USA - Europe - Ukraine: an armaments competition
Who is helping Ukraine? Who is ignoring its struggle? Who is harming Ukraine?
Questions to which there are no clear answers. Since March 13, the USA is again supplying war materiel to Ukraine, although it is urging Ukraine -- currently at negotiations in Riyadh -- to yield in "peace" talks with Russia.
Europe's Ukraine policy is mixed: the further east a country is located, the more vigorously it supports Ukraine (with the exception of Hungary and Slovakia). Italy and Spain apparently do not feel threatened by Russian boots and provide little beyond verbal support. Who is harming Ukraine? Mainly the USA:
By talking to Russia over Ukraine's (and Europe's) head. Secondly, by having blocked materiel deliveries during some time before March 13 and also temporarily shutting down satellite imagery information.
This was a warning to Kiev of what could happen if Ukraine did not obey President Trump's wishes.
Europe's assistance to Kiev is also affected: since a large part of the war materiel supplied by Europe to Ukraine is of American origin, Washington can block the delivery of spare parts and servicing at any time and thus render the equipment useless. Even if Europe were prepared (which it is at best partially) to tread in America's footsteps, it would only be able to supply Ukraine with suitable materiel if America is benevolently acquiescent. But that is only half of the problem.
The other half is the predictable reaction of the American arms industry. Europe has been a large and patient customer for them for decades. Donald Trump has shattered this practice with a powerful blow. Europe is shocked and, under France's leadership, wants to separate itself from American armaments and US satellite imagery (which is suspected to have helped Russia in regaining Kursk).
This new policy is doubly dangerous for the US armaments industry, the world's largest: not only is it losing what were probably its most important international customers, but it is also facing new competition.
For many years, European armaments companies had kept their concepts for new and better weapons in the drawers; weapons that were never built because US industry products dominated the market, served as NATO standard, and were relatively inexpensive due to mass production.
Now the European arms industries are being cuddled and rewarded with exclusivity by a range of furious and frightened governments. Europe's armaments' companies -- already growing explosively due to the Ukraine war demand -- will not restrict themselves to serving the local market.
Just as Europe's initially small aviation conglomerate Airbus managed to successfully compete with America's giants Boeing & Co, Europe's companies Rheinmetall, Leonardo & Co could wrest major global market shares from US arms manufacturers. President Trump had obviously not understood this possibility.
By urging Europe that it should massively rearm to protect itself without US support, he probably thought he would create a bonanza for the US arms industry. Instead, he created a headache for them.
Heinrich von Loesch Hegseth’s guidance acknowledges that the U.S. is unlikely to provide substantial, if any, support to Europe in the case of Russian military advances, noting that Washington intends to push NATO allies to take primary defense of the region.Washington Post "European countries simply do not have the military and technological resources to immediately replace what has been supplied by the United States—precisely because Washington made it clear to them for decades that building up such capacities was duplicative and wasteful. In some areas, such as nuclear weapons, the United States may even prefer remaining involved with NATO, if the alternative is more European nations building up their own nuclear capabilities." Ivo H. Daalder -- Foreign Affairs