Central planning in the European weapons market is coming – and could backfire

Ukraine is in desperate need of weapons. But so is Europe. Unless the European Union ramps up military spending in a big way, Ukraine will have to keep rationing ammunition, making it unable to repel intensive Russian attacks. The EU, whose own arsenals have been depleted by decades of piddling investments, will be vulnerable to Russian aggression, too, as well as to Donald Trump's threat to downgrade - or even eliminate - America's presence in NATO were he to become president. While almost everyone in the EU agrees that weapons ranging from the fairly simple (artillery shells and armoured personnel…