Posted on 03/03/2025 6:23:21 AM PST by marcusmaximus
JPMorgan lifts price targets of European defense companies by an average of 25%.
The shocking scenes of President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance dressing down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — and the ensuing reaction from European capitals — sent Europe’s defense stocks on Monday to their best day in years.
-snip-
The biggest news came from Germany, where Bild and other publications report the country’s centrist parties are working on creating two large fiscal funds, outside the constitutional debt brake, with at least €200 billion ($208 billion) for a special defense fund. The reports also cite studies that Germany may need €400 billion of defense spending as well as €500 billion in public investment.
There had already been talks of the centrist parties using their brief time before a new parliament for extra spending, but the Oval Office blow-up appeared to accelerate it.
Meanwhile, at a special London summit on Sunday, featuring U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, European countries made a commitment to increase defense spending.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
They’ll have a good time exterminating the Russian and Nork vermin as your favorite country, Russia, continues to commit suicide.
LOL. 😅😂😅😂 🧚♂️
1) Zelenskyy was the one who staged this "set-up" and planned it well in advance. All along he has been unwilling to work with the Trump administration.
2) Zelenskyy wants one of two things, continued war with unlimited funding and weaponry OR a "security agreement" which is the equivalent of joining NATO - he wants NATO to defend Ukraine with boots on the ground i.e. no more proxy war but a direct confrontation of NATO and Russia - not gonna happen.
And the “confront China” thing is totally up in the air.
Lets say the locals in East Asia are not taking this Russia stuff too well.
If Trump so wants to surrender to a decrepit Russia, what happens when its 3:00am and its China this time? Maybe its better to pre-surrender to China instead of hoping on the weak US reed.
And as Europe scales up its own armaments industry they will concurrently come down in price and be more attractive as exports to other global customers just as American armaments start to look more expensive and less competitive.
“America first” though right?
Not true.
The challenge with China is to build up military strength in the Western Pacific to confront it.
That takes time so there is a combination of Trump saying “I want to meet Xi” alongside tariffs, the drama over fentanyl etc. and above all the military buildup in the Western Pacific.
Ukraine serves no useful purpose in tying down US military strength its ultimately needed to face China.
This whole drama now leads to Europe building up military strength.
It will contribute to the Western Pacific effort as well.
The European aircraft carriers and warships presence near China in the last year speak for themselves.
“The challenge with China is to build up military strength in the Western Pacific to confront it.”
That is one (there are others) of the doubts everyone from Tokyo to Canberra has re the US. As in - will they? The Biden administration had committed to this buildup but has not really gotten anywhere. The Trump admin has said nothing. If they do, what will they say? Will it all be a sacrifice to the Hegseth 8% annual reduction?
The 3:00am choice will be whether or not to send in the fleets when China finally blockades Taiwan. (or seriously bombards it, or seriously bombards the Philippines). Will Trump blink?
The deal with China is to be in a position to block the sea lanes if China attacks Taiwan to impose a sea lane economic blockade of China.
Other indirect military fronts against China through the civil war in Myanmar and jihadists in western China all that drama about persecution of Uyghur Muslims in China designed to incite jihadists grow terrorism in Central Asia in the direction of China.
If they can do this, then they can give it ti Ukraine and leave us out. President Trump is proved right again. They can pay for it themselves and they do NOT want peace. They want war...
The military is going to get cut. You think there isn’t any waste there???
“The military is going to get cut. You think there isn’t any waste there???”
I spent thirty-plus years in the military industrial complex. Yes, there’s waste. There are a multitude of reasons, and it would take hours to explain them all. But like most complex things, even if you had the power of God, you couldn’t sort most of them out. But the REAL waste originates in Congress and the politics of who builds what and where. Look at any large project and if you overlaid a map of spending and assembly areas for that project it will look like someone reduced the money to peanut butter and spread it as evenly as possible across the states. The inefficiency of this is astounding. Boeing wants to buy an X module. Instead of getting the module from the most efficient and cheapest source they’ll divide it into tiny purchases just to make certain there’s money spent in the maximum number of districts. What would, in the ideal circumstances, cost, say, $100 comes in at $1,000. Now multiply that by all the things bought on every project. If you could stop Congress from diddling at the line-item level in every project you could buy the same amount of “stuff” for probably half as much. Also, you might have a five-year contract, but the money is allocated one year at a time. This prevents you from automating so everything I worked on with one exception was essentially serial production of one “art” item after another.
I see, the rich are gonna get rich. The poor boys will march into battle, and some carted home. Europe is so lucky.
I recall a history professor from college saying that whenever there is a united Germany, look out, because they are a warring nation. Oh, they are giddy to do this. I hope the USA does not get involved in this.
If they can afford over $200 billion for a special fund for defense, then they can pay Ukraine’s bar tab and leave us out of it.
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