Nobody is moving goal posts. The scale of military industry in Europe is nowhere near what would be needed to replace the US. Expanding the industry to that scale would require an incredible amount of funding which can't happen given the state of European economies, not to mention energy prices in Europe. The fact that you don't understand such basic things really says volumes.

[–] Viri4thus@feddit.org 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes yes, everyone knows the scale of military industry is measured in billions ~~wasted~~ spent and not in output or quality. Look at the F35s, a shining example of money well spent... The biggest problem of EU's military Industry is that they've been preparing to fight a sci-fi war and forgot artillery et al are still a thing. Otherwise, not worried at all.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nah, scale of military industry is measured in industrial capacity which is largely non existent in Europe. Also, a fun fact is that activities such as steel production are very energy intensive. The fact that Russia produces 3x as many shells as all of NATO combined shows just how far ahead Russia is industrially.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html

[–] Viri4thus@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Europe downscaled their artillery shell production capacity intentionally after the cold war ended. Russia got a significant portion of their ammo from NK. That comparison as a benchmark is ridiculous. I don't even know why I waste my time. That's some Radio Free Europe BS.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

As the article above explains, Russia alone is massively outproducing all of the west because Russia kept the state owned industry from USSR in tact. Meanwhile, the fact that DPRK can outproduce Europe should be another cause for concern for y'all.