- NATO’s chief pledged a fivefold increase in air defenses.
- Ground-based air defenses are an area that Western countries scaled back after the Cold War.
- But the way Russia is fighting in Ukraine has proven its need.
NATO pledged to massively increase its air defenses as part of soaring defense spending. The aim is to rebuild a capability that the war in Ukraine has shown to be crucial but has been allowed to wither in the West since the end of the Cold War.
The heads of government for the 32 members of the decades-old security alliance committed last week to investing 5% of their GDP on defense and security by 2035. The increase, based on current GDP size, could be worth more than $1.4 trillion. NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said that one use for the money will be a “five-fold increase in air defence capabilities.”
He said the way Russia is fighting proved the need. “We see Russia’s deadly terror from the skies over Ukraine every day, and we must be able to defend ourselves from such attacks,” he said.
Western countries reduced their ground-based air defense arsenals after the end of the Cold War as they found themselves involved in conflicts with much smaller, less powerful adversaries. This war has shown that Western stocks are insufficient.
Lacking since the Cold War
Western countries have been fighting foes very much unlike Russia. Air superiority has been achieved with ease, enabling ground maneuvers. There hasn’t been a pressing need for weapons to shoot down enemy aircraft and ballistic missiles, except in one-off instances.
The US and the rest of NATO scaled back their ground-based defenses “very substantially,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel who is now a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
During the Cold War, as tensions skyrocketed between NATO and the Soviet Union, Western countries maintained substantial defenses. But in the aftermath, he said, “it appeared that fighter aircraft could handle any air threat, and the need for ground-based air defenses was much reduced.”
During Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s, the US took control of the skies, and aircraft largely had free rein in the later wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the main threat being to low-flying aircraft, helicopters in particular.
Ed Arnold, a European security expert with the Royal United Services Institute, said that Europe depioritized air defense at the end of the Cold War”because the types of missions that the Europeans were doing were, for example, overseas where you only needed a small sort of section of it to be able to protect your forces in the field.”
Retired Air Commodore Andrew Curtis, an air warfare expert with a 35-year career in the Royal Air Force, said that there had been “an element of complacency” in recent decades, but also an element of trying to prioritize what was needed when defense budgets shrank as countries felt safer in the post-Cold War era.
Russia’s war against Ukraine, which followed earlier acts of aggression, suggests the world has changed. But, Curtis said, the West has to some extent been “asleep at the wheel.”
The problem now, Justin Bronk, an air power expert at RUSI, explained, is “that NATO faces a significant shortfall in ground-based air defense systems, both in terms of number of systems, but also particularly ammunition stocks for those systems.”
Russia shows they’re needed
Rutte warned earlier this month that NATO needs “five times as many systems to defend ourselves,” and described the speed Russia was reconsituting its military as “threatening.”
Many European countries have warned Russia could attack elsewhere on the continent and are watching closely to see what weaponry and tactics it needs to be ready. The volume and variety of air attacks against Ukraine have thus made air defenses a top takeaway.
Russia can launch hundreds of drones and missiles in a single day, and NATO’s air defense networks are not well designed to deal with these kinds of strike threats, like exploding Shahed-136 drones backed by ballistic and cruise missiles.
Western countries need more defenses, as there are just so many air attacks. “Even if only 10% get through, that still does a lot of damage,” Cancian said.
Cancian said innovations in this war, like drones being used more than in any other conflict in history, point to evolutions in warfare that make having strong air defenses more necessary than ever before. Nations aren’t just facing planes. It’s aircraft, missiles, and drones, all able to bring destruction.
And the solutions need to be layered to address threats within their cost range. For instance, high-end Patriot interceptors worth millions of dollars aren’t meant for cheap drones worth thousands.
Former Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, a warfare strategist, said that countries have to find “a balance” between the expensive systems like the Patriot or the THAAD system, both made by Lockheed Martin, and lower-end systems.
Ukraine, for example, uses AI-controlled systems equipped with machine guns to stop some smaller drones, and the US military has been experimenting with air-launched rockets as drone killers.
“It’s not just all about the exquisite, expensive, and highly capable systems. You also need some of those lower-end systems,” the former general said, adding that the last three years have not only shown how important air defenses are, but also “that the array of threats that air defenses have to deal with has broadened.”
Smaller weapons used in missile attacks, weapons like drones, can “saturate and overwhelm an air defense system” — a tactic Russia has employed.
For the West, Europe in particular, the new emphasis on bolstering critical air defenses and the push to spend more aren’t optional. “It’s not a choice. You absolutely have to do this,” Ryan said.
It’d be impossibly expensive to protect everywhere, but the West will need to sort its priorities, balancing front-line demands with the protection of civilians in cities, something Ukraine has grappled with throughout the war.
Arnold said that “the biggest change, now as Ukraine is seeing, is you also need air defense to protect your civilians, all of your critical national infrastructure, and your forces in the field. So it’s absolutely critical.”
NATO’s new defense spending will be huge: No member currently spends that new 5% target, and many spent just over or below 2% in 2024, according to NATO’s own estimated figures. But spending doesn’t automatically solve the problem.
There is a big production backlog with many systems, and increasing production capacity takes years, industrial revitalization, and workforce expertise, much of which has been diminished with time, leading to a hollowing out of the defense industrial sector.
Bronk said fixing this “is much more a question of building production capacity at every stage in the supply chain as rapidly as possible as part of a crisis response rather than just spending more money.” More production capacity is needed for interceptors.
More money and big orders help, though, by giving industry confidence to invest more in facilities and processes, but there has to be sustained investment.
Rutte pledged that NATO’s increased spending would also be used on “thousands more tanks and armoured vehicles” and “millions of rounds of artillery ammunition,” but that many plans are classified.
Link to original article:
NATO’s big $1.4 trillion bet is seeing long-ignored air defenses coming back in a big way
Those old retired top brass in Britain talk about the need for defense.
I wonder what, in their minds, they are trying to defend.
I came across this interesting video. This guy is saying what you’re saying. There never should have been a break. The entire Judeo-Christian church was formulated in 325 AD.
From Abram to Moses
https://odysee.com/@Arcodeaus:f/ARCODEAUS—Abram-to-Moses—May-6,-2006:b
There’s no such thing as fair trade when a trading partner weaponizes and centrally plans its export driven sectors to overwhelm its existential enemies….
France Urges Tariff Barriers to Stop China From Killing Industry
(Bloomberg) — French Finance Minister Eric Lombard said Europe must shore up its tariff barriers to counter Chinese imports that risk harming the continent’s industrial economy.
Europe has already taken action on steel and automobiles, but rules must be changed to allow the wider use of measures against imports from China, Lombard said.
“In the world we are in today, we must protect our industry,” Lombard said on Saturday at an economics conference in Aix-en-Provence, France. “We must do it on all industrial segments, otherwise the Chinese policy that consists of having a production capacity of more than 50% global market share in each sector will kill our industry.”
His comments underscore growing concerns in Paris that US President Donald Trump’s efforts to redraw global trade flows risk hitting Europe on several fronts, and not just because of potential tariffs on exports to the US.
China announced anti-dumping duties on European brandy on Friday while exempting major cognac makers that agreed to minimum price levels. The action followed the EU’s decision in 2024 to levy duties as high as 45% on Chinese-made electric vehicles.
In another sign of the tension between Europe and Beijing, the Chinese government intends to shorten a two-day summit with European Union leaders this month to just a day, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
Speaking to Bloomberg on Friday at the Aix-en-Provence event, French Industry Minister Marc Ferracci also called for Europe to ramp up its defenses against Chinese imports.
“Another phenomenon that is concerning is the redirection of Chinese flows which were targeted to the US, and that are now coming to Europe,” Ferracci said. “China has built over-capacities in a wide array of industries and that makes it quite sensitive and quite dangerous for our industries.”
Lombard said the new government coalition in Germany is an opportunity for Paris and Berlin to work more closely together. He’ll meet with his counterparts there in the coming weeks.
I suppose this guy went against the Putin regime. These Russians should stay away from windows!
A Russian oil executive on Friday fell to his death from a window at his home in western Moscow in what has been ruled a suicide, the latest in a number of high-profile Russians who have died under mysterious circumstances, especially after falling out of windows.
Andrei Badalov, 62, vice president of the state-owned oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, was found dead Friday morning on the ground below the apartment block where he lived, European media outlets reported.
Sounds very Soviet Union to me
Germany in Talks With US to Get Patriot Air Defense for Kyiv
(Bloomberg) — Germany is in advanced talks with the US to secure at least two additional Patriot air-defense systems for Ukraine as Russia steps up its drone and missile attacks and Washington places a hold on weapons deliveries this week.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke on the phone with US President Donald Trump on Thursday to discuss how to provide Ukraine with more air-defense systems, a German government spokesman said on Friday. Both leaders also discussed trade and tariffs, the spokesman added.
Merz’s government is willing to provide Kyiv with two additional Patriot systems, including interceptor missiles, and cover the full costs for the much-needed deliveries, a government official with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News.
The deliveries would be made possible through a bilateral agreement between Germany and the US, the official added. Berlin proposed the Patriot deal to Washington several weeks ago and the decision to transfer the equipment now lies with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the official said.
Germany has been pushing the US for several months to deliver at least one more Patriot system to Ukraine to help close the air-defense gap as Russia escalates its barrage of attacks.
Alongside his demand that NATO member states pay more for their own defense, Trump has urged European nations to shoulder more of the burden of providing military support to Ukraine.
Air defense has become more urgent for Kyiv, whose supplies are running low as Moscow ramps up its attacks on Ukraine’s cities.
This week, Russian forces launched two of their largest air raids on Ukraine since the start of its full-scale invasion. Russian forces fired over 550 drones and missiles overnight, most of which targeted the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv’s air defense said Friday.
The assault came as Trump told reporters he was “very disappointed” over Thursday’s call with Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian president said he “will not back down” from his war aims, according to a Kremlin readout.
Queried on whether the German government is negotiating with the US on such a Patriot deal, Merz’s chief spokesman Stefan Kornelius told a regular government news conference that there were “different ways” to address Ukraine’s air-defense needs.
“I can say that intensive discussions are indeed taking place on this matter,” Kornelius told reporters in Berlin on Friday.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius will travel to Washington on July 14-15 for talks with his U.S. counterpart, a defense ministry spokesman said. “Of course Patriots will also be on the agenda,” he added.
Merz’s center-left predecessor, Olaf Scholz, last year spearheaded efforts to send more Patriot and other air-defense systems to Ukraine.
Germany so far has sent three Patriot systems from its own stocks to Ukraine. That accounts for a quarter of Berlin’s arsenal, a larger share of its own Patriot batteries than the US has sent to Kyiv.
Germany has also offered to take the lead on joint European Union projects regarding air defense, land and marine systems as the bloc ramps up its own military deterrent to Russian aggression.
It would seem Trump gave Putin every opportunity to cooperate. Lets see if Trump starts playing hard ball, by supplying European NATO countries with hardware on the 5% they will be spending. The military industrial complex has to be giddy these days!
It seems that President Trump is presented with the same Hobson’s choice as Biden. The most likely outcome will be a continuation of the United States military aid to Ukraine. At least until Europe NATO can get moving.
Stone, please take a look at this link and share your thoughts.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1901662703292211595.html
Many of these stores are still in business even though they declared bankruptcy, just with new owners. Joanns, Party City, Jc Pennies, Radio Shack are still around, some of the mall store names, are still operating in various locations. I think Macy’s even declared CH 11 bk recently? There’s also a few Kmart and Sears stores operating. Ch 11 let’s these places continue onward for the firms that held the loan convenants or as that article describes CLO’s. I’m looking at Kohls being a possible takeout target, yet seems to be doing okay at the moment. A miracle that AMC theaters, Gamestop are still operating, that short squeeze, which was obviously done on purpose back in 2020 saved both of them. CH 11 seems like a huge win for everyone but the shareholders. I think Trumpy will make another last minute surprise annoucement on the tariffs, which may help retail.
btw Stone’s stock pick BTM is doing really good if anyone held…
If we want to discuss financing through short-term debt, we should look at the belly of the beast. Amongst many other things, something mysteriously changed during the COVID-19 scam regarding federal government financing.
At the time that the COVID-19 scam unfolded, one of my contentions regarding the explosion of spending surrounding the circumstances of COVID-19 was the fact that the then Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen decided to finance a great preponderance of the spending through the issuance of Treasury bills, which are essentially debt securities with a maturity or duration of less than one year.
My primary contention at the time was the fact that with 10-year Treasury yields down to as low as 50 basis points, the Edomite jew, Yellen, should have been concentrating the Treasury’s financing on the long end of the yield curve, rather than in the short-term markets. The differences in yields were only 20 to 30 basis points. In fact, she should have taken all of the short-term debt rollovers and locking in the long-term rates. Unfortunately, she squandered a once in a lifetime opportunity to lock in historically low long-term rates.
But she did the complete opposite. She decided to concentrate much of the Treasury’s financing on the short end of the yield curve. So, instead of locking in an interest rate of less than 1% for 10 to 30 years, the Treasury now has to roll over all of the short-term debt and pay over 4%.
This is one of the major reasons why we have observed an explosion in the Federal government’s interest outlays over the past few years. Janet yellen either grossly miscalculated or she carried out her orders to bankrupt the country’s finances.
The firms that she mentions really are going bust. What the private equity firms do is buy out the companies, finance it with a ton of debt and even short-term duration debt, and extract all of their cost basis out of it. This leaves only an over indebted company that eventually declares chapter 11.
This was big back before covid, but a rising stock market has hidden many of these private equity wealth extraction schemes.
There’s not much difference here regarding what the private equity firms do and what Tony Soprano may have done with some local business in his community. They essentially keep the business going, at least outwardly, while extracting the wealth through the back door. When there’s no more wealth to be extracted, the business is stuck with nothing but a bloated balance sheet and then is burned to the ground, since spending money on marketing to keep the business going just doesn’t make sense.
Thank Stone. One big private equity firm is run by Leonard Green. That’s right! These firms are very parasitic. Reminds me of the corporate raiders from the 80’s.
I wonder if this guy is related to Moe Green? 🤣🤣🤣
Ha! That’s what I thought! Don’t forget his buddy, Hyman Roth!
The build up for the grand finale continues!
Trump’s BBB is helping to accelerate the glide path to the force majeure denouement. The Japheth confederacy has an auspicious window from Q3 2027 onwards.
During the last FOMC press conference, Jerome Powell stated he’s not concerned with the amount of interest outlays federal government is paying. He says that’s not the Fed’s objective.
Here’s the problem. The Fed’s ultimate objective is to keep the Federal government in business, regardless of the form of government it hopes to achieve.