Fu Yiming, reporter of Xinhua News Agency

Sullivan, assistant to the US president for national security affairs, said on the 12th that the US would provide Poland with a US $2 billion foreign military financing loan and sell 96 "Apache" helicopter gunships and other weapons and equipment.

Influenced by the crisis in Ukraine and other factors, European countries have imported a large number of weapons from the United States in recent years. According to the latest report issued by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden, the total volume of major arms imports by European countries in the past five years has nearly doubled compared with the previous five years, more than half of which came from the United States. Analysts pointed out that Europe spent a lot of money to make itself deeply trapped in geopolitical and economic difficulties, but it was the US military industry that made a lot of money by taking advantage of conflicts.

The burden of aiding Ukraine is increasing

On November 4, 2015, the "Apache" armed helicopter entered the exercise area during the land and air joint operation exercise held in Zaragoza, Spain. Photographed by Xie Haining, reporter of Xinhua News Agency

According to the report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on the 11th, the number of major arms imports by European countries from 2019 to 2023 increased by 94% compared with that from 2014 to 2018. Peter Weizmann, senior researcher of the Institute's arms transfer project, said that the reason for the increase was that "many high-value weapons have been ordered", including nearly 800 fighter planes and combat helicopters. In the future, European arms imports may continue to maintain a high level.

After the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, the United States coerced Europe to provide Ukraine with a large amount of military assistance. According to the report released this time, Ukraine has become the largest arms importer in Europe and the fourth largest arms importer in the world in the past five years.

At present, the progress of US aid to Ukraine has slowed down due to party contradictions and other factors, and Europe has gradually become the "main force" of military aid to Ukraine. According to the recent report released by the Kiel Institute for World Economics in Germany, from February 2022 to December 2023, the total amount of military aid pledged by the EU to Ukraine is more than that of the United States. There is great uncertainty about whether the United States can continue its military assistance to Ukraine in the future. The EU's military assistance to Ukraine needs to be at least doubled to fill the vacancy left by the United States.

In order to "take over" the task of assisting Ukraine, it is necessary for Europe to increase defense expenditure. At the end of last year, EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Andrea Borrelli made it clear that Europe would increase defense investment. At the end of February, European Commission President Von Delain also said that the EU was working hard to set up a Ukrainian aid fund, raising an additional 5 billion euros to jointly purchase weapons needed by Ukraine.

At the same time, the European defense industry is stepping up its pace to expand production capacity. Since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, the EU has increased its ammunition production capacity by about 40%, delivered more than 500000 shells to Ukraine, and plans to deliver more than 1 million shells by the end of this year.

Get into a security and economic dilemma

On April 22, 2023, people took part in a protest in Stockholm, Sweden. Xinhua News Agency (photographed by Patrick Axland)

Europe has constantly increased its military support for Ukraine. Its demand for security has forced it to be highly tied to NATO, but it has not brought security and stability.

In January this year, NATO launched a trans Atlantic military exercise called "Firm Defender 2024". NATO said that this was the largest military exercise held since 1988, and the main drill locations included the three Baltic countries, Poland, Romania and other NATO eastern countries, as well as Germany. In response, Russia strengthened its military forces in the north and west of the country to counter NATO forces gathered near Russia.

In terms of economy, Europe followed the United States to impose sanctions on Russia, resulting in soaring energy prices, high inflation, huge losses to enterprises, serious shrinkage of people's real wages and declining purchasing power. The winter economic forecast report released by the European Commission last month shows that the technical recession was barely avoided in the second half of last year, and the growth prospects of the EU economy in the first quarter of this year are still weak.

Take Germany, the largest economy in Europe, for example. In the past, the country relied on importing natural gas from Russia. After the conflict broke out, it had to find new energy supplies. Rising energy prices lead to high inflation. Faced with high prices, German workers demanded higher wages. In recent months, there have been several rounds of large-scale strikes in Germany, resulting in large-scale traffic paralysis. The Federal Bank of Germany, the central bank of Germany, released a monthly report on February 19, saying that the German economy may have fallen into recession.

US military industry made a fortune

This is the corner of NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on February 15. Photographed by Zhao Dingzhe, reporter of Xinhua News Agency

According to the report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 55% of the weapons imported by European countries from 2019 to 2023 came from the United States, a significant increase of 20 percentage points over the previous five years.

According to the US Wall Street Journal, since the outbreak of the Russian Ukrainian conflict, the number of orders received by US military enterprises has increased significantly, some of which are from Europe. Miles Walton, military industry analyst of Wolff Research Company in the United States, pointed out that from September 2022 to September 2023, of the more than 80 billion dollars of arms transactions in the United States, about 50 billion dollars of arms are destined for Europe, and the size of this transaction is more than five times the historical normal level.

The United States not only sells a large number of weapons to Europe, but also its arms business spreads all over the world. The report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that in the past five years, the United States' arms exports have increased by 17% year on year, and its share in global arms exports has risen from 34% to 42%. A total of 107 countries and regions have delivered major weapons, more than any previous five-year period, and far more than any other arms exporting country. The United States is undoubtedly the world's largest arms exporter.

The US military enterprises have made a lot of money by taking advantage of the Ukrainian crisis, not only with a large number of orders from other countries, but also with the "own business" of the US Defense Department. The Wall Street Journal reported that both the European arms orders and the dividends of the US military aid to Ukraine went to the US defense industry.

At present, the Biden government is promoting an additional defense budget that includes 60.7 billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. US officials said that 64% of the latest military aid to Ukraine would return to the US defense industry. Both US Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin have said frankly that military aid to Ukraine is beneficial to the US economy. An EU official said in an interview on the website of the US Political Daily that if people observe calmly, they can find that "the United States has benefited most from the Ukrainian crisis. They can not only export natural gas at high prices, but also increase arms sales". (Participating journalists: Deng Xianlai, Xu Yuan)