« Our neutrality is incomprehensible in Europe » – DiePresse.com
Military strategist Walter Feichtinger does not believe that Moscow is currently able to attack the EU. However, the hybrid threat is acute.
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Walter Feichtinger: « The trust in peaceful Russian intentions has been completely lost. » Mirjam Reither
The press: The fear of Russia is great, in some places there is even talk of the “last summer without war”. How concerned do we have to be?
Walter Feichtinger: The tensions between Europe and Russia are extremely worrying. The trust in peaceful Russian intentions has been completely lost.
What are the consequences of this loss of trust?
Since we are in an extreme security dilemma, we assume the worst to the opposite side. This fueled the armor spiral. We have no valid figures from Russia, but military spending is likely to reach 7.5 percent of the BIP this year. In 2024, more than a third of Russian government spending was used for the wide “defense”. You can no longer speak of a normal condition.
On the other hand, one could argue that Europe has a need to catch up with this arms spiral.
A course correction is understandable. A comparison: In the 1980s, the average defense budget of the NATO countries was around 3.6 percent of the GDP. After the UDSSR has been dissolved, the budgets have gradually fallen to around 1.4 percent. With the exception of Finland, all European countries have geared their armed forces to international crisis management …
