As an American, I agree.
As a Brit, I agree too. Europe is incapable of defending an allied nation within our own continent from invasion. We need to do better.
The military capability of European nations have to improve so we can guarantee our own security and be a more equal partner in NATO rather than a junior partner to the US.
You run into the weird issue, what if America can’t or won’t help.
Right now everyone depends on America to defend them but we may not always be able too.
The moment America cannot act as the unilateral head of NATO is the moment it collapses.
France, Germany, The U.K. and Turkey would then become the defacto " great" powers of Europe and the whole balance of power in the E.U. would be thrown off.
Not likely to happen for the time being, but if Trump somehow manages to get elected again the Europeans would be wise to consider their alternative options.
Trump just wanted everyone to spend more on the military. He wasn’t a threat to nato.
Everyone laughed at him. He gave Ukraine javelin missiles. Obama would not give weapons.
Yet, he turned out to be right. The javelins helped Ukraine immensely. Now Europe is spending more as Russia is on their doorstep.
The only good news so far russia ain’t the capable military they use to be.
I’ve pondered when Putin goes away (he will at someone as we all do) will the next guy be worse or better.
Trump just wanted everyone to spend more on the military. He wasn’t a threat to nato.
Not US-ian, so I’m going to have to disagree hard. Back in 2016 and 2017 he called NATO “obsolete”, although he later changed his mind and said it was “no longer obsolete”, as well as taking a while to affirm US support for Article 5, and even saying “If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes,” when asked if the US would defend the Baltic NATO countries.
Now you could argue that he was using this to push the NATO defence spending requirements, which is a fair critique, but it sent a pretty clear message that under his presidency, the US honouring article 5 was conditional. This wasn’t just a message to the other NATO members; it was a message to Putin as well whether intentional or not.
I believe that the silver lining of Trump’s presidency is now being felt as Europe is seriously taking it’s ability to autonomously defend itself seriously. This is probably why Petr Pavl is musing that it may be necessary to go beyond NATO’s 2% spending targets, because Trump could get elected again, or someone like Trump, and there could always be more conditions added to US NATO commitments.
NATO defence spending requirements
No such thing. There’s spending goals, not requirements. The whole framing within the US has been nuts in general, it was framed as if there’s a membership fee that’s paid to the US, or in a common pot, while the actual spending goals are on each country’s own military. There’s a common budget for the headquarters and its staff but that has never been in question and everyone is paying their dues, anyway.
And for some reason the US insists on percentage of GDP numbers without even reference to capabilities or, indeed, efficiency. It’s kinda easy for the US to rack up gigantic numbers there as you funnel tons of science funding and general subsidies through the military sector.
Correct, it is a spending goal, not a requirement. Or at most a soft requirement. Still, my point still stands, every NATO member on the “frontier” with Russia is meeting or exceeding that 2% goal. They are pulling their own weight. At least from what I recall, the three Baltic nations and Poland are all above the 2% GDP target, and I believe Finland, Romania, and Hungary are or will be as well.
The US and Trumps criticism of “freeloaders” could be seen to apply, but to the countries that aren’t anywhere near the frontlines. I think Luxembourg is less than 1% GDP of spending on military, and Canada is around 1.5%. Trumps criticism, if interpreted generously could be taken to mean that the US wouldn’t help Belgium, but if Belgium is invaded, there’s something big going wrong.
Realistically, Trump’s weak assertions would seem to signal that he doesn’t care if Latvia is pulling its weight, because it’s a small country and small countries deserve to be get eaten by bigger countries. This uncertainty is what would seem to have rattled European NATO countries and reignited the effort for a collective EU defence framework.
The other thing that bugs me with Americans whinging about “NATO freeloaders” is that Article 5, the collective defence clause, has been invoked once in the entire history of NATO. By the US after 9/11. And everyone stepped up. The US can complain about Canada’s military spending, but Canadian soldiers that were fighting and dying alongside the Americans in Afghanistan. It’s a bit rich coming from Trump, bone-spurs himself, that other NATO countries aren’t pulling their own weight.
Everything in life is conditional. Why should American boys die defending people who won’t defend themselves?
Remember Trump is a bullshit artist. He just talks to sound tough. NATO would stand with or without him. It’ll take more than Trump to break nato up.
I’m not a fan of Trump but I do like that he shook some bushes about funding their militaries. It isn’t our job to save their asses because they’re unwilling.
It’s diplomacy though. Some things are better said behind closed doors as it were.
Going back to Cold War brinksmanship, the point of NATO was to loudly say that you were ride-or-die, go-to-the-wall with all your NATO homies. It made the risk of messing with NATO countries too high, likewise with the Warsaw Pact.
Now would all NATO allies go all in? 100%, all the way? Who can say with certainty. Still, so far there’s only been one US president who has said… it depends. For the record, Trump walked that back, but it certainly got a lot of NATO countries closer to Russia to quickly point out that they were over the NATO 2% GDP commitment.
Still, Article 5 has been invoked once in NATO’s history, and it was by the US. It’s why Canada was in Kandahar, Netherlands in Helmand, etc. Too my recollection, every single NATO country participated in Afghanistan at the US’s request.
Also, every NATO country on the frontier (as it were) is well over the NATO 2% GDP minimum. The three Baltic countries, Poland, the UK and the US have been over the 2% GDP minimum for a while. Finland is already well past that before joining, and I believe several more countries will hit the goal in 2023.
Trump just wanted everyone to spend more on the military. He wasn’t a threat to nato.
I’ve pondered when Putin goes away (he will at someone as we all do) will the next guy be worse or better.
The good go young. Putin will probably live to 100 like the bastard Kissinger if he’s not killed or removed from presidency.
Anyways I would not recommend the assumption that the American right will not try and pull out of NATO. Being anti NATO is now a cornerstone for far right populist’s in the West.
And of course, Russia cannot do all that much to NATO in its current from, but Putin was betting on the U.S. weakening NATO so he could take the baltics and force NATO into an institutional crisis. He just got unlucky that Trump fucked up so badly he couldn’t get a second term, even with trying to steal the election.
Bolton is an idiot. Yes Trump may if the other countries had net met their 2% goal. As an American I’d support pulling out nato if others don’t want to share the burden. If they had met their obligation, not Trump would not have pulled out of nato.
I’m right. I’m just not far right and we have few politicians who are. Most of them have little to no power anyways.
Putin also didn’t realize how bad his army was and how effective the javelin is or how hard the Ukrainians would fight.
I doubt Trump understood how good of a missile it was. He prob thought it was a real javelin.
Bolton is an idiot.
Ok, and he still represents the warhawk/neocon type of thought in Washington.
How stupid you think he is doesn’t really change how Trump already had his mind made up on leaving NATO. I’m no fan of NATO, I think it will collapse eventually. Trump just further cracked an already strained relationship.
I’m right. I’m just not far right and we have few politicians who are. Most of them have little to no power anyways.
Seems like Gaetz just got your speak of house pruned didn’t he?
Its not like you have to be particularly far right to support Russia/ oppose arming Ukraine. " centrists " and Warhawks aside there isint too many vocal right wing voices supporting Ukraine.
Putin also didn’t realize how bad his army was and how effective the javelin is or how hard the Ukrainians would fight.
That situation would have been very different if Trump was in charge of the U.S.A when Russia rolled across the border.
He would have cut a deal with Russia at the expense of Ukranian territory like he did in Syria cutting a deal with Turkey.
The Russian’s nearly captured Mykolaiv. Had the Ukranian’s not received continued stinger and Jav support + other early equipment the situation could have been different. I don’t like playing the alternative history game but I disagree with your assessment of Trump fully.
He would not have played his cards like the Biden admin did.
I agree. But there’s so much to do for a EU defense… GB is aligned with the US. Germany and a few other countries are entirely trusting the US. Hungary would probably side with Russia at this point.
I wish the war kick-started eu defense better.
I don’t think that we are incapable of doing that. What we have done is a balancing act of assisting Ukraine against Russia without going to war with Russia.
If we were to have sent in troops from the start then it would be a completely different picture. I’m not sure that it would be a better picture though.
It may have been different if there were boots on the ground, sure. But I think their willingness to invade would have been severely diminished if they thought Europe could easily defend Ukraine without the assistance of the US.
As an American, I’ve mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I think I think Europe owning it’s own defense would be a solid move to ensure it’s own sovereignty and independence as a modern nation…thing.
On the other hand, I fear this could lead to US - EU military rivalry. While not necessarily the strongest bond in the world, I do value the relatively positive relationship the US and EU have. I hope that bond is preserved and hope we can grow even closer over time.
nation……thing
we prefer the term “sui generis geopolitical entity” ;)
Political entity. I’m surprised how much I like that label. Thanks for informing me :)
I think the fact the EU steuggles as much as it does in the near future they would be at best a weaker China. Lots of bodies but sub par military capabilities. The benefit we get in the US is that we’d only need to come in as support and military guidance rather than sending a lot of troops. They will still suck at doing things as it will be military by committee so in cases with countries like Russia they will most likely defer to the US to just run things.
Yeah, if we stopped being the world’s police we might have tax money for something else.
Taxes don’t pay for anything at the federal level. They are deleted. We used to literally burn them back when we collected physical money. We can afford both our current military spending, and every single progressive policy that AOC or Bernie can dream up just fine. (Not saying we should, just that we can. I think we should scale back on certain aspects of the military, but that’s a whole other discussion) The government just “prints” more money and deposits it in the appropriate accounts via the Federal Reserve. Taxes are merely an anti-inflationary device to ensure that inflation stays stable. Running deficits doesn’t cause inflation. If it did, Japan would have been thoroughly fucked in the last 30 years of running the highest deficit by percentage of any country in the world. In reality they are running the largest deficit economy, and barely fighting off deflation.
Edit: this only applies to a sovereign fiat currency.
As an American, I think my government has become WAY too inconsistent and unreliable. We might elect Trump again, ffs. America can’t be counted on to meet its NATO obligations anymore. Too many fascists are in positions of power and sympathize with Putin.
It benefits everyone to have distributed defense. Work together, but be able to have a basic level of your own defense is vital.
As an American, it’s 2023 we should never need weapons. Diplomacy should be the only option.
Unfortunately, many of our international contemporaries disagree. And as long as we do, we need something in case diplomacy fails.
Ukraine trusted diplomacy when they gave their nukes to Russia.
I’m sure russia would care a lot about your strongly worded letter if they decided to take Alaska back.
Russians would manage to freeze to death trying.
Yeah, that’s why they have 4 waves ready. The first freezes, the second freezes, the third doesn’t show up but the fourth will take Alaska.
They have 4 waves of men to throw at a front?
Where are they? Because they aren’t in Ukraine…
They’re there… err… the remains are, at least.
Still under the illusion they’re not next on the conscription list.
In an ideal world I’d agree, but that’s not what we live in
Diplomacy backed by what? “Diplomacy” with no leverage is ink on worthless paper, there needs to be some kind of reason anyone should listen to you.
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As an American, , it’s 2023 we should never need weapons
I fear, It is too deep in your culture and business.
I’d say more that it’s too shallow in everyone else’s. That’s why we’ve been leaning on them for all the scary tanks-and-bombs stuff.
Europe shouldn’t let it’s home-grown defence industries languish in the name of strategic cohesion. Europe has no domestic competition to the F-35, no cohesive military procurement strategy that rewards European businesses, and no mechanism to avoid the shitshow of being entirely dependent on US defence contractors for maintenance of key defence infrastructure.
It also doesn’t have access to nearly as many raw materials as the United States does.
I wish we’d all just calm down with the military spending, but I also understand when dealing with the USA it’s probably safer to not rely on then(us) to keep their(our) word
Trump’s presidency certainly showed that the US is one election away from balking. I’m pretty sure that’s Putin’s plan in Ukraine now.
I hope they have no competition to the F-35 because everyone’s been saying it’s a piece of shit for the last fifteen years.
I think the situation is more nuanced than that.
Of course, the F-35 program was an incredibly expensive mess (litterally the most expensive weapon program of all time), because of conflicting specs, data leaks, political infighting, cost overruns which are the stuff of legend, etc… At some moments, there were certainly reasons to think the whole program would collapse on itself like wet tissue paper.
But there are operational F35 now. 900+ as of 2023, which is 4 time more than the rest of Gen 5 fighters combined. And performance-wise, it is good, especially on the stealth & avionics parts. On the other side, the J-20 is largely unproven (probably a decent design, but not as good), and the Su-57 is a bunch of glorified prototypes.
Now sure, cost is high, maintenance is time-consuming, availability somewhat below target, but it’s not particularly surprising for high-performance equipment. It may fall short of the ambition of the program on the cost part, but by itself it’s a dangerous and fully operational fighter.
I guess it was worth it in the end.
/s
Anyone that says that has no idea what they’re talking about lol, the F-35 is completely unmatched in terms of multirole aircraft (along with the F-22 for a more fighter-focused role) and likely will only be surpassed with gen 6 aircraft.
The SU-57 and practically any “modern” Russian aircraft are complete jokes that will fall apart with 2 seconds of airtime, and the J-20 and a majority of Chinese aircraft are cheap imitations of western (mainly American) technology which although much more capable than Russian aircraft, still fall behind a lot due to the corruption/authoritarianism in the Chinese military & government absolutely crumpling any hope of having actually competitive engineering & building.
European aircraft aren’t even worth considering as competition either (although are far superior to the previous 2 nations’ mentioned, in most cases). Eurofighters are just another one of the projects European nations had that was plagued by issues from the fact that it was multiple parties with differing requirements/interests/goals trying to develop something. Gripens are less effective budget alternatives to American gen 4 fighters. Etc. Etc.
The combined capabilities in technology, resources/wealth, and pool of experienced/intelligent engineers that the US has at its disposal makes it extremely hard to even dream of touching their capabilities when it comes to aircraft. Even with ground vehicles, the only real competition is Germany… but German armed forces are kind of in a state of disrepair right now, they’ve really neglected their military. It’s really only the defense companies like Rheinmetall and KNDS which can be pointed to as successful currently.
Europe has a long way to go to compete with American military aircraft. Right now the US just has so much more experience and knowledge when it comes to fighter jets & more modern technologies present in said jets. It’d require a lot more investment in aerospace engineering and technology as a whole really, not just when it comes to aerospace. And Europe is currently even more desperate for tech workers than the US atm afaik.
SAAB can’t go toe to toe with American jets, that’s true, and not what they were designed for. They’ll shoot an SU out of the sky before the SU knows they exist. They’re also still the only people to ever get a lock on a SR-71. As an American, I think they make some impressive jets. I even like their cars, but that’s a can of heartbreak.
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We didn’t even roll it out for testing at VX squadrons until like 2018, and it’s biggest claim to infamy is just being on the R&D line for like 25 years.
25 years that’s for chumps. FCAS is probably going to take at least 2040 to be ready. Airbus got the contract in 2017, that’s 23 years to 2040, and no of course it won’t be on schedule.
Regarding the relative tech levels, though, Europe as a whole is simply not at the same schedule as the US. The F35 is replacing F16, F18, Harriers, from the 70s-80s, (which of course got upgrades), while the first Typhoon entered service in 2006.
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Lots of euro leaders have said the same over the years. The question as always is, what will you do about it?
Do nothing and blame Germany
“Why didn’t YOU make an army for us?!”
“We tried it … once … many people died”
Well PESCO did get created. Denmark dropped their opt out from CSDP. Stuff like this moves slowly, specially upon there not being single hegemonic leader saying “We do this” and everyone else answering “Yes boss”. EU is herding catch and it makes everything move slowly.
They would need to earmark money for defense, which means cutting budgets on social programs or raising already high euro taxes.
Not a great way to get votes, I think
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He’s also called for more blanket surveillance of Russian passport holders in the West.
https://www.rferl.org/a/czech-president-ukraine-support-nato-summit/32460184.html
Becareful praising a strongman when he speaks against your enemies brashfully. Today he is your friend, tommorow you might find yourself amongst his list of enemies.
Authoritarians are only ever on your side temporarily.
10x yes! Not only that, their reliance on US cloud and their interferences in UA/RU war for the US interests.
Russia invading Ukraine is bad for the entirety of Europe and the western world, it’s not just “US interests”.
For US interests… ya, Russia taking whatever country it wants in eastern Europe is only on the US interest. Has nothing to do with anyone else. NATO is all Nazis or something amirite?
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I’m supposed no one is actively adding the us into the EU
Alright, Czech guy, are you gonna put your constituents’ money where your mouth is and help build up Europe’s defense force? Or are you not gonna change a thing because you know the US will continue to act as the world police?
I think you know which one you’ll choose.
Take your bets now everyone, we’ve got:
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“stupidly tries to deepen ties with the cyberpunk oligarchy of China”,
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“stupidly try to deepen ties with the impotent Mafia state in Russia”,
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“stupidly try to deepen ties with petro-dictatorships/monarchies in MENA”,
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“immediately double back because they realized that reducing reliance on the US means having to actually uphold their NATO spending requirements at a minimum to replace the US subsidizing their national defenses”,
and least likely of all,
- “actually do anything even remotely productive towards genuinely achieving strategic autonomy as a democratic superpower in the world independent of the US’ trajectory.”
How can China be an oligarchy if the CCP holds all the power? Billionaires ain’t got shit in China, even fucking Jack Ma was forced to step in line.
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Tell me you don’t know the definition of oligarchy without telling me you don’t know the definition of oligarchy.
Ironical
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reduce socialism
You can really tell when people are from America when they don’t know the difference between socialism and social welfare.
You might try explaining it instead of making snarky insulting comments.
To put it simply: socialism is a specific political theory and social welfare is government assistance for basic needs (what basic means can vary from country to country, of course. There isn’t a country in Europe these days that is socialist. Now, socialism as a movement and as a political theory had influence on the European welfare states, but that doesn’t make them socialism.
The misconception in America stems probably from people like Bernie Sanders that call themselves socialists and praise the social welfare systems of Europe, somewhere this merging in the minds of many Americans as synonyms instead of two distinct things.
Defense money is not lost, it pays people within your country. And you can even decide whether it goes to big corps or small companies.
Europe should have left NATO 30 years ago, when the first cold war ended, and forged its own path, instead of continuing to get its marching orders from the USA. Now Europe is getting lead into a second cold war by them.
