Expanding the Legacy
Tag: Military
4 Posts
European Defence Spending Set to Reach €300 Billion
Whilst you were not looking, a new regional superpower has emerged in Europe. Poland is determined to build the third-largest NATO army, eclipsing France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom by a wide margin. Earlier this week, foreign minister Radoslaw Sikoski announced that Poland will immediately boost its defence expenditure, already amongst the highest in NATO, to a full five percent of its GDP. Mr Sikorski justified the increase by noting that the ‘Cold War peace’ has ended. Army chief of staff General Wieslaw Kukula echoed the sentiment: “We need to prepare, and be ready to fight, an all-out conflict.”
An Old Financial Instrument Gains New Currency
When trouble arises, throwing money at it usually works wonderfully well. The problem is, of course, that the number of troubles invariably exceeds the volume of ready cash available. During the Corona Pandemic, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez made a surprise suggestion to revisit an old and almost forgotten financial instrument - the ‘consol’ (consolidated stock or consolidated annuities). A consol is equivalent to a perpetual bond. By definition, consols are not redeemable unless the issuer agrees; they merely pay interest and do so perpetually.
New Security Reality in Europe
The peace dividend, now exhausted, delivered the countries of Europe a windfall of some €4.2 trillion (£3.6 trillion) over the past thirty years – a sum roughly equivalent to a quarter of the European Union’s GDP. The number comes from Bruegel, a non-partisan policy think tank in Brussels. The institute...
On the Battlefields of Ukraine, Mass Trumps Tech
On the undulating plains of Eastern Ukraine, a region largely devoid of topographic features, tech wizardry powers and shapes the ultimate, and most lethal, cat and mouse game ever. Here, loss of human life and military kit is accompanied by an upset and the unravelling of modern military doctrine. Whilst...
