Subject: Re: No sign of riots...
The Ukrainians don't have the dudes, the firepower or the money to push the Russkies all the way out.

Neither did the Viet Cong, nor the Afghans to Russia in 1980, nor the Iraqis in the Second Gulf War, nor the Taliban in Afghanistan to us. When the weaker party in an asymmetric conflict manages to achieve some or all of their aims in resistance, it's usually not by physically pushing back the opposing troops, but by creating conditions where the opposing belligerent accepts something less (sometimes entirely less) than their initial war aims. Russia's faced tremendous costs in maintaining the war, and would almost certainly settle for something less than their wish list and 100% of currently occupied territory in order to get out from under. But not if we kneecap Ukraine's negotiating position.

See that? They're spending more money, and actually getting worse.

To do what you say they're going to inevitably do means they'd have to dismantle their social welfare states. They won't do that.

Again, nonsense. Germany's military budget in 2004 was lower than it is today, both absolute and percent of GDP. They spend more on personnel than military today than they did in 2004, because that's their role in NATO. Germany's not on the front line, so the tanks and heavy equipment aren't in Germany or under control of the German army - they've invested in personnel. If they needed to shift, they could shift - your excerpt assumes the status quo, which is by definition not the world we're talking about.

If you get all of the countries of Europe to stop planning their national defense as components of a NATO force, but being independent armies that have their own resources (which is wastefully duplicative if they're acting as members of a multi-national force, but necessary for independent defense), then you increase their capacity for warfare as independent countries. There's downside to that.

Your insistence that they're not materially contributing their own defense flies in the face of the facts. Non-NATO troop levels and spending are very high. They're maintaining a massive fighting force, one that is designed to be supported by US armored and air force. It isn't designed to repel an invasion of Europe without the U.S., because that's not the defense strategy. That doesn't mean they're not materially contributing - or that they couldn't pivot their expenditures in a way that doesn't involve dismantling their social welfare states.