[myrmidon]

What is your threat scenario? Russia marching on EU capitals? After the showing in Ukraine I'm fairly confident that Poland alone with moderate support could put a complete stop to that. They are still growing and modernizing their land forces, but Russia has plenty of losses to recover from, too.

But I feel that argument almost supports my point: If you think Poland/Germany urgently needs more armored vehicles, then spending taxes specifically on that is way more efficient than subsidising the local bus industry.

Isolating yourself is also straight up painful economically, and you also lose a soft way of de-escalation/prevention. I'm not convinced that's a net gain.

Aggregate numbers also don't look that bad to me from a Europe vs Russia point of view; if you sum up vehicle numbers for European countries the gap is no longer that big, and European inventories are on average more modern/capable, too.

How much growth in those numbers would you like to see to be able to sleep at ease?