EDITORIAL: The Economic War of Attrition — The West Can Win, If Only It Holds On

Introduction: Two Economies Enter the Arena — Only One Can Leave Standing

The Figure That Makes Moscow Tremble

On June 18, 2026, emerging from a meeting of NATO Defense Ministers in Brussels, Secretary General Mark Rutte dropped a statistic that should have made the front page of every newspaper in the Western world: 48% of the Russian state budget is now devoted to defense. Forty-eight percent. This is no longer a defense budget — it is a total war budget, an entire state placed under armament. Rutte specified an even more staggering sub-figure: approximately 75% of Moscow's tax revenues go directly into the war machine. These figures do not come from an adversarial analyst — they come from the official transcript of the NATO press conference on June 18, 2026, published on nato.int.

In the face of this, the West is not inactive. NATO allies have just confirmed their commitment to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, with at least 3.5% dedicated to pure military capabilities. The United States, under the Trump administration, has submitted a budget request of $1.5 trillion for fiscal year 2027 — the largest increase in military spending since World War II. We are witnessing a collision of economic logics. And this collision will decide who governs the 21st century.

Setting the Terms of the Endurance Duel

This text is not a battlefield analysis. It is not a map of the front lines in the Donbas. It is an economic X-ray of two camps exhausting themselves — or not — in a conflict that has now lasted for over four years of total war. The central question is cold, brutal, and accounting-based: who runs out of steam first? Russia, which is cannibalizing its civilian economy to feed an army? Or the West, which promises fortunes but still struggles to deliver on time?

The editorial angle I defend here is clear: Western GDP is colossal — the combined GDP of NATO members represents more than 50% of global GDP. Russia, for its part, represents about 2% of global GDP according to data from the International Monetary Fund. This is not a war between two giants — it is a duel between an industrial colossus and a country that has put all its savings on a single bet. Time is on the side of the West. But only if it holds on. And that is where everything gets complicated.

Russia at 48%: The Thermometer of an Overheating State

An Economic Mobilization Unprecedented in Modern Russian History

When Rutte spoke the figure of 48% at the June 18, 2026, press conference, he was citing the latest available data on the Russian federal budget. This percentage is not a total surprise — it is part of a documented escalation. The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) had already reported in February 2026 that Russia had devoted about half of its state budget to the military in 2025, with actual military spending estimated at 66% above official figures, according to Wikipedia citing the BND. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy confirms in June 2026 that Russia's liquid sovereign reserves fell from 6.5% of GDP at the start of the war to only 1.8% in April 2026.

SIPRI estimates 2025 Russian military spending at around $190 billion, or 7.5% of GDP — but experts agree that actual spending, including classified items and off-budget financing, far exceeds this figure. The Moscow Times points out that debt service in 2026 will exceed combined spending for education and health. This is not a war economy — it is an economy devoured by war.

The Infernal Logic of Russian Military Financing

The Kremlin has found creative mechanisms to maintain its war machine beyond the visible limits of the official budget. The Kiel Institute documents in June 2026 a rapid expansion of credit and indirect support via the banking system: Russian corporate debt has increased dramatically since the start of the war, as banks channel resources to war-related sectors. This parallel financing hides part of the actual war effort, but it also creates a financial time bomb.

The Moscow Times specifies that the Russian Central Bank reduced its key rate to 14.25% on June 19, 2026 — a monetary easing that reflects a desperate attempt to jumpstart a gasping economy. Inflation remains a structural problem, labor shortages are reaching record levels, and sanctions restrict access to critical imports. As economist Matthew C. Klein notes in the Kiel Institute report: "The fundamental constraint facing Russia today is not access to money, but access to people, technology, and productive capacity."

The Wall of Reality: Russian Reserves are Collapsing

The National Wealth Fund Bled Dry

The Russian National Wealth Fund (NWF), which served as a safety cushion for public finances, is in a state of accelerated depletion. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy reports in June 2026 that the liquid assets of this fund fell from 6.5% of GDP at the start of the war in 2022 to only 1.8% in April 2026. This is no longer a stabilization fund — it is an account in the process of closing. The federal budget deficit exceeded the government's annual target in the first three months of 2026 alone, and oil and gas revenues collapsed by 45% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026.

Bloomberg, cited by UNN.ua, warned in January 2026 that Russia was planning a reduction in military spending of about 11% compared to the previous year — a forced step caused by the fall in energy export revenues and the rapid increase in the cost of servicing domestic debt. This nominal reduction does not prevent the defense-to-budget ratio from climbing: when revenues collapse, even a stable military budget represents a larger slice of the pie.

Structural Dependence on China

The other structural vulnerability of the Russian economy is its growing dependence on Beijing. The Kiel Institute highlights that China now represents about 35% of Russia's total foreign trade and provides the vast majority of dual-use goods and military components entering the country. Beijing is responsible for roughly three-quarters of the increase in Russian imports of critical military components since 2022. Russia is no longer an independent great power on the economic level — it has become an economic satellite of China, which is a monumental irony for a regime that poses as a defender of national sovereignty.

This dependence comes with a considerable geopolitical and strategic cost. If Beijing decides one day to restrict its deliveries — for diplomatic or economic reasons, or because its own interests demand it — the Russian war machine will face severe bottlenecks. Russia has traded its dependence on Western markets for a dependence on Chinese markets. That is not independence — it is changing masters.

NATO at 5%: Does the Historic Hague Commitment Hold Water?

A Goal Redefining the Alliance's Defensive Ambition

At the Hague Summit in June 2025, NATO allies adopted a goal unprecedented since the Cold War: increasing defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, with at least 3.5% dedicated to pure military spending and 1.5% to related security spending — cyber defense, critical infrastructure, civilian resilience, industrial base. The official NATO website, nato.int, confirms this commitment and specifies that allies must submit credible annual plans to achieve it. Only Spain obtained an exemption from this goal.

The financial implications are staggering. SIPRI calculates that if all allies reached the 3.5% target by 2035, they would have to spend approximately $1.4 trillion more per year compared to 2024 levels. To reach the full 5%, the required annual increase would be approximately $2.7 trillion, bringing total NATO spending to around $4.2 trillion per year. These figures are dizzying — but they also provide the measure of the West's potential advantage. If NATO keeps this commitment, the economic disparity with Russia simply becomes insurmountable.

The Accumulated Delay: The $2 Trillion Deficit Haunting the U.S.

But optimism must be tempered by historical honesty. During an Atlantic Council event on June 17-18, 2026, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, co-chair of the Senate NATO Observer Group, stated a brutal truth: "If NATO partners had met the 2% threshold since the year 2000, we would have $2 trillion more in capabilities and readiness." This $2 trillion deficit is not an abstract projection — it is unproduced equipment, untrained battalions, unstocked munitions. It is the bill for two decades of naive optimism from a Europe that believed peace was a given.

Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, also co-chair of the group, added at the same event that the 32 NATO countries were now all going to reach the 2% threshold — a remarkable progression — and that seven countries were already at 3% or 3.5%. She also highlighted a 20% increase in defense spending among European and Canadian allies the previous year, representing an additional $90 billion. The direction is right. The pace must accelerate.

The $1.5 Trillion American Defense Budget: Excess as Strategy

The Largest Military Increase Since World War II

On April 21, 2026, the Pentagon unveiled details of the defense budget for fiscal year 2027 from the Trump administration: a total of $1.5 trillion, including $1.15 trillion in discretionary appropriations and $350 billion via the reconciliation process. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) calls this figure "the highest level of funding in a single fiscal year since World War II." It represents an increase of 38% in real terms compared to 2026 spending levels, including the $155 billion in reconciliation already granted that year.

The priorities of this budget are revealing: shipbuilding with over $65 billion for 18 combat ships and 16 support ships, drone dominance, artificial intelligence, missile defense with the Golden Dome program, and a surge in military industrial production. The White House published a fact-sheet summarizing the ambition: "rebuilding our military", with a 44% increase for the Department of Defense. Trump, in his logic of pressuring allies, presented this budget as a demonstration of American seriousness — and an implicit call for partners to follow suit.

The Question of the American Deficit: The Strategy's Achilles' Heel

This colossal budget is not without its fiscal trade-offs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), according to American Progress, confirmed that a $1.45 trillion budget would increase the annual deficit above $2.5 trillion if fully adopted. This is the internal tension of American strategy: spending massively to maintain military superiority while accumulating sovereign debt that, eventually, could erode the very economic foundations of that superiority.

Russia, in its official communications, is counting on this contradiction. The Kremlin is betting on an exhaustion of American political will, on changes in administration, on taxpayer weariness. This is its only rational hope: not to militarily defeat NATO, but to hold on until the West decides to no longer hold on. And that is precisely why the Alliance's political cohesion is as important as its raw military spending. A trillion dollars is worth nothing if political will collapses.

The Ukrainian Front: ISW Maps Russian Exhaustion in Real Time

Drones, Manpower, Russian Operational Failures

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its assessment of June 19, 2026, paints an operational picture that corroborates the economic signals. Russian forces continue to launch limited offensives — 90 Shahed drones and derivatives on the night of June 18-19 against Ukraine — but fail to consolidate significant breakthroughs in several key directions. In the Kupyansk direction, the Russians have made no confirmed advances. In the northern Sumy region, Ukrainian counter-attacks have halted progress. The ISW notes that Russia must now mobilize additional forces to defend its rear areas against long-range Ukrainian strikes — a sign of dispersing already limited human resources.

On June 20, 2026, the ISW documents that the Russian military is struggling to adapt its strike drones after the sudden loss of Starlink in the Ukrainian operational zone, revealing a poorly anticipated technological dependence. Fuel shortages are spreading in Russia and the occupied territories, with Russian officials imposing rationing while publicly denying shortages. Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure — refineries, oil depots in Crimea — are beginning to produce tangible effects on military logistics.

Ukraine Strikes Moscow: The War Enters Putin's Psychological Territory

The ISW assessment from June 18, 2026, documents a large-scale Ukrainian strike against Moscow City and the Moscow refinery on the night of June 17-18 — the second strike in two days against the refinery. The ISW is explicit: "These repeated strikes against heavily defended Russian rear areas like Moscow City continue to expose Russia's weaknesses and its inability to defend its domestic population." Peskov and Lavrov responded with posturing — but their statements betray nervousness. The Kremlin spokesperson claimed that air defenses are working "regardless," a phrase that implicitly acknowledges that something is wrong.

Militarily, striking Moscow is not just symbolic. Every Ukrainian drone that penetrates the Russian capital forces the Kremlin to redeploy resources for air defense from other areas. Every refinery hit reduces fuel production capacity. The nature of the war is changing: Ukraine, with its growing strike capabilities and its ingenuity in drone production, is transforming this conflict into a duel of industrial attrition that Russia is less and less capable of sustaining.

The NATO Summit in Ankara: The Next Stakes of the Economic Duel

July 2026: The Alliance Facing Its Own Commitments

The NATO summit will be held on July 7 and 8, 2026, in Ankara, Turkey. Preliminary discussions during the Defense Ministers' meeting on June 18 in Brussels traced the outlines: allies must present their national roadmaps toward the 5% goal, strengthen support for Ukraine, and define the framework for reviewing the posture of American forces in Europe. Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Güler, cited by Anadolu Agency on June 19, 2026, called the summit an "important turning point" in the Alliance's strategic direction.

Rutte announced during his June 18 press conference that some allies will reach the 5% target as early as this year, well before the 2035 deadline. European and Canadian allies increased their defense spending by $139 billion in nominal terms the previous year — an unprecedented effort. But the task remains colossal: it is necessary to move from political commitments to real industrial capabilities, and the European defense industrial base does not have sufficient production capacity to meet current demand, let alone the 5% target.

The Industrial Base: The Real Bottleneck of the Western Response

Tillis and Shaheen both emphasized during the Atlantic Council event on June 18, 2026, that Secretary General Rutte's number one priority for the Ankara summit is defense industrial base capacity. A NATO Defense Industry Forum will precede the summit on July 7. The problem is concrete: munitions are consumed on the Ukrainian front faster than they are produced in the West. Artillery factories in Europe are running at full capacity but remain below requirements. Promising 5% of GDP is useless if production lines cannot transform that money into deliverable military equipment.

This is the central paradox of the Western response: the money exists or can exist, but industrial capacity is the limiting factor. Years of underinvestment have left the West with an atrophied industrial base — reduced munitions factories, fragile supply chains, and partially lost expertise. The war in Ukraine has brutally revealed these gaps. Resolving them will take time — time that the Ukrainians on the ground do not necessarily have the luxury of waiting for.

Russia Facing Its Own Internal Contradictions

Inflation, Labor Shortages, Stagnation: The Toxic Triumvirate

Beyond the budget figures, the Russian economy shows signs of deep structural distress. The Moscow Times paints a grim picture for 2026: after two years of growth above 4% in 2023-2024, fueled by the boom in military spending, GDP growth is expected to cap at around 1% in 2025-2026 according to the IMF. Civilian businesses are suffering from prohibitive interest rates — the Central Bank maintained rates between 15% and 21% to combat persistent inflation, before reducing them to 14.25% on June 19, 2026. These high rates have strangled private investment and access to credit for non-defense-related companies.

The labor shortage is perhaps the most insoluble constraint. Hundreds of thousands of men of working age have been killed, wounded, imprisoned, or have fled Russia since 2022. The Kiel Institute cites historic records of labor shortages. Defense factories lack skilled workers. The civilian economy lacks workers in almost every sector. You can't print engineers like you print bills. This human deficit is irreversible in the short term and constitutes perhaps the ultimate limit to Russia's capacity to sustain its war effort.

The Social Costs: When War Gnaws at the Russian Social Contract

The New York Times reported in February 2026 that "virtually all spending not related to the military or social support is on pause," according to Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official. Military sectors are thriving; the rest of the economy is struggling. The Russian automotive industry is in decline; the gas, coal, and non-defense manufacturing sectors are struggling. Small businesses are suffocating under high taxes and unaffordable credit. And pensions, health, and education — the pillars of the implicit social contract between the Kremlin and the population — are under constant pressure.

The political stake is there: Putin can maintain control as long as the Russian population remains passive. But a stagnating economy, persistent inflation, sons coming back in body bags, and an elite living in protected luxury create conditions of underlying discontent. Historically, authoritarian regimes do not fall when they lose wars — they fall when they can no longer meet the minimal economic expectations of their population. Russia is not there yet. But the direction is concerning for the Kremlin.

China: The Joker Changing All Equations

Beijing as a Lifeline and a Russian Strategic Debt

No analysis of the Russian-Western war economy can ignore the role of China. Beijing has provided Russia with a crucial economic lifeline since 2022: access to markets, dual-use technological components, and a commercial partnership that has partially offset the effects of Western sanctions. The Kiel Institute documents that China provides about 75% of the increase in Russian imports of critical military components since the start of the war. This is not neutrality — it is de facto support for Russian aggression.

But this dependence is a double-edged sword for Moscow. Xi Jinping is not a philanthropist — he calculates his interests with cold precision. If the diplomatic cost of supporting Russia became too high — for example, if the United States and the European Union toughened their secondary sanctions against Chinese companies trading with Moscow — Beijing could reduce its support to protect its own global economic interests. Russia has exchanged one dependence for another, without ever having the leverage to negotiate with Beijing from a position of strength.

The Systemic Threat: Why the West Cannot Afford to Lose

Beyond Russia, the economic defense duel has a broader geopolitical dimension. If the West fails to support Ukraine, if Russia obtained a result perceived as a victory, the signal sent to Beijing would be devastating: brute force pays, persistence triumphs over the Western coalition, democracies do not have the necessary attention span. China would observe Taiwan with renewed attention. Iran, North Korea, and other revisionist actors would take note. Ukraine is not just a Ukrainian issue — it is the credibility test of the liberal international order that the West claims to defend.

That is why the Russian-Western economic endurance duel is not a regional issue. It is a civilizational issue. The combined Western GDP exceeds that of Russia by more than 50 times. The advantage is overwhelming — on paper. But an economic advantage that does not translate into political will, industrial production, and sustained support for Ukraine is worth nothing. The question is not whether the West can win. The question is whether it truly wants to win.

Trump and NATO: The Necessary Evil Pushing in the Right Direction

American Pressure Has Produced Tangible Results

We must be honest about Trump and defense, even for those who have reservations about other aspects of his presidency. His relentless pressure on NATO allies to meet their financial commitments has produced real and documented results. Republican Senators Collins, Tillis, and others recognized in their bipartisan statement in April 2026: "President Trump was right to push our allies to take on more — and they responded." A 20% increase in defense spending among European and Canadian allies in one year, an additional $90 billion in real terms — this is no accident. It is partly the result of American pressure that, however clumsy in form, was right on the substance.

Rutte, in his June 18 press conference, indirectly validated this logic by announcing that American contributions to NATO could henceforth be linked to the spending levels of other allies. This is a policy of conditionality that pushes in the right direction — forcing a Europe long comfortable in its under-contribution to truly shoulder its share of the defensive burden. The form is rough. The substance is right. And Europe needed it.

Institutional Drift: The Limit Where Support Must Become Critical

While recognizing the strategic value of Trump's pressure on allied defense spending, we must name the institutional risks. Attacks on judicial independence, tensions with American democratic institutions, ambiguous signals on NATO's Article 5, direct negotiations with Moscow without sufficient consultation with European allies — all of this creates vulnerabilities in the Alliance's cohesion. A militarily rearmed but institutionally fractured West is less solid than a less armed but united West. Putin is betting on Western divisions. This is his most rational strategy at this stage.

The American Congress, and notably the senators from both parties involved in the NATO observer group, plays an important stabilizing role — keeping the bipartisan course on support for Ukraine and the Alliance despite executive turbulence. American democracy is self-correcting — imperfectly, loudly, but really. And that is one of the fundamental strengths that distinguish the West from the politically locked system that Putin has built in Moscow.

The GDP Duel: Figures That Do Not Lie

The Economic Demographics of the Conflict

Let's place the economies of the two camps in their raw context. The GDP of the 32 NATO members represents approximately 52% of global GDP. The American GDP alone, at about $28 trillion in 2025-2026, is about ten times higher than Russia's total GDP. The Russian GDP, estimated at about $2.2 trillion at the official exchange rate, represents about 2% of global GDP. Even in purchasing power parity — the measure more flattering to Moscow — Russia represents no more than 3% of the world economy. Faced with an Alliance whose cumulative GDP exceeds $47 trillion, this asymmetry is structurally decisive.

This imbalance translates into military terms. Combined NATO military spending reached $1.581 trillion in 2025 according to SIPRI — or 55% of global military spending. Russia spends about $190 billion according to official figures, and perhaps $250 billion according to German BND estimates. The ratio is on the order of 8 to 1 in favor of NATO even in the most conservative calculations. Putin cannot win a prolonged arms race against an Alliance that seriously decides to rearm. He can only hope that this Alliance grows weary before the gap closes.

Why Time Plays for the West — But Not Automatically

The central argument of this analysis is that time structurally plays for the West — provided that political, industrial, and cohesion conditions are maintained. Every additional year of war is one more year of budgetary bleeding for Moscow, one more year of depleting Russian sovereign reserves, one more year of irreplaceable human losses. Russia does not have the fundamentals to sustain this war at 48% of the budget indefinitely — economic history shows this clearly. The USSR itself eventually collapsed under the weight of its disproportionate military spending.

But time does not play automatically — it only plays if the West maintains its pressure. This means: continuous support for Ukraine in terms of weaponry, financing, and intelligence; respect for NATO spending commitments; expansion of the defense industrial base with a wartime urgency; and maintenance of political cohesion despite internal divergences. This is asking a lot of pluralistic democracies. But it is the price of victory in a duel of endurance.

Lessons of History: When War Economies Exhaust Themselves

The USSR as a Historical Precedent — and Its Limits

The comparison with the economic exhaustion of the USSR is tempting but deserves nuance. The Soviet Union did indeed devote a disproportionate share of its GDP to defense for decades — between 15% and 20% of GDP according to the most credible estimates — which contributed to its final collapse in 1991. But the USSR held on for 70 years in this state of quasi-permanent mobilization. Putin's Russia does not have the institutional architecture or the natural resources of the USSR at its peak. It is more fragile, more dependent on hydrocarbons, and more integrated (despite sanctions) into the global economy.

Economist Moritz Schularick of the Kiel Institute stated in June 2026: "In the early years of the war, the Russian economy proved more robust than expected, but the buffers are now exhausted." This is the turning point. The phase of surprising resilience is behind us. The phase of structural exhaustion is ahead of us. Sovereign funds are nearly empty, growth is stagnating, and human reserves are dwindling. The Russian economic structure increasingly resembles a state at the end of a war cycle.

Precedents of Western Endurance: When Democracy Held On

History also offers precedents of Western democratic endurance in duels of exhaustion. The Cold War is the most obvious example: Western democracies eventually surpassed the Soviet bloc not through a direct military victory, but through a combination of economic superiority, technological innovation, and political cohesion maintained over decades. The lesson is not that the West is invincible — it has experienced moments of deep doubt. The lesson is that when the West decides to hold on, its structural advantages eventually dominate.

Today, the fundamentals are even more favorable to the West than they were during the Cold War. Putin's Russia is economically weaker, more isolated, and more dependent than the USSR was. The Western Alliance is broader, with a larger combined GDP. Western military technology is a generation ahead of Russia in many critical areas. If the West maintains its Hague commitments and supports Ukraine consistently, the endurance duel will end in only one possible way.

What the West Must Do Not to Waste Its Advantage

Three Strategic Imperatives to Win the Endurance Duel

In the face of all these elements, the West has a considerable structural advantage. But this advantage is not automatic — it requires three precise strategic imperatives. First: keep spending commitments. NATO's 5% GDP target by 2035 must be treated as a non-negotiable strategic obligation, not a pious wish. Every country that does not meet interim targets weakens the entire chain. Second: transform money into real industrial capabilities. The billions allocated are worth nothing if they do not transform into produced munitions, deployed air defense systems, and available drone fleets.

Third — and this is perhaps the most difficult in pluralistic democracies: maintain political support for Ukraine over the long term. Putin is betting on Western weariness. Every election, every change of government, every budget debate is an opportunity for Russian hope that the support coalition will fragment. The response to this is not artificial unanimity — it is the shared conviction that the stake goes far beyond Ukrainian territory, that it concerns the international order the West has valued since 1945.

Ukraine as a Strategic Investment, Not a Burden

We must change the rhetorical paradigm: Ukraine is not a burden on Western finances — it is a strategic investment in European and global security. Every billion invested in supporting Ukraine keeps Russia occupied, exhausts its resources, tests and improves Western military doctrines, and produces a body of operational experience that NATO would not otherwise have. The alternative — a victorious Russia against Ukraine — would cost infinitely more: emergency rearmament of Eastern Europe, massive deployment of NATO troops to the borders, loss of global Alliance credibility.

Senator Tillis posed the question with brutal clarity: "How do we fix the fact that we didn’t have those $2 trillion in demand signals that almost certainly would have created a military industrial base capacity that we don’t have because of lack of past spending?" The answer: we spend now, we build now, we support now. The past cannot be changed. The future can still be won.

Conclusion: Time Plays for the West — But Only If It Decides So

The Verdict of Historical Accounting

The record is clear: a Russia that devotes 48% of its state budget to defense, with 75% of its tax revenues swallowed up in war, sovereign reserves at 1.8% of GDP, stagnant growth at 1%, record labor shortages, and structural dependence on China — this is an economy running toward exhaustion. Facing it is a West that is now seriously mobilizing its resources: a $1.5 trillion American defense budget for 2027, a NATO goal of 5% of GDP adopted in The Hague, and defense spending increases of $139 billion nominal in one year among European and Canadian allies. The fundamental asymmetry — a Western GDP more than twenty times higher than Russia's — will eventually dominate. It is a question of economic physics, not opinion.

But the verdict of accounting is not an automatic verdict. History is full of economically superior powers that lost wars of attrition because they lacked political cohesion, strategic will, or patience. Russia cannot win this duel on the substance — but it can win if the West abandons the game before the economic fundamentals have time to play their full role. This is the only defeat scenario for the Western camp. And it is an entirely avoidable scenario.

The Call for Strategic Discipline

As the NATO summit in Ankara approaches — July 7 and 8, 2026 — the message must be unequivocal: the Hague commitments are not optional, support for Ukraine is not a choice but a strategic necessity, and the defense industrial base must be rebuilt with wartime urgency. Rutte is right: Russia "is no larger than Belgium and the Netherlands combined" in terms of GDP. It does not have the resources to sustain this level of military spending indefinitely. The endurance duel is winnable for the West. We only need to choose to win.

The numbers speak. History speaks. Economic logic speaks. What remains is political will — the collective decision of Western democracies to hold their rank, honor their commitments, and not abandon a country fighting for its survival and, in doing so, for the values the West claims to defend. This is not a matter of sentimentality toward Ukraine. It is a matter of well-understood strategic interest. And historical dignity.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Sources

Primary Sources

NATO — Rutte press conference following the meetings of NATO Ministers of Defence (Russia 48% of budget, 75% of tax revenue) — June 18, 2026

Atlantic Council — Senators Shaheen and Tillis on the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara: $2 trillion deficit — June 18, 2026

The Epoch Times — Pentagon Lays Out Record $1.5 Trillion Budget Request for FY 2027 — April 22, 2026

Secondary Sources

ISW — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 19, 2026 — June 19, 2026

Anadolu Agency — NATO chief says alliance entering implementation phase ahead of Ankara summit — June 18, 2026

Kiel Institute for the World Economy — Endgame: Russia's war economy hits its structural limits — June 11, 2026

NATO — Defence expenditures and NATO's 5% GDP commitment (2035 goal, The Hague) — Updated 2026

CSIS — Unpacking the $1.5 Trillion FY 2027 Defense Budget Topline — April 10, 2026