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Notes -
What about "Russia is so strong that if we don't stop them here, they may be able to take Moldovia/Estonia! But if delay them and rebuild European armies then risk becomes nonexisting. Also, maybe they will be even kicked out of Ukraine that has not collapsed yet?" for pessimistic version? Without cognitive dissonance?
Just by the by - do you know if this conflict has seen an increase in European military preparedness? That would be a logical response, but I haven't really heard about it.
Several countries went on large equipment buying spree, for example Poland ordered massive amount of wide range of materiel. Delivery of some already started.
I will need to check at some point has anyone thought about building up munition supply and storage.
In general military spending on equipment significantly increased, though mostly for countries on NATO border.
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Overall European countries have increased defense spending by about 20% since the Ukraine invasion, but this is heavily weighted to countries near the Russian frontier like Finland and Poland that have seen budgets increase by 50-75%. The Baltics have each tripled or quadrupled spending. Britain and Germany increased spending by 7-9% YoY. The Germans are still only spending 1.5% of GDP on defense despite promising to go up to 2% but are facing issues with their constitution which has (effectively) a balanced budget clause that limits large rises in government spending.
However, given the main issue is munitions - which are not the primary cost center for Western militaries (which is salaries and pensions, and to a lesser extent buying expensive hardware like ships and fighter jets) - the question is more about whether munitions factories can be rapidly scaled up. That’s as much a logistics question as a financial one.
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