A companion analysis I conducted for The Gateway Pundit examined European versus Russian military capabilities without U.S. support, focusing on direct military hardware such as tanks, aircraft, carriers, submarines, and nuclear weapons.
It found that Russia holds decisive advantages in ground-force experience, armored production, submarine power, Arctic dominance, and tactical nuclear weapons. Europe’s theoretical hardware advantages are undermined by readiness failures, fragmented command, and a complete lack of peer-level conventional warfare experience.
Raw firepower is only part of the equation. Wars are won or lost on the ability to sustain operations over time. That means keeping weapons factories running, fuel flowing, soldiers fed, and supply lines open under fire. On every one of those dimensions, Russia’s position is stronger than Europe’s. In some cases, the gap is not even close.
European defense spending has risen sharply since 2022, but remains structurally insufficient for a peer conflict. At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, allies committed to investing 5 percent of GDP by 2035, with at least 3.5 percent on core defense. Commitments and current reality remain far apart, however. Sixteen European allies barely exceed the 2 percent threshold, spending between 2 and 2.1 percent of GDP in 2025, and only Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland are projected to reach 3.5 percent this year.
By contrast, Russia’s total defense spending reached RUB 6.3 percent of GDP and 32.5 percent of the federal budget.
Putin claimed in December 2025 that since February 2022, Russia increased tank production by 2.2 times, aircraft by 4.6 times, strike weapons and ammunition by 22 times, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers by 3.7 times, electronic warfare and communications equipment by 12.5 times, and rocket artillery by 9.6 times, with the defense sector now employing approximately 4.5 million people and accounting for 20 percent of all manufacturing jobs.
General Christopher Cavoli told the US Senate Armed Services Committee in April 2025 that Russia is replacing battlefield losses at an unprecedented rate due to industrial expansion and full transition to a war economy.
Hellbound and Down 