NEW YORK, January 23. /TASS/. Europe is increasingly doubting the capacity of the US defense industrial base, Guntram Wolff, senior fellow at Bruegel, an economics think tank in Belgium, said.
"People are starting to understand in Europe that the US defense industrial base would be way too small to rely on in case of peer conflict," the Breaking Defense website quoted the expert as saying. "I think there’s a strong sense emerging, I hope at least, that, Europe must further develop its domestic industrial base," he said.
According to Wolff, European output of certain weapon systems outpaces production in the United States. "If you take artillery shells for example, Europe is producing more. <...> My understanding is, even in the area of tanks, Europe is producing more than the United States, which still has relatively small capacities," he stressed.
Wolff described the size of the US defense industrial base as a fundamental problem for the idea of getting Europe to pay for American military support to Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that more weapons supplies to Kiev will not change the situation on the frontline but will only prolong the conflict.