Are short electoral cycles compatible with the long-horizon investments Europe needs to make in defense and infrastructure?

Hussein Kanji · Jan 20, 2025

European and US governments systematically neglect the 20-30 year infrastructure bets that make countries thrive, because those bets don't pay off within an election cycle

You don't get elected for building a reservoir that only delivers benefits thirty years later; the UK's failure to build reservoirs thirty years ago is now cited as a major impediment to building housing

Scope: especially pronounced in the UK/Europe; reservoir claim sourced from a CEO dinner and then checked

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Harry Stebbings · Apr 28, 2025

Europe's political structures will not produce the right long-term answers because leaders are bound to four-year reelection cycles while the necessary projects run ten to fifteen years

The capital requirements and prioritisation strategies these projects need don't favour reelection

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Klaus Hommels · Nov 27, 2024

Politicians restrain defense spending because the electorate doesn't give them the benefit of the doubt and they believe they cannot win by advocating it; if voters knew the actual ammunition levels and the constant threat, public opinion would look very different.

If people believe war will never happen, defense spending looks like waste; the political calculus follows the electorate's beliefs.

32:54 Politicians underestimate public support for defense spending given actual threat information

Klaus Hommels · Nov 27, 2024

The public still needs more explanation of the defense threat, and that explanation is now underway — Rheinmetall's sponsorship of Borussia Dortmund was done in sync with politicians to bring the topic into the midst of the population.

Making defense visible in everyday culture is how the topic reaches the general population.

33:41 Making defense visible in culture builds necessary public support

Taavet Hinrikus · Apr 28, 2025 · hedged

Even given the electoral-cycle problem, Europe can get there by being more entrepreneurial and finding ways to build things faster

47:02 Entrepreneurial speed can overcome electoral cycle constraints