Germany, which overcame its initial reluctance to support Ukraine to become the country’s biggest European supplier of military aid, looks poised to change course as the finance minister said the government would slash future assistance by half in order to fulfill other spending priorities.
That appeared to be Berlin’s unequivocal message to Ukraine on Wednesday as the government detailed its preliminary 2025 budget, in which military aid to Ukraine is slated to be cut by half to just €4 billion, according to a draft seen by POLITICO.
I cannot exaggerate to you that this 100% fulfils the negative perceptions of European governments that American isolationists have. The article says they cut Ukraine funding to fund social programs. The right-wing narrative in America is that needing to have the huge military is why we have a weak social safety net (not true btw, med4all for example would save Uncle Sam money) which is framed as “we pay for European social programs.” But here’s a government… literally cutting military spending in the middle of aiding a real war that could be highly consequential to the country in question to fund social programs.
How is an American supposed to argue in favor of funding the defense of Europe when the richest country in Europe doesn’t want to fund the defense of Europe? If Germany gets to decide to go for “Germany first,” how long until “Britain first?” “France first?” “Italy first?” Will Ukraine funding just be a hot potato that everyone will claim is important but nobody actually wants to do?
When European countries started raising military spending in response to a threat, it weakened American isolationist arguments. But this strengthens them. I hope no other European countries pull this shit.