Security concern and industrial need, not ideology, restore defense spending

Evidence

Any prediction that a State project, including defense, will disappear from the European agenda must be accompanied by the caveat that Europe is the birthplace of the modem State, and it continues to be a region of highly energetic (if not always effective) States. Defense is the State project par excellence. It engages the full apparatus of the State, and the pursuit of more robust defense creates or strengthens important political constituencies. A Europe faced with greater security concerns (Russia, the Near East, etc.), or faced with a need to find public sector consumers for its manufacturing industries—especially aerospacewell could be seen resorting to a more robust defense policy. — Michael A. Reynolds and Thomas D. Grant, The Future of Europe and Its Muslims, 354

Categorization

• QUESTION: Written in the late 2000s, this prediction about European rearmament and aerospace constituencies reads as suddenly testable against post-2022 spending.
• XREF: Directly parallels the base-nation thesis that military construction creates self-perpetuating political constituencies.