La spesa dei membri della NATO per la difesa in termini di percentuale del PIL ha raggiunto il livello più alto dal 1991. In questo contesto, anche la spesa per le attrezzature è salita alle stelle.

Russia wanted less NATO, right?

building up the European defense base will not only be good in the current context of the Ukraine war, but could also allow European companies to gain a larger share of the global weapons trade pie, due to 2 reasons

* Russian weapons are shunned due to their perceived lower quality, besides the consequences that countries might face in terms of sanctions if they still buy Russian weapons. Even longstanding Russian allies like Algeria are choosing Chinese or Korean alternatives because of better quality [https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/chinese_vt_4_outperforms_the_t_90s_on_tests_making_russia_lose_the_grip_on_another_defense_market-11765.html](https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/chinese_vt_4_outperforms_the_t_90s_on_tests_making_russia_lose_the_grip_on_another_defense_market-11765.html)
* US is now increasingly seen as unreliable by many countries in the world, and whatever your thoughts are on the war in Gaza, the public opinion in the Muslim world is shifting heavily away from US. This could create a gap that European defense companies could fill in

we already saw French and German companies stealing customers from Russian defense industry in the past 2 years,

this is going to accelerate in 2025 as Rostec for example announced that it might cease all weapons exports to focuses on domestic orders

and even if the war ends, Rostec will need years to fill the gap in equipment created by the Ukraine war

Europe still has no conventional long-range ballistic missile. With all that spending, how is this possible?