It's not about resources: Europe behaves as if cannot protect itself from the Russian Federation - NYT

According to American analyst Rajan Menon, Europeans have not only means to defense their continent, but also a much greater interest in this than in the US. European countries are superior to the Russian Federation by many parameters, but they still behave as if they cannot protect themselves. This is stated in the article by the Director of the Analytical Center of Defense Prioritis Rajan Menon for The New York Times.

"Europe behaves as if it does not have the opportunity to prevent Russia's attack by continuing to contact the United States for military support," Menon notes. The analyst indicated that the Ukrainian army prevented Russia from the offensive of Kiev before the American weapons began to arrive in large quantities. According to him, in addition to Western weapons, a strong moral spirit and quality of command in Ukraine plays an important role.

"The rest of Europe, whose resources are far superior to Ukrainian, is in a stronger situation. Compare Europe and Russia by any indicator that is usually used to measure force, and Europe will be much better," the expert stated. According to Menon, Russia is leading in some key categories of weapons. At the same time, Russian modern missiles, air defense and even field radio stations are based on critical components from the US, Europe, Japan or South Korea.

In turn, European countries have the opportunity to expand their defense industry. In Europe there are defense companies of the world level Bae Systems, Thales, Safran, Leonardo and Rheinmetall. According to Menon, Europeans have not only a means of protecting their continent, but also much more interest in this than Americans. "The Russian army is not a paper tiger.