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Europe can support Ukraine without US [1]

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Date: 2025-02-03

Europe can support Ukraine without US. They have the economic power to do so; the issue is whether they have the will power. Recently, that question also seems to have a positive answer. Before the invasion, a lot of the politicians backing European cooperation dreamed of a greater cooperative market including Russia. Most of those people now realize that Russia’s dream is a third Russian empire.

Twenty-one countries are both members of NATO and of the EU. If we are talking about support for Ukraine, we can’t include Hungary or Slovakia. If the other 19 countries were a single country, that country would have both the third largest population in the world and the third largest GDP.

We see Russia as our contender, thus our opposite number, and thus something of an equal. It is not; even the USSR was nowhere close economically. Modern Russia has less than twice the population of Germany, and less than half the GDP. France and Italy each has greater GDP than Russia, and the Netherlands and Spain each has more than half each. The 19 countries, combined, 8.4 times the GDP of Russia. (The 19 European countries combined, have 2.8 times the population of Russia. They have well less than a third f the population of China, but only 5% less GDP.)

Moreover, although it is harder to quantify, the major countries of Europe specialize in manufacturing. Russia’s GDP is heavy in agriculture and extraction, especially oil and gas extraction. Whatever the current development of the industrial defense base, an industrial country finds it easier to expand it than does an agricultural or mining country. They have both the prerequisite supply companies and a labor force trained in closely related tasks.

If we are comparing to the European alliance, fairness requires counting Russia’s allies. First, is what they call the “near abroad.” That is the former Union Republics of the old USSR. omitting the ones clearly backing Ukraine or opposing Russia, there are Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. They have a total population of 103 million and a total GDP of 613 Billion. Each of the 8 countries has its own relationship with Russia, some more supportive, some less, some with governments dependent on Russian support and an opposition denouncing Russian support. Then there are N. Korea and Iran. Their total population is 115.4 million and GDP is 432.8 Billion. That gives the entire bloc including Russia, a population of 362,3 million and a GDP of 3.1 Trillion. That population is 90% of the European bloc I’ve been discussing, but it has only slightly more than 18% of the GDP.

I’m not including the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group that was formed in recent years. The group was not intended to e military allies, and it has less cohesion than had been intended. China and India were nearly at war not so long ago. For that matter, China and Russia also came near to blows. India’s military had bought most of its imported weapons from Russia (and the USSR before) long before that group was formed; currently, it is buying less from them. China is a separate issue, and I’ll deal with it later.

Ukraine has other friends, too. They should be counted if Russia’s allies are. There are 3 countries, Austria, Ireland, and Cyprus, in the EU but not in NATO. They have a combined population of 164 million and a combined GDP of 1.1 Trillion. The mirror image, countries in NATO but outside the EU, have 2 countries — aside from the US — on the west of the Atlantic. Canada and Iceland. Iceland’s contribution to NATO is neither its productive facilities nor its military; it is its geographic position. Canada, OTOH, has slightly more GDP than Russia. On the east of the Atlantic, there are the UK (another individual country with a larger economy than Rusia’s), Türkiye, and 4 others. Combined they have a population slightly greater than Russia’s and a GDP 2.4 times Russia’s

Then, there are what I call “West Pacific friends.” SEATO never became the realistic power that NATO is, Australia, New Zeeland, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan aren’t anything like a coalition, but they each are friendly to Ukraine and aiding it in some way. Together they have 90% of the population of Russia and well over 4 times the GDP. Ukraine does need humanitarian aid. If most outside countries aiding it were to omit lethal aid, Russia world destroy Ukraine, but a few countries limiting their aid to humanitarian aid is not a danger, especially if they give heavily in that sector.

[It’s off subject, but I might note that “Making America Great Again” includes a foreign policy of declining the leadership of a loose coalition — with tight-coalition segments — of most of the industrial powers of the world in favor of being a satellite of the country with the fifth largest economy in Europe.]

I certainly feel that Australia, Canada and the other non-European powers should continue — and increase — their support for Ukraine. Let me, however, return to my headline. What is the ability of Europe, the European powers that appear willing, to supply Ukraine with weapons? First, there is the 19 countries (besides Hungary and Slovakia) in both NATO and the EU. These have a total of about 400million population and a GDP of about 16.7 Trillion US dollars. Then there are the 4 EU countries outside NATO. They have a total population of 16.2 million (considerably smaller than the population of the NYC metro area) and a GDP of $975 Billion. The European states in NATO but not in the EU — Therefore not including Türkiye, which is mostly Asian — number 5 countries with a total population of 79 million and a GDP of $4.6 Trillion. (Both mostly the UK). Then, we should count Ukraine, itself. That’s 37 million people with about $179 Billion GDP.

That gives the pro-Russian bloc Significantly less than 400 million population and just over $1 trillion GDP. The pro-Ukrainian European bloc has significantly more than 500 million population and $20 trillion GDP. Comparative GDPs have little influence on the fifth day of a war, but they are almost decisive on the fifth year.

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I’ve been ignoring the 2 elephants in the room, The USA and China. China is second in both population and GDP, having slightly fewer people than India and nearly 2/3 of the US GDP. China has been an ally of Russia since the USSR broke up and of the USSR before that since shortly after WWII. Theoretically, China remained Communist when Russia abandoned that doctrine. China is also the rival of Russia for leadership of that bloc. It borders on Russia and has a border quarrel with them. China wants Taiwan, not least because Taiwan still claims to be Nationalist China’s government in exile; If NATO allows Russia to retake Ukraine, China would enjoy that precedent. OTOH, China wants trade with Europe and the Americas. Putting the full weight of its power behind Russia’s role would weaken the precedent.

There has been speculation on dKos — and many other places — as to what Trump’s behavior towards Ukraine will be. Some of us have postulated actual aid might be sent to Russia. That is unlikely, not least because the pro-Putin voices in this country insist that Russia is bound to win even with NATO aiding Ukraine. There is also the poin that Putin has publicly called for Trump to roll oer, and Trump is mostly ego.

In any event, there are a lot of voices in Europe calling for it to go alone. It could. For that matter, Putin clearly believes that Russia is in some sort of a war with NATO. Whatever the effectiveness of denying a conflict with a person who sees a conflict with you (“I drew a line to count him in,”) on an interpersonal level, it does not work on an international level. Europe has the choice of punishing the cutting of Baltic cables or surrendering to these attacks.

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