instead of having like a quarter of its economy revolve around the defense industry the eu citizens instead enjoy posh bourgeois luxuries such as toilets, roads, and healthcare.  russia has for the last 100 years been tryharding on defense at the expense of other things. guns and butter used to be an actual thing they would talk about for the ussr where there would be food shortages sometimes in favor of weapons production. kinda like north korea, only not at the expense of literally-everything like what goes on for 98% of the dprk population. putin's wannabe czardom state is tipping more into that direction.  but finally, what is being used in ukraine in russia's side is not their current production rates besides for artillery. russia's impressive vehicle stockpiles (and artillery stocks for the first 2 years or so of conflict) were just legacy ussr stuff that it made in the tryhard mode it often was in. suffice to say this doesn't work on populations that actually want and expect nice things. would american citizens be fine living at near africa tier poverty in many areas of we went "but hey we have stealth bombers so we're good and strong"? nope. people bitch about our military spending usually, not cope with it as being worth knowingly missing out on good stuff in life.
United States