With Vladimir Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine, the debate on military spending has forcefully reemerged at the center of global politics. But a strange paradox runs through its veins. On the one hand, all illusions of Russian military might are crumbling, under the weight of an invasion that looks doomed to failure. On the other hand, the West’s leaders are acting as though the complete opposite was the case.

While Russian propagandists would have you believe that their army is “just getting started,” as Putin boasted last summer, everyone with eyes on the battlefield can see a different reality unfolding. T-54 tanks produced during Stalin’s reign are being dusted off and sent to the front. Missile attacks are becoming scarcer in the face of sanctions impeding their production, and rusty artillery shells are increasingly hampering Moscow’s efforts to maintain superior firepower. Even the highly anticipated winter offensive in Donetsk has turned out to be a whimper, with no real gains to show for the thousands of dead Russian soldiers now littering the hellish wasteland around Bakhmut.

The idea of a “Potemkin village” — all display, no substance — was first used to prop up Empress Catherine’s achievements in Crimea. The same doctrine seems to apply to the Russian military’s efforts in the region. Despite this obvious decline in Moscow’s military capacity, a feverish arms race is being spearheaded by the Western alliance, gripping all countries across ideological divides.