Our Planet Climate and Geopolitics
Europe’s leaders, including Keir Starmer, meet in Paris today to talk about how to make up for decades of under-investment in their own security now that the US is backing out and Russia is muscling in.
There will be plenty of self-flagellation and an historic pledge from Starmer to send British troops to Ukraine if required as part of a peace deal. But as the continent pivots it is worth remembering that Germany has solid historical reasons for not rearming.
It was also reasonable to expect a peace dividend from defence cuts after the cold war, and the EU’s challenge from its birth, with the exception of Britain in 2016, has been how to absorb states and migrants wanting to join it rather than fend off hostile armies wanting to attack it.
That said, a unified European defence capability not reliant on the US is clearly overdue.
Time to invest in Airbus, Reinmetall AG and BAE Systems, up 7, 19 and 1.2 per cent respectively in the past month.
