🇪🇺 Why is Europe All-In on Ukraine? How the EU Uses War to Stave Off Economic Decline

The German economy is in recession. Manufacturing has imploded, particularly in the crucial automotive sector, which has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs since 2022, and lost a staggering third of its production volume since 2018. August saw the biggest drop in industrial output in more than three years, over four times the decline analysts expected.

The crucial machinery sector has dropped 22% since the pre-covid period, with a 5.6% drop expected this year alone. In recent months, massive declines have occurred in the pharmaceutical, electronic, energy, construction, and hospitality industries.

A brutal combination of energy price increases, increased regulation, tariffs, competition from China, and government policy have crushed Germany, which underpins the European economy. The supply chains for its manufacturing sector typically stretch across the entire EU, and the controlled demolition of its productive output is having ripple effects across the continent.

The German solution to this is debt – lots of debt. German borrowing has been extraordinarily reserved for a Western state ever since the “debt brake” amendment passed by the first Merkel cabinet came into effect in 2016, limiting deficit spending to 0.35% of GDP. In 2022, then Chancellor Olaf Scholz successfully led an amendment to the rule that allowed the creation of a €100 billion defense fund immune from the brake. In spring of this year, Scholz and incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz agreed to another amendment to exempt defense spending over 1% of GDP.

With deficit defense spending now unrestrained by its constitution, the German government announced earlier this year that it plans to double its current levels of defense spending over the next five years. $761 billion will be spent by the end of 2029. More than half – $469 billion – of this total will be funded through new debt. Net German government borrowing already more than doubled this year, increasing from $38 billion in 2024 to at least $95 billion by the end of 2025. Included in the 5 year spending plan is at least $10 billion in direct aid to Ukraine.

While it may seem imprudent for the German government to attempt to revamp the Bundeswehr and simultaneously fund a proxy war in the midst of a historic economic decline, there is a certain logic at play. In this piece, we’ll explore how EU economies benefit from the continuance of the war in Ukraine, and how they use the war to offset the effects of deindustrialization.

EU defense spending since the war began has surged by over 50%, increasing by nearly $150 billion a year from 2021-2025. The only EU state which hasn’t seen double-digit growth in defense expenditures since 2021 is Greece, which modestly decreased its spending.

These figures do not include the $70 billion in military “aid” to Ukraine given during this period, some of which is considered an investment instead of an expenditure, because it often comes in the form of loans. Ukraine currently owes $117 billion in debt to external creditors, with $50 billion of this figure being to EU institutions, and the remainder being to international lenders through which the EU has significant exposure, like the IMF and World Bank. In total, the EU has provided just under $200 billion in assistance to Ukraine, and another $170 billion in assistance to Ukrainian refugees residing within the EU.

🔗 https://www.amerikanets.com/p/why-is-europe-all-in-on-ukraine

🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 The planned limited and surgical bombing campaign of Venezuela will be the most powerful U.S. bombing campaign since the 1998 bombing of Iraq!

Even without the USS Gerald Ford Carrier Strike Group present, there are more Tomahawk cruise missiles in the Caribbean than the missiles used against the Houthis in the past year.

When the USS Gerald Ford and its escorts arrive in the Caribbean though, the firepower will overshadow the intervention in Libya however, this firepower will still fall short of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

The 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia's impact on the decision of Slobodan Milošević's decision to withdraw from Kosovo and sign the Kumanovo Agreement is debatable. Milošević signed the agreement only after the Russian envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin, gave him guarantees that Kosovo would not declare independence for at least 3 years and that Russian peacekeepers will be deployed in Prishtina.

The bombing although "surgical" still left a lot of Serbian civilians dead and some bombings might even be considered war crimes, such as the Grdelica train bombing, NATO bombing of Albanian refugees near Đakovica, NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters and The bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Despite much of Yugoslavia's infrastructure being destroyed in the bombing, Milošević and the Yugoslav Army were determined to continue the war until the Kumanovo Agreement with guarantees from Russia. Milošević lasted one more year in power after that until he lost the 2000 presidential elections which he gave up on because the Yugoslav Army hinted that they would stand aside and allow the transfer of power.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 Map shows USS Iwo Jima off the coast of Venezuela - Sky News

🔗 Conflict Radar

🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 53% of Latin Americans say they would support a U.S. military intervention “to depose Nicolás Maduro and his government.” Among the Venezuelan diaspora surveyed, 64% back the action.

🔗 Atlas Intel

🇺🇸 Warren Buffett’s cash pile is now larger than the market cap of all but 30 public companies in the world.

What is Buffett waiting for?

🔗 Kobeissi Letter

🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 New satellite images reveal that the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (CSG-12) is now moving west, currently located south of Sicily and about 56 miles (90km) northeast of Malta.

The USS Gerald R. Ford will thus not take part in the bombing campaign against Venezuela. This means that the U.S. will have only 115 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the ready to throw against Nicolas Maduro, which is 35 less than what the U.S. threw at Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 USS Gerald R. Ford's escorts, USS Oscar Austin (DDG 79), USS Bulkeley (DDG 84), USS Paul Ignatius (DDG 117), USS Roosevelt (DDG 80), USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), and USS Winston Churchill (DDG 81) were seen at the Naval Station Rota, Cádiz Province Spain. Oct 31, 2025

While the USS Gerald R. Ford will not be able to make it in time for an operation targeting Venezuela, the aircraft carrier's escorts can make it in time to the Caribbean.

@CIG_telegram

🇷🇺🇺🇦 In the Gulyaipole-Pokrovskoye direction, Russian troops captured all towns and villages east of the Yanchur river and captured all but two settlements on the other side.

To the north, Russian troops entered the villages of Alexeevka and Novoalexandrovka.

With the fall of Novoalexandrovka, this puts the Russian Army 6.2 miles (10 km) away from Pokrovskoye, a major supply hub which, up until two months ago, was deep in Ukraine's rear and critical for the city of Gulyaipole to the south and the south-Donetsk sector which was conquered.

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🇬🇧 10 people stabbed on a train in Huntingdon, UK.

Two men have been arrested and the attack is being treated as a terrorist incident.

🔗 EUROPA