[Goose]

TODAY:  
"Europe must stop relying on avoiding the worst-possible outcome and hoping for the best when it comes to Trump. They need to stop relying on changing his mind and dramatically step up their support for the Ukrainian army. They have to show that they’re really in this for the long run by providing way more weaponry, way more support, and maybe eventually committing to putting forces on the ground to protect any peace that eventually comes." 
Prof. Matthias Matthijs, Senior Fellow at CFR, and Prof at SAIS. 
https://www.cfr.org/article/major-takeaw...an-leaders

Americans have been begging NATO Europeans for years to increase their % of GDP devoted to the military. Given Putin's clear intent to rebuild the Soviet Union, I suspect they will take this threat seriously. Germany, France, Italy and the UK combined have (near as I can tell) a little over 700,000 active members of the military. Russia alone has 623k active, 188k on reserve (I'm sure Goose can come up with more accurate figures). NATO combined has (I think) 850k frontline military with 650k in reserve (inclusive of USA).

I can indeed come up with some figures. How accurate they are is often difficult to know. I do however think your 623k active troops for Russia is quite low. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, stated in April 2025 that Russia has 623,000 military personnel fighting against Ukraine. Clearly, all of the Russian military is not fighting in Ukraine. Here's what I ended up with.
Country    Active Duty     Reserve Source
Germany       182,496       34,600 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr
France          270,000       63,700 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Armed_Forces
UK               140,244       31,967 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces

Russia 1     1,100,000  1,500,000 https://worldpopulationreview.com/countr...by-country
Russia 2     1,320,000  2,000,000 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1334...a-by-type/

US             1,326,050     806,700 https://worldpopulationreview.com/countr...by-country

"3 EU"          592,740     130,267
 
The 1.32 million Russian active duty personnel number shows up in several places. One of them is the announcement that Putin intends to increase that number to 1.5 million. Before reserves are counted, i.e. ready to fight tonight, Russia has more than a 2:1 superiority in manpower. After the reserve callup, the ratio is 4.6:1 in favor of Russia. With the US forces added the ratio before reserve callup would be 1.5:1 in favor of the NATO contingent. However, since the US Army contingent would have to be deployed a fair distance, it would be more realistic to consider the post-callup ratio of 1.2:1 in favor of Russia. Obviously there are lots of requirements on both sides pulling the numbers actually available down. However, no matter how one cuts it Russia would be operating with a numerical advantage and much shorter lines of supply than the US contingent would have.

I think NATO collectively outspends Russia by 3:1.

One has to be very, very careful with military budget numbers coming out of/about Russia. None of them are "reliable". So many things in the Russian military-industrial complex are done by decree rather than a "contract" that even the Russian military itself has no idea what things actually cost. That is one factor that makes corruption rampant. That said, it is undoubtedly correct that the US/EU/NATO forces outspend Russia in terms of absolute dollars. How expenditure relates to military utility (for all involved) is unclear.

I don't know why it's taken NATO/Europe so long to wake up. Glad they have.

I doubt they actually have "woken up". There are many social and political movements in Europe that are hostile to increased military spending, period. There are several generations of Europeans that have never imagined they might be called upon to defend their nation or that there was any need to do so. Most of those people still feel that way. Clearly Russia's activities in Ukraine have created significant angst in the body politic of Europe, but how deep that runs is as yet unknown. One metric is that there has not been any surge in volunteers for the German military :-). We have not yet seen how the electorate will view the required expenditures. Germany is dealing with a worse economic situation than they have seen in many, many years. AfD definitely doesn't want an increase in military expenditures at the expense of "Germany's interests". The UK is in such bad economic shape they are laying up perfectly good warships because they can't afford to crew them  My post on July 4th addressed some of these issues.
 
One serious concern is that when the war in Ukraine ends, however it ends, and things return to "normal", will anyone in Europe be willing to spend the money and draft the troops needed to defend themselves, especially if they are unsure their fellow NATO members will. Nobody so far has suggested, even sotto voce  the idea of reinstating UMT. Without that, the Europeans won't have the necessary manpower in any case.

[Goose]

TODAY:  
"Europe must stop relying on avoiding the worst-possible outcome and hoping for the best when it comes to Trump. They need to stop relying on changing his mind and dramatically step up their support for the Ukrainian army. They have to show that they’re really in this for the long run by providing way more weaponry, way more support, and maybe eventually committing to putting forces on the ground to protect any peace that eventually comes." 
Prof. Matthias Matthijs, Senior Fellow at CFR, and Prof at SAIS. 
https://www.cfr.org/article/major-takeaw...an-leaders

Americans have been begging NATO Europeans for years to increase their % of GDP devoted to the military. Given Putin's clear intent to rebuild the Soviet Union, I suspect they will take this threat seriously. Germany, France, Italy and the UK combined have (near as I can tell) a little over 700,000 active members of the military. Russia alone has 623k active, 188k on reserve (I'm sure Goose can come up with more accurate figures). NATO combined has (I think) 850k frontline military with 650k in reserve (inclusive of USA).

I can indeed come up with some figures. How accurate they are is often difficult to know. I do however think your 623k active troops for Russia is quite low. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, stated in April 2025 that Russia has 623,000 military personnel fighting against Ukraine. Clearly, all of the Russian military is not fighting in Ukraine. Here's what I ended up with.
Country    Active Duty     Reserve Source
Germany       182,496       34,600 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr
France          270,000       63,700 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Armed_Forces
UK               140,244       31,967 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces

Russia 1     1,100,000  1,500,000 https://worldpopulationreview.com/countr...by-country
Russia 2     1,320,000  2,000,000 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1334...a-by-type/

US             1,326,050     806,700 https://worldpopulationreview.com/countr...by-country

"3 EU"          592,740     130,267
 
The 1.32 million Russian active duty personnel number shows up in several places. One of them is the announcement that Putin intends to increase that number to 1.5 million. Before reserves are counted, i.e. ready to fight tonight, Russia has more than a 2:1 superiority in manpower. After the reserve callup, the ratio is 4.6:1 in favor of Russia. With the US forces added the ratio before reserve callup would be 1.5:1 in favor of the NATO contingent. However, since the US Army contingent would have to be deployed a fair distance, it would be more realistic to consider the post-callup ratio of 1.2:1 in favor of Russia. Obviously there are lots of requirements on both sides pulling the numbers actually available down. However, no matter how one cuts it Russia would be operating with a numerical advantage and much shorter lines of supply than the US contingent would have.

I think NATO collectively outspends Russia by 3:1.

One has to be very, very careful with military budget numbers coming out of/about Russia. None of them are "reliable". So many things in the Russian military-industrial complex are done by decree rather than a "contract" that even the Russian military itself has no idea what things actually cost. That is one factor that makes corruption rampant. That said, it is undoubtedly correct that the US/EU/NATO forces outspend Russia in terms of absolute dollars. How expenditure relates to military utility (for all involved) is unclear.

I don't know why it's taken NATO/Europe so long to wake up. Glad they have.

I doubt they actually have "woken up". There are many social and political movements in Europe that are hostile to increased military spending, period. There are several generations of Europeans that have never imagined they might be called upon to defend their nation or that there was any need to do so. Most of those people still feel that way. Clearly Russia's activities in Ukraine have created significant angst in the body politic of Europe, but how deep that runs is as yet unknown. One metric is that there has not been any surge in volunteers for the German military :-). We have not yet seen how the electorate will view the required expenditures. Germany is dealing with a worse economic situation than they have seen in many, many years. AfD definitely doesn't want an increase in military expenditures at the expense of "Germany's interests". The UK is in such bad economic shape they are laying up perfectly good warships because they can't afford to crew them  My post on July 4th addressed some of these issues.
 
One serious concern is that when the war in Ukraine ends, however it ends, and things return to "normal", will anyone in Europe be willing to spend the money and draft the troops needed to defend themselves, especially if they are unsure their fellow NATO members will. Nobody so far has suggested, even sotto voce  the idea of reinstating UMT. Without that, the Europeans won't have the necessary manpower in any case.