion is much too vague to mean much. Finland, for instance, spends only 2.4% of its GDP on defence and yet can mobilise some 250,000 determined soldiers. Other Nato members, which spend much more than the Finns, obtain far less for their money.
Moreover, focusing on GDP instead of force requirements — so many battalions, artillery regiments, fighter squadrons — is nothing but an invitation to cheat, an opportunity lustily taken up across the continent. The latest Spanish submarine, for instance, is not imported for €1 billion or so from Thyssen-Krupp, which supplies navies around the world with competent, well-proven submarines. Instead, it was proudly designed and built at the Navantia state-owned Spanish shipyard: for €3.8 billion, roughly the cost of a much bigger French nuclear-powered submarine. As a feeble justification for that absurdly high cost, Spain’s defence minister cited a supposedly advanced air-recirculation system — so greatly advanced, in fact, that it is not actually ready, and will not be installed even in the submarine’s next iteration.
Soon, though, Italy will outdo Spain’s platinum submarine: by including a new bridge to Sicily, set to cost some €13.5 billion, into its 2% of GDP Nato spending quota. The government’s excuse is that some 3,000 Italian troops may need to cross the Strait of Messina were the Italian army ever to be fully mobilised. But it would be much cheaper to fly them individually, each trooper in his own luxurious private jet.....
....MUCH MORE
A few of our previous visits:
- "What a Coup Is: A conversation with Edward Luttwak" (with a look at the January 6th demonstration-turned-riot and rumblings in Berlin)
- Luttwak: "Has Xi Jinping bankrupted China? It is finally possible to imagine a post-Communist regime"
- Luttwak: "How to Stage a Coup..."
We also have a few dozen references to his book "
Regarding tigers, part of the outro from 2022's "‘We haven’t got this figured out just yet’: Pentagon, industry struggle to arm Ukraine":
Is it any wonder that Chairman Mao said about the U.S.:"In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of; it is a paper tiger.Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain.I believe that it is nothing but a paper tiger..."*Or as the philosopher asked the generals and armaments producers some time ago:
"When was the last time you b****es won a war?
*Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
U.S. IMPERIALISM IS A PAPER TIGER, July 14, 1956
