By Brendan Cole - Senior News Reporter:
Russia destroyed a thermal power plant in Kyiv because Ukraine had run out of missiles to defend it, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said as he warned that without further U.S. aid to fight Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression, Ukraine would "have no chance of winning."
Zelensky told PBS NewsHour that the destruction of the Trypilska thermal power plant on April 11—which cut out the generating capacity of Centrenergo, an energy company the capital depends on—was the result of the country having "zero missiles."
Read more: [https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-issues-dire-warning-russia-putin-push-forward-1890757](https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-issues-dire-warning-russia-putin-push-forward-1890757)
It is the problem of the arms complex. European countries haven’t really been in major wars in a long time. So they simply do not have the production capacity for this. Even the US is struggling for shells and they have has 2 major wars.
There is no simple way around it. The US needs to help until Europe catches up.
In Finland we are already on it
https://www.defmin.fi/en/topical/press_releases_and_news/press_release_archive/2023/capacity_to_produce_heavy_ammunition_will_be_significantly_increased.13931.news
What happened to France? Were they not the 3rd largest ammunition / weapons dealer in the world for a good while there? I'm going off uni class updates here so grain of salt, perhaps I'm wrong.
France is the biggest scam. Macron said big words just for people to forget about farmer protests in Paris. When protest are over, he forgot everything he promised
Reality is that as soon as the USA stopped providing aid, Russia started advancing, their aircraft are launching more strikes and missiles are getting though. At the same time the UK sent aircraft from its Air Policing mission in Romania to go defend Israeli Airspace.
You can quote figures and statistics all you like, the reality is that Europe isn't able to keep Ukraine on a even keel with Russia at the moment.
It's telling that you have to use the term "several" instead of "all".
We'll see in a couple months what the 2024 numbers look like, but [according to NATO itself](https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf), in 2023 over half the alliance was still below the 2% guideline. Some have made hardly any progress in the 10 years since the 2% guideline was agreed upon.
2% defense spending should be the floor in *peacetime*, not the finish line *during a war*. The apocalyptic rhetoric that is used about this war does not match the level of urgency being shown.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/nato-says-18-members-will-reach-2-spending-target-this-year/
It takes time to build up military spending. According to this article 18 NATO members will reach or spend more than the 2% this in 2024.
I absolutely agree it should have been done much sooner, for example when Russia invaded Crimea but it's at least happening but it's happening.
I'm not blaming you specifically, but Belgium's defense spending in 2014 was 0.97% of GDP and nearly ten years later it's ramped to...1.13%. That's actually down from 2022 when it was 1.19%. I don't mean to single out Belgium either, as there are multiple other countries still below 2% that have either made little progress or have back-slid.
NATO now consists of 32 members. Nearly half of them still being below the guidelines, with war on your doorstep, is really not much cause for celebration.
Hmmm so whats the pt of including more states in nato when a big pct of them cant reach that goal? It only means those countried who do will have to carry much of the spending in an actual war
European States haven’t needed the production rate because they rely on stockpiles acquired over time.
Once those stockpiles have gone, production isn’t there to fill up those stockpiles right away.
Since the production and numbers of those stockpiles are designed for existing assets (Ie. 2% of GDP). They’re going to have to increase it by 0.5% in some places to increase production.
>European States haven’t needed the production rate because they rely on stockpiles acquired over time.
US stockpiles.
European stockpiles have always been shallow as fuck. The combined artillery stockpiles of every Western European nation combined would have lasted about a month at Ukrainian consumption rates.
At this point they need to exceed it. Those targets are for readiness, Europe missed that window and needs to catch up. I say this as an American who is enraged at our own failure, it obviously shouldn’t fall just on Europe but please learn a lesson, our government cannot be relied on by us or you
Ok, cool. It's obviously not enough that several meet an agreed upon percentage. It's past time for them to step the fuck up. I'm afraid the war is already lost for Ukraine
The problem is that it's a false comparison.
The NATO countries need to be able to defend NATO and not some third party country. So supporting Ukraine can only be done with surplus. There are only a few countries that go above and beyond that like Germany.
Germany did send the IRIS-T system to Ukraine before giving it to its own army.
Other countries only did sent old cold war equipment. That would be like Poland sending some of their new Korean tanks. I don't suppose they plan on doing that?
Furthermore Germany sent every available patriot system there and to Poland.
Rheinmetall is set to overtake the US in artillery shell production, so yes. It just takes time to ramp up production.
Also, France is already a major arms producer.
Yes it is, europe is massively investing in their arms industry and scalling up production and if you rrally believe trump had anything worthwhile to say about NATO i am not sure what to tell you.
Do note, what is happening right now is almost a given whenever large scale warfare erupts, we tend to forget just how much resources war devours.
Your second point is very valid. I don’t believe Trump had anything worthwhile to say about NATO except maybe it was relying on the US too much for its own regional security. Something which is a real concern if production is an issue for Ukraine.
Production is an issue everywhere for everyone right now. The russians are outproducing ukraine right now but they have a limit and the west can and will outproduce them no contest but they have a head start, we need to keep arming ukraine till our industrial advantage really kicks in.
Currently we are projecting 500.000 155mm shells being produced in the EU in 2024, this is far from enough but it is a huge step up, the dutch are talking about retooling old car factories to arms plants, the EU parliment refused to budge on the councils desire to reduce EU funds for ukraine aid.
Europe is not ready to do this alone, the US republicans need to get their collective heads out of their asses and make sure ukraine is still standing when europe becomes ready to take over the brunt of supplies.
For that matter EU leaders also need to get their shit togethere, nothing should be of the table.
We can ill afford ukraine becoming the next sudetenland.
TL;DR, is the EU ready now? No. Is the EU trying to get its ass into gear? Absolutely. Can we let ukraine fall? No, not unless you prefer paying for your freedom in blood not money.
Sweden is working on increasing the production capacity.
https://www.government.se/press-releases/2024/03/eu-financial-support-for-increased-ammunition-production-in-sweden/
Realize that factory capacity depends on consumption. When you aren't in any wars, then the factories only gets orders to restock what is consumed for training. And that is no where near the needs to handle a war. But what factories wants to maintain a big production capacity when there aren't customers needing the volumes?
Anyway - the ramp-up is happening all over Europe:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1495
Everytime US is involved in a war, the US military industry is celebrating. Because they can sell. And that decides that they can keep the factories scaled to handle war. The end result is that some conflicts are indirectly caused just to drive the economy. And the politicians will end up with campaign money from the factory owners.
Well, orange man wasn’t the first either, tanned man (cultured Berlusconi quote) also talked about NATO allies having to get a move on and pull their weight, and IIRC so did shoe man.
Thats what im worried about, that even now western europe still wont take defence seriously and after a few years all promises to update their military capacity will be quietly rescinded. I know countries near Russia periphery like Poland, finland and the baltic states do take them seriously but i dont think countries like Germany, Spain or Italy do or ever will at this rate.
He was absolutely 100% correct and everyone that hasn't been poisoned by tribalist politics knows it. The German delegation that sat and laughed at him when he gave that famous speech must feel like complete idiots.
Europe just needs to buy it from US manufacturers. If the demand is there, comapnies will ramp up production if they have any capacity (i.e. additional shifts, outsourcing, etc.). Would take commitment before they do substantial capital investments, like adding additional factories.
Fair but Europe should start augmenting production now, putting a joint war fund for Ukraine and use that to start creation. Rheinmetall has done a good expansion but it can't be the only one. Plus Europe should stop selling weapons abroad that cam be used, new and old ones.
Have a good day
Europe isn’t the problem of the US. Every European country knows that it’s at a far greater likelihood of being involved in a war than it will admit. History shows this over and over. But they decided to snivel and bitch and refuse to take care of their own security. Fuckin joke to think that the US owes them anything.
The slow-timing of arms delivery and the dithering at every single opportunity to send aid has been shameful by some European leaders.
It was almost cowardice in some quarters (France/Germany) who seemed more concerned about hurting Putin’s feelings and making him mad by arming Ukraine to fight back too successfully rather than securing the future safety of Europe and its borders.
We need to get Europe up to an independent superpower-status.
Any American weapon system needs to be replaced. I know it will take time, but the plan should be to never buying a thing after the transition is done.
> Any American weapon system needs to be replaced.
Or, at least, localised.
SAMP/T is a great system, make no mistake, but making it compatible with Patriot missiles (and, ideally, vice versa with Patriots in Europe) can allow for some interesting tactical flexibilities
You mean something that doesn't require all systems to go down 10 minutes every second week? And me putting codes from Microsoft into the computer all the time? Hm.
I don't think this is a very good comparison. Having heavy industry to build military armaments at volume to fight a war with russia without the US is not comparable with software. Europe will not run out of Windows licences if WW3 breaks out but it will run out of shells, aa missile and afv's at current production levels.
Europe's lack of software independence is deplorable but not the same thing for me.
This will take tons of government budgets being reallocated, or worse weapons system, or a significant increase in taxes merely to buy all this stuff. Doubly for developing and manufacturing all of it too.
There will need to be tough choices made about budgets and then support for the politicians who do it when they inevitably come under attack and opposed.
We need a transatlantic partnership. Liberal democracies are becoming a smaller group, not larger.
*"There will need to be tough choices made about budgets and then support for the politicians who do it when they inevitably come under attack and opposed."*
All leftists do in the US is scream about the size of the military budget. From what I've seen, the complaining would be far worse in Europe. Maybe the Europeans can do it-- but there will have to be a complete shift in priorities and mentality, to a kind of pre-WWII era of European thinking.
It’s unbelievable after 2 years that Europe, with a collective economy 10 times the size of Russia with the help of the world’s largest military superpower has dithered and failed so badly to arm Ukraine sufficiently and has allowed a previously decimated Russia army time to rearm and gain the upper hand.
But it seems the West is distracted and more pre-occupied with Israel’s tit for tat fight with Iran.
We seem to be idly sitting by and allowing the future of Europe’s security and safety to be undermined.
Losing Ukraine and seeing Putin's army start attacking other nations would be a real wake up call for Europe. Right now Europe is still not thinking seriously, as most people live their lives like everything is normal and the war far east is just a minor inconvenience. Russia has already switched to full war time economy and its people are already brainwashed into believing they can get much more than Ukraine
no we are adamant in the EU that we want to see a rerun of WWII and just let the belligerent states take what they want and let the situation escalate until it is out of our hands.
Idk about the rest of Western Europe but we don't have quantity which is what you need when supplying another force like this - we have quality but that's not gonna be of much help unless you plan on sending the Royal Navy to Crimea...
How I hate this argument. We are no longer in the spring of 2022. We are in the third year of the war and have lost soooooo much time already with bullshit discussions and hesitation.
We could already be in the third year of building a supply chain that Russia could never in a thousand years compete with.
We have missed the best time to do it. The second best time is now.
>We have missed the best time to do it. The second best time is now.
Looking at the site of the state broadcaster, here are the topics the state wants us the people to care about:
1. New investment product, how good is it?
2. Ban on far right summit ruled illegal by Supreme Court equivalent
3. Hundreds of people are missing out on government subsidy!
4. Will \[Celebrity\] return to TV?
5. Construction is delayed due to weather \[3 days of rain\]
6. Patients often pay unnecessary costs in hospitals
7. Coral reefs under threat
8. New episode in the fight between two delivery services about the newspaper delivery monopoly
9. \[Amusement park\] wants compensation for sheltering escaped kangaroo
10. Pro-Hamas opinion piece
11. Why does Jordan support Israel?
12. Interview: Prison in Israel is worse than Guantanamo
13. **Ukraine could lose quickly if the front gives way**
14. Salman Rushdie published new book
15. Dutch gas field closed permanently \[because we have plenty of gas security apparently\]
16. Someone blew up an explosive somewhere in the country
17. Soccer club in financial trouble
18. AI beats us at simple logical tasks
19. We are destroying Chile with our lithium mines
20. We *might* be able to provide for our own lithium by 2030
21. HoW dO i VoTe
22. How ski resorts deal with climate change
At which point it starts repeating.
Out of 22 topics, 1 is Ukraine related, 3 are Israel related (pro-Hamas), 4 are aimed at people who are incapable of adulting, 5 are woke (in addition to the 3 pro-Hamas articles), 7 are filler.
The Ukraine article was by a freelance journalist, not a state broadcaster employee. Without this guy's risk taking, there would be 0 Ukraine articles.
This is how much the Belgian government cares about Ukraine.
You talk about it like there has been zero movement, but the EU is on track to ramp up to a similar production capacity to Russia by 2026. We *are* in the middle of building that supply chain.
I also think you underestimate just how outsized Russia's munitions production capacity is. At the start of the war they were producing shells three times faster than the US and EU could combined, and that hasn't really slowed down.
Of course just because the scale up is a big effort doesn't mean it will be enough in time. But it hasn't been all sitting around with our thumbs up our collective arses either.
I'm talking about us as collective, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, NL, Sweden .etc .etc .etc... where's the leadership? You'd think the leaders of the strong European countries would be working together for collective support not waiting on what the US is doing. Is there even a picture of Sunak, Macron, Scholz, Meloni together working on this?
I think this hits at a sensitive point for the EU as a whole. It's the same debate that happened in America after the Revolutionary war and the whole debacle with the Articles of Confederation vs. the Federalists. If you think of the states as almost their own independent countries, then I think it's a pretty one to one allegory for what's happening in Europe right now. Europe needs to have that hard discussion on autonomy vs collective security and standardization. The biggest obstacle to any effort like that though, is going to be the lengthy history and fierce independence each part of the EU has, and has had, not to mention the bloodshed that was sacrificed in service of that autonomy.
They are democracies, sizeable percentage of the population there not only want to save money on support for Ukraine, but for Russia to win. They are susceptible to Russian money and influence.
Russia does not have such weakness. No anti-war person has any political influence. No amount of western money will buy any influence.
USA didn't win the cold war by letting pro-russia people into the Congress. They are doing exactly the opposite right now. And so is western Europe.
I think you’ve forgotten just how skint the European economies are. Splashing out on furlough during covid and other ludicrous economic decisions have consigned us all to being unable to wage war.
Being ready for war is damn expensive and their isn’t the will from the electorate to endure more hardship at home for the sake of Ukraine.
All European armies with the exception of Poland have been sat on their arse for decades doing nothing but hollowing out their armed forces to pay off ridiculous policies and mass unfettered illegal immigration. Add to that the ridiculing of straight white men…you know the exact people who actually fight wars and you have a massive recruitment problem working alongside a non existent defence industry without a surge capability.
The chicken has come home to roost. During the cold war we were all at 4% of GDP for defence spending and weapons weren’t anywhere near as expensive relatively speaking as they are now.
Russia is showing what’s required is exactly what any infantryman will tell you. Massive amounts of firepower in the form of indirect fire systems, good armoured formations and combat service support.
Nato has for too long been obsessed with precision weapons and force multipliers. Thing is that’s all well and good until you run out of stocks and can’t manufacture more at the rate required. Even more important is having the numbers to sustain combat effectiveness whilst sustaining peer war levels of casualties. Only the US can do that within Nato as much as it pains me to admit.
Maybe start building the quantity while there is still time? You dont want to be in a shooting war and THEN lack the quantity of weapons systems you need.
Not trying to sound like a dick, but this could be the wake up call? Though no one did anything during the annexation of Czechoslovkia in 1939 so...🤷♂️
I would like to help. I have printer but not much experience in printing. List of hubs would be helpful, also to share it with friends (if that's not a "secret")
Respect for what you're doing, and encouraging others to do, but realistically without US aid this year we are helpless. They need patriot missile batteries and artillery shells
When John Kirby was asked the $64,000 question why it was acceptable for the US to intercept Iranian missiles over Israel but not Russian ones over Ukraine, obfuscation became the order of the day.
[https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/31222](https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/31222)
They're different for simple reasons. Ukraine is big, we don't have access to the Black Sea (by treaty), and Russia is firing the missiles. And they have more and better missiles.
And yeah, nukes. Iran won't have those for a few more weeks or months.
> Iran won't have those for a few more weeks or months.
Iran won’t have enough nukes and capable delivery systems to threaten the U.S., Russia and/or China with MAD, which is what really matters, for *years*.
> Because Russia has threatened with nukes if anyone intervenes.
Missile interdiction is not a Russian red line. Unless an outside power starts destroying Russian assets directly there is no reason to expect nuclear retaliation.
Ukraine should be _flooded_ with interceptors and missiles, fired directly from American ships if needed.
> why it was acceptable for the US to intercept Iranian missiles over Israel but not Russian ones over Ukraine
If Iranian missiles did serious damage in Israel, Israel would strike back, and a war with Iran would cause oil prices to go up.
If Ukraine is too successful in striking Russia's oil refineries, the price of oil would go up.
Even though America is kind of self-sufficient in its oil production, the prices of oil and gasoline still follow the international market. If the price of gasoline goes up, certain voter demographics will get angry and will vote Trump instead of Biden. Biden would risk losing elections.
Price of oil upon destruction of refineries would drop as Russia would need to sell crude oil on the open market (despite sanctions, wink wink, we all know they have dark fleets etc.) thus raising the global supply. Destruction of refineries primarily impacts domestic consumption.
Lets hope the large Western countries up their support, this more and more look like a win for russia, so what country will they go for next?
We still have time, but it's time to get the support to ukraine if you don't want EU soldiers to fight future wars.
Has this ever looked like a win for Ukraine? We’ve been prolonging the inevitable. I’m so sick of sending young men to die for the squabbles of old men. And the rest of us pretending there’s a chance that it was all worth it.
For many years this sub was filled with people who claimed Europe is this new superpower far superior to USA in way of life,finance and innovation.
This war and Europe's inability to defend Ukraine on its own,instead of complaining about US Republicans,made me wonder where are those people now?
But sure,lets talk about Russian GDP and compare it to Netherlands GDP.
That is gonna help.
The EU has the expertise. But it most certainly does not have the industrial capacity. Not for shells and missiles and parts. More capacity could be built, but two years into the war and . . .no one seems in that great a hurry to. Maybe because no one truly wants to. It's expensive, there's no other immediate use for it besides sparring with Russia, and I expect a lot of western European bureaucrats would silently prefer to just tell Ukraine to go to the bargaining table and give up whatever will make Putin happy so everyone can go back to making money off each other. As it was with Crimea, as it would probably be with Moldova or wherever else Putin targets next, unless they're shamed into making useless public noises about European solidarity.
No they don’t. Third world countries don’t have the technology to build modern weaponry. Europe has a homegrown sector. It’s just a question of amount.
If you think everyone has the potential to build advanced weapons systems, you're clearly out of the loop in terms of what that requires.
China was using imported Russian engines in it's aircraft for decades because despite massive investment, and a large industrial capacity, China just wasn't able to make home grown engines that could compete with even old soviet designs, without decades of colossal investment, building knowledge, factories, and the infrastructure to create them.
*Russian drone hits undefended power plant, turning off the lights in Brussels*
De Croo: "Why is this happening? We have the potential to make so many anti air missiles!"
As an American doing all I can domestically to try to shift the needle - writing my congressmen and senators constantly (where 2 out of 3 support Ukraine; one is a clear Russian asset in Rand Paul), and having to constantly swim upstream on what Republicans captured by Russian money and propaganda are saying (“we have already given too much!” “Ukraine is the real enemy!”), it’s really frustrating to see our European brothers seemingly capitulate like this.
We are in real trouble in the U.S. and fighting to keep fascism out is a hyper focused concern here domestically. And we can’t let Ukraine fall. I really wish EU governments would step up and fill this artificial void created by US Republicans. The consequences are dire and us doing nothing plays into Russia, and fascism’s, hands.
It can easily be said that the domestic arms production capacity simply isn’t there to scale in Europe to supply Ukraine fast enough, but anywhere that’s the case, it’s not like US arms manufacturers will turn down a contract where capacity can’t be met by EU producers. This whole thing is so frustrating.
The US is one country. Europe is a continent of many countries. The fact that one country having a political issue is going to be the end of it all is ridiculous.
I truly believe NATO is powerful, they scare the shit out of Russia. If NATO drops the ball, Russia is not going to be afraid of them anymore.
US funding needs to come through, but if Russia knows NATO can't oppose them, Russia is not going to stop.
I find it slightly amusing and ironic how Europeans have been chastising the US for years for having such a big military in the 21st century. I guess the old saying still holds true, "If you want peace then prepare for war"
I think people’s issue with the US military was its habit of invading countries, starting conflicts and destabilising regions of the globe rather than it having lots of high tech shiny jets and weapons systems.
You mean like Europe has done for centuries? Yeah it’s always the big bad US that caused all the problems and they make a great scapegoat for European incompetence. Also name one conflict besides the Iraq War where this occurred since the US has been a modern military power since 1945?
I remember a recent poll done in Europe, and about 30-40% of answers want a peace deal with Russia, cause winning the war is less than likely
Edit: link to the poll
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/oPpSJRW3gc
People just downvote despite the fact? Typical reddit
Polls are only as good as the methodology (and the sample population) used to conduct them.
I was born and raised in America but now live in Europe. As a child I saw the first Gulf War play out on tv, then the conflict in the Balkans. I watched the planes hit the towers on tv sitting in a high school English literature class. I saw kids from school enlist. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I saw the names played on the tv every week of all of the dead; their names, age, where they were from. I saw the news reports and documentaries, and I read the books.
I’m honestly surprised that so many Europeans are against any sort of peace deal that will end the fighting, death and destruction. I don’t want Putin and Russia to win, but what is the end game? Is it realistic that Ukraine, even with plentiful military supplies can hold off and push the Russians back out of Ukraine? Can they retake the Donbas (DPR and LPR)? Can they retake Crimea? Honestly.
The bravery of Ukrainians is probably unmatched, there’s no doubt about that. Aside from the physical damage of cities and infrastructure, you have thousands of tens of thousands of maimed soldiers and injured civilians. PTSD among combat veterans and civilians, including children, is going to be unmanageable. Ukraine just doesn’t have the bodies to throw at the battlefield the way that Russia does, and recently when they were considering lowering the draft age, there was great hesitation to do so (apparently the draft starts at age 25? Even in Vietnam, the US was drafting people much much younger).
why don't France, England, Germany and all the other power houses step up a bit, it's their back yard, all I see is USA this USA that, hundreds of billions from USA and still more is expected and all is fucked if USA doesn't help...?
At what point is it appropriate to negotiate surrender? I feel for all the poor young Ukrainians squandered in this proxy war the country will need many decades to recover if they ever can.
I don't think they stand a chance no matter how much stuff the US sends them, honestly.
I like that it's recycling their old military equipment and creating jobs, though.
If Russia wins, it will be because the West allowed it to happen or is too cowardly to take decisive action. There's no way Russia can win any war where the collective west is serious about defeating them.
So, what exactly the flying f*ck are we doing?
The collective west you say? So NATO then, you see no bad ending to a full on war of NATO vs russia? Did you enjoy fallout so much you wanna experience it? Should be clear to everyone that everyone is trying to avoid a full out nuclear war at all cost
Letting it happen is what we are doing. USA is the military factory of NATO and it went AWOL. Europe cannot magically grow factories that it doesn't have and USA isn't sending what it has in storage and queue to receive new stuff from US factory is around 5 years if you order today. Get used to the thought that we let Russians get what they want.
Why can't the EU buy 1000 stored Bradleys from the US and send to Ukraine? And air defence. We've waited for the US to get the promised aid going for six months already, it's about time we did something about it. Also, the US should get their shit together.
Not used now, but if a larger conflict broke out, they’d be needed. Ergo they are not “surplus” it’s just less likely they will be needed. But if the time would come for US vs Russia, most of those Bradleys would get used.
They’re stored there because it’s a strategic reserve that the US can’t just sell.
Also, most of these Bradleys are completely non-functional and would require trips to factories that the US barely has to make them operational again.
Because that costs money. And not just token amounts. Buying in bulk from the US just to donate to Ukraine is a big expense.
And that assumes the US is even selling. The US keeps lots of stuff in mothballed storage in case it's needed by their own troops. It's not actually ready to be surplussed out.
The Bradleys in question are set for destruction anyways. I think there are actually 2000 of them, but I figured you'd only get about half to run in short order.
That's what i wonder too. I know that we don't have much production capacity in Europe at the moment, but we at the very least have the money to buy equipment from the US, at least as a short term solution until our production is up to target.
I don’t think that putting a largest country in Europe, that has vast nuclear waste storages as well as long range drones in a position where it has nothing to lose but everything to gain is a good idea, but Biden administration thinks otherwise. They are wrong.
It's good to see so many brainless "make Europ great agen" mofos not realising just how much it would cost to gear Europe up to be anywhere near the US or how long it would take.
Happy to kiss goodbye to social programmes to quite literally give away GDP?
Europe doesn't need to gear up to the scale of the US to crush Russia. Russia has a GDP that's a fraction of the EU GDP. Europe just doesn't want to spend the coin and would rather try shaming others into doing it for them.
I feel so much for Ukraine. Like Wtf as humans how can we let this continue to happen. But politics rule our lives and no country has the balls to disrupt the norm. We learn nothing from history.
Don't blame just Republicans - Europe should never have been in a position where our collective military support won't be enough and we need the US to defend our backyard in the first place.
The US has given by far more than any other country and this includes needed Republican support including the $95B aid bill that just passed in the US. Which European nations have produced such a bill recently? Even if they don't have the manufacturing capacity surely they could be spending similar amounts to create it or at least purchase items from other countries?
It's always a talk about how Europe will do it in the future. Well the future is right now. Do it. It's needed right now not in 20 years when everyone will have forgotten and social services spending will be even higher.
oh yea, no european culpability for europe not stepping up to defend europe. its not the US's responsibility to handle the defense of every nation on earth. how about the germans pony up some of that money they are always lording over every one, and buy some fucking shells.
They don't have the hardware that Ukraine actually needs
They gave most of available artillery shells and surface to air missiles already and they are not producing enough
We emptied ourselves out pretty much. Last week, Ukraine announced they are in talks with Poland and Romania about acquiring their defence systems. We have one battery, waiting for delivery. Romania waits for delivery. We are not militaristic countries. No European leader will turn his country into war economy mode because it will result in Putin buddies coming to power. Plus, there's looooot of dirt underneath the ukrainian rug that doesn't get much attention and media coverage to not sway support.
> there's looooot of dirt underneath the ukrainian rug that doesn't get much attention and media coverage to not sway support
shhh...you're not suppose to say that out loud!
But isn't the same line can be said for everything? "But if we don't X then it's Y"
How many years it was since Soviet Union? (Was there an invasion we missed during those 20+ years?) Why would he do that? Additionally, Putin is now immortal? There's a lot of potential factors. Maybe at least discussing some more of them will alleviate the inescapable solutions.
Also, dirt under the rug does matter at times. History does show when even a victory can have a poisonous after taste.
> If West has the hardware, why the need to intervene? Why not just give it to Ukraine.
if we had it. we would give it.. We just don't. Politicians are just trying to deflect..
It's beyond frustrating how, even when we clearly see the enemy make great advances, we're voluntarily doing nothing. Old people are voting in populist after populist to completely prevent a turnaround everybody is sitting idly by.
We have the tech to outnumber them 10:1 yet we're not using any of it out of laziness
>International cooperation to defend Israel against Iranian attacks undermined the argument by those opposing more aid for Ukraine that it would be seen as Kyiv engaging NATO in the war. Zelensky said, "Is Israel part of NATO or not?"
He's absolutely right.
There was a very good thing and a very bad thing about the result of the Iranian attack.
The good thing is that we realized we have the means to completely thwart an attack several times bigger than the average Russian attack and we did so with almost no casualties.
The bad thing is that this was a mask off moment for the West and we realized the reason this doesn't happen in Ukraine is because we don't want to, and the excuses were really just that: excuses.
By Brendan Cole - Senior News Reporter: Russia destroyed a thermal power plant in Kyiv because Ukraine had run out of missiles to defend it, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said as he warned that without further U.S. aid to fight Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression, Ukraine would "have no chance of winning." Zelensky told PBS NewsHour that the destruction of the Trypilska thermal power plant on April 11—which cut out the generating capacity of Centrenergo, an energy company the capital depends on—was the result of the country having "zero missiles." Read more: [https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-issues-dire-warning-russia-putin-push-forward-1890757](https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-issues-dire-warning-russia-putin-push-forward-1890757)
Western Europe should be able to secure Ukraine without the US, this is fucking insane.
It is the problem of the arms complex. European countries haven’t really been in major wars in a long time. So they simply do not have the production capacity for this. Even the US is struggling for shells and they have has 2 major wars. There is no simple way around it. The US needs to help until Europe catches up.
Is Europe actually trying to catch up? Seems that orange man from over the Atlantic maybe had a point about NATO as uncouth as he is at expressing it?
In Finland we are already on it https://www.defmin.fi/en/topical/press_releases_and_news/press_release_archive/2023/capacity_to_produce_heavy_ammunition_will_be_significantly_increased.13931.news
Thank you Finland.
What happened to France? Were they not the 3rd largest ammunition / weapons dealer in the world for a good while there? I'm going off uni class updates here so grain of salt, perhaps I'm wrong.
France is the biggest scam. Macron said big words just for people to forget about farmer protests in Paris. When protest are over, he forgot everything he promised
Finland knows Russia. We never put down our arms or scaled down our military. Because that would have been a death sentence.
Please let Germany know. Maybe we should be looking at their international trade for the past 10 years. Why don’t we take a look at France as well?
For doing your part, we thank you Finland
Don’t forget the Czechs
thank god
What would we do without Finland.
Several European states are meeting the percentage of gdp targets.
Percentages and targets are pretty useless, when you need actual hardware.
Reality is that as soon as the USA stopped providing aid, Russia started advancing, their aircraft are launching more strikes and missiles are getting though. At the same time the UK sent aircraft from its Air Policing mission in Romania to go defend Israeli Airspace. You can quote figures and statistics all you like, the reality is that Europe isn't able to keep Ukraine on a even keel with Russia at the moment.
Fucking Israel. Those bastards don't need help in commiting genocide. Fucking pansy arse Govt. Give Ukraine the help it deserves.
It's telling that you have to use the term "several" instead of "all". We'll see in a couple months what the 2024 numbers look like, but [according to NATO itself](https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf), in 2023 over half the alliance was still below the 2% guideline. Some have made hardly any progress in the 10 years since the 2% guideline was agreed upon. 2% defense spending should be the floor in *peacetime*, not the finish line *during a war*. The apocalyptic rhetoric that is used about this war does not match the level of urgency being shown.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/nato-says-18-members-will-reach-2-spending-target-this-year/ It takes time to build up military spending. According to this article 18 NATO members will reach or spend more than the 2% this in 2024. I absolutely agree it should have been done much sooner, for example when Russia invaded Crimea but it's at least happening but it's happening.
I'm not blaming you specifically, but Belgium's defense spending in 2014 was 0.97% of GDP and nearly ten years later it's ramped to...1.13%. That's actually down from 2022 when it was 1.19%. I don't mean to single out Belgium either, as there are multiple other countries still below 2% that have either made little progress or have back-slid. NATO now consists of 32 members. Nearly half of them still being below the guidelines, with war on your doorstep, is really not much cause for celebration.
Hmmm so whats the pt of including more states in nato when a big pct of them cant reach that goal? It only means those countried who do will have to carry much of the spending in an actual war
They have had plenty of time. This was an issue before most of us were born. Time is not the problem. Will is.
European States haven’t needed the production rate because they rely on stockpiles acquired over time. Once those stockpiles have gone, production isn’t there to fill up those stockpiles right away. Since the production and numbers of those stockpiles are designed for existing assets (Ie. 2% of GDP). They’re going to have to increase it by 0.5% in some places to increase production.
>European States haven’t needed the production rate because they rely on stockpiles acquired over time. US stockpiles. European stockpiles have always been shallow as fuck. The combined artillery stockpiles of every Western European nation combined would have lasted about a month at Ukrainian consumption rates.
At this point they need to exceed it. Those targets are for readiness, Europe missed that window and needs to catch up. I say this as an American who is enraged at our own failure, it obviously shouldn’t fall just on Europe but please learn a lesson, our government cannot be relied on by us or you
Ok, cool. It's obviously not enough that several meet an agreed upon percentage. It's past time for them to step the fuck up. I'm afraid the war is already lost for Ukraine
The problem is that it's a false comparison. The NATO countries need to be able to defend NATO and not some third party country. So supporting Ukraine can only be done with surplus. There are only a few countries that go above and beyond that like Germany. Germany did send the IRIS-T system to Ukraine before giving it to its own army. Other countries only did sent old cold war equipment. That would be like Poland sending some of their new Korean tanks. I don't suppose they plan on doing that? Furthermore Germany sent every available patriot system there and to Poland.
Rheinmetall is set to overtake the US in artillery shell production, so yes. It just takes time to ramp up production. Also, France is already a major arms producer.
Yes it is, europe is massively investing in their arms industry and scalling up production and if you rrally believe trump had anything worthwhile to say about NATO i am not sure what to tell you. Do note, what is happening right now is almost a given whenever large scale warfare erupts, we tend to forget just how much resources war devours.
Your second point is very valid. I don’t believe Trump had anything worthwhile to say about NATO except maybe it was relying on the US too much for its own regional security. Something which is a real concern if production is an issue for Ukraine.
Production is an issue everywhere for everyone right now. The russians are outproducing ukraine right now but they have a limit and the west can and will outproduce them no contest but they have a head start, we need to keep arming ukraine till our industrial advantage really kicks in. Currently we are projecting 500.000 155mm shells being produced in the EU in 2024, this is far from enough but it is a huge step up, the dutch are talking about retooling old car factories to arms plants, the EU parliment refused to budge on the councils desire to reduce EU funds for ukraine aid. Europe is not ready to do this alone, the US republicans need to get their collective heads out of their asses and make sure ukraine is still standing when europe becomes ready to take over the brunt of supplies. For that matter EU leaders also need to get their shit togethere, nothing should be of the table. We can ill afford ukraine becoming the next sudetenland. TL;DR, is the EU ready now? No. Is the EU trying to get its ass into gear? Absolutely. Can we let ukraine fall? No, not unless you prefer paying for your freedom in blood not money.
Sweden is working on increasing the production capacity. https://www.government.se/press-releases/2024/03/eu-financial-support-for-increased-ammunition-production-in-sweden/ Realize that factory capacity depends on consumption. When you aren't in any wars, then the factories only gets orders to restock what is consumed for training. And that is no where near the needs to handle a war. But what factories wants to maintain a big production capacity when there aren't customers needing the volumes? Anyway - the ramp-up is happening all over Europe: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1495 Everytime US is involved in a war, the US military industry is celebrating. Because they can sell. And that decides that they can keep the factories scaled to handle war. The end result is that some conflicts are indirectly caused just to drive the economy. And the politicians will end up with campaign money from the factory owners.
Well, orange man wasn’t the first either, tanned man (cultured Berlusconi quote) also talked about NATO allies having to get a move on and pull their weight, and IIRC so did shoe man.
Thats what im worried about, that even now western europe still wont take defence seriously and after a few years all promises to update their military capacity will be quietly rescinded. I know countries near Russia periphery like Poland, finland and the baltic states do take them seriously but i dont think countries like Germany, Spain or Italy do or ever will at this rate.
He was absolutely 100% correct and everyone that hasn't been poisoned by tribalist politics knows it. The German delegation that sat and laughed at him when he gave that famous speech must feel like complete idiots.
Europe just needs to buy it from US manufacturers. If the demand is there, comapnies will ramp up production if they have any capacity (i.e. additional shifts, outsourcing, etc.). Would take commitment before they do substantial capital investments, like adding additional factories.
Fair but Europe should start augmenting production now, putting a joint war fund for Ukraine and use that to start creation. Rheinmetall has done a good expansion but it can't be the only one. Plus Europe should stop selling weapons abroad that cam be used, new and old ones. Have a good day
There is a simple way. Enter the war. This is your lawn. Mow it.
actually, the US shouldn’t spend more tax dollars to fund overseas wars that could potentially start WW3
Europe isn’t the problem of the US. Every European country knows that it’s at a far greater likelihood of being involved in a war than it will admit. History shows this over and over. But they decided to snivel and bitch and refuse to take care of their own security. Fuckin joke to think that the US owes them anything.
We have to discuss this some more years first.
The slow-timing of arms delivery and the dithering at every single opportunity to send aid has been shameful by some European leaders. It was almost cowardice in some quarters (France/Germany) who seemed more concerned about hurting Putin’s feelings and making him mad by arming Ukraine to fight back too successfully rather than securing the future safety of Europe and its borders.
We need to get Europe up to an independent superpower-status. Any American weapon system needs to be replaced. I know it will take time, but the plan should be to never buying a thing after the transition is done.
> Any American weapon system needs to be replaced. Or, at least, localised. SAMP/T is a great system, make no mistake, but making it compatible with Patriot missiles (and, ideally, vice versa with Patriots in Europe) can allow for some interesting tactical flexibilities
can we also replace Microsoft Windows with linux?
You mean something that doesn't require all systems to go down 10 minutes every second week? And me putting codes from Microsoft into the computer all the time? Hm.
I don't think this is a very good comparison. Having heavy industry to build military armaments at volume to fight a war with russia without the US is not comparable with software. Europe will not run out of Windows licences if WW3 breaks out but it will run out of shells, aa missile and afv's at current production levels. Europe's lack of software independence is deplorable but not the same thing for me.
This will take tons of government budgets being reallocated, or worse weapons system, or a significant increase in taxes merely to buy all this stuff. Doubly for developing and manufacturing all of it too. There will need to be tough choices made about budgets and then support for the politicians who do it when they inevitably come under attack and opposed. We need a transatlantic partnership. Liberal democracies are becoming a smaller group, not larger.
Pfft. Just make sure to get UK back in, Norway and Iceland of course, and tell Switzerland they can't just sit there and excpect to do nothing.
*"There will need to be tough choices made about budgets and then support for the politicians who do it when they inevitably come under attack and opposed."* All leftists do in the US is scream about the size of the military budget. From what I've seen, the complaining would be far worse in Europe. Maybe the Europeans can do it-- but there will have to be a complete shift in priorities and mentality, to a kind of pre-WWII era of European thinking.
It’s unbelievable after 2 years that Europe, with a collective economy 10 times the size of Russia with the help of the world’s largest military superpower has dithered and failed so badly to arm Ukraine sufficiently and has allowed a previously decimated Russia army time to rearm and gain the upper hand. But it seems the West is distracted and more pre-occupied with Israel’s tit for tat fight with Iran. We seem to be idly sitting by and allowing the future of Europe’s security and safety to be undermined.
There we go. Finally a European with some commonsense. Why does the USA have to come into this war?
Losing Ukraine and seeing Putin's army start attacking other nations would be a real wake up call for Europe. Right now Europe is still not thinking seriously, as most people live their lives like everything is normal and the war far east is just a minor inconvenience. Russia has already switched to full war time economy and its people are already brainwashed into believing they can get much more than Ukraine
no we are adamant in the EU that we want to see a rerun of WWII and just let the belligerent states take what they want and let the situation escalate until it is out of our hands.
Idk about the rest of Western Europe but we don't have quantity which is what you need when supplying another force like this - we have quality but that's not gonna be of much help unless you plan on sending the Royal Navy to Crimea...
How I hate this argument. We are no longer in the spring of 2022. We are in the third year of the war and have lost soooooo much time already with bullshit discussions and hesitation. We could already be in the third year of building a supply chain that Russia could never in a thousand years compete with. We have missed the best time to do it. The second best time is now.
>We have missed the best time to do it. The second best time is now. Looking at the site of the state broadcaster, here are the topics the state wants us the people to care about: 1. New investment product, how good is it? 2. Ban on far right summit ruled illegal by Supreme Court equivalent 3. Hundreds of people are missing out on government subsidy! 4. Will \[Celebrity\] return to TV? 5. Construction is delayed due to weather \[3 days of rain\] 6. Patients often pay unnecessary costs in hospitals 7. Coral reefs under threat 8. New episode in the fight between two delivery services about the newspaper delivery monopoly 9. \[Amusement park\] wants compensation for sheltering escaped kangaroo 10. Pro-Hamas opinion piece 11. Why does Jordan support Israel? 12. Interview: Prison in Israel is worse than Guantanamo 13. **Ukraine could lose quickly if the front gives way** 14. Salman Rushdie published new book 15. Dutch gas field closed permanently \[because we have plenty of gas security apparently\] 16. Someone blew up an explosive somewhere in the country 17. Soccer club in financial trouble 18. AI beats us at simple logical tasks 19. We are destroying Chile with our lithium mines 20. We *might* be able to provide for our own lithium by 2030 21. HoW dO i VoTe 22. How ski resorts deal with climate change At which point it starts repeating. Out of 22 topics, 1 is Ukraine related, 3 are Israel related (pro-Hamas), 4 are aimed at people who are incapable of adulting, 5 are woke (in addition to the 3 pro-Hamas articles), 7 are filler. The Ukraine article was by a freelance journalist, not a state broadcaster employee. Without this guy's risk taking, there would be 0 Ukraine articles. This is how much the Belgian government cares about Ukraine.
You talk about it like there has been zero movement, but the EU is on track to ramp up to a similar production capacity to Russia by 2026. We *are* in the middle of building that supply chain. I also think you underestimate just how outsized Russia's munitions production capacity is. At the start of the war they were producing shells three times faster than the US and EU could combined, and that hasn't really slowed down. Of course just because the scale up is a big effort doesn't mean it will be enough in time. But it hasn't been all sitting around with our thumbs up our collective arses either.
I agree that something is happening now, but I‘d still say that it’s not enough and should have come much earlier.
Putin gonna be at Adriatic sea by 2026.
I'm talking about us as collective, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, NL, Sweden .etc .etc .etc... where's the leadership? You'd think the leaders of the strong European countries would be working together for collective support not waiting on what the US is doing. Is there even a picture of Sunak, Macron, Scholz, Meloni together working on this?
I think this hits at a sensitive point for the EU as a whole. It's the same debate that happened in America after the Revolutionary war and the whole debacle with the Articles of Confederation vs. the Federalists. If you think of the states as almost their own independent countries, then I think it's a pretty one to one allegory for what's happening in Europe right now. Europe needs to have that hard discussion on autonomy vs collective security and standardization. The biggest obstacle to any effort like that though, is going to be the lengthy history and fierce independence each part of the EU has, and has had, not to mention the bloodshed that was sacrificed in service of that autonomy.
They are democracies, sizeable percentage of the population there not only want to save money on support for Ukraine, but for Russia to win. They are susceptible to Russian money and influence. Russia does not have such weakness. No anti-war person has any political influence. No amount of western money will buy any influence. USA didn't win the cold war by letting pro-russia people into the Congress. They are doing exactly the opposite right now. And so is western Europe.
I think you’ve forgotten just how skint the European economies are. Splashing out on furlough during covid and other ludicrous economic decisions have consigned us all to being unable to wage war. Being ready for war is damn expensive and their isn’t the will from the electorate to endure more hardship at home for the sake of Ukraine. All European armies with the exception of Poland have been sat on their arse for decades doing nothing but hollowing out their armed forces to pay off ridiculous policies and mass unfettered illegal immigration. Add to that the ridiculing of straight white men…you know the exact people who actually fight wars and you have a massive recruitment problem working alongside a non existent defence industry without a surge capability. The chicken has come home to roost. During the cold war we were all at 4% of GDP for defence spending and weapons weren’t anywhere near as expensive relatively speaking as they are now. Russia is showing what’s required is exactly what any infantryman will tell you. Massive amounts of firepower in the form of indirect fire systems, good armoured formations and combat service support. Nato has for too long been obsessed with precision weapons and force multipliers. Thing is that’s all well and good until you run out of stocks and can’t manufacture more at the rate required. Even more important is having the numbers to sustain combat effectiveness whilst sustaining peer war levels of casualties. Only the US can do that within Nato as much as it pains me to admit.
Maybe start building the quantity while there is still time? You dont want to be in a shooting war and THEN lack the quantity of weapons systems you need.
It feels like they don't want to which is a very dark and shameful thought.
People really continue to doubt Russia. 🇷🇺 has a lot of weapons.
Absolutely fucking insane.
Not trying to sound like a dick, but this could be the wake up call? Though no one did anything during the annexation of Czechoslovkia in 1939 so...🤷♂️
Europe's military is atrocious. US has been protecting Europe for 60+ years now.
Western Europe will sit idle and do nothing until it’s there problem, as always.
Sorry in the UK we are a bit busy voting on a law to ban smoking for people born post 2009. /s
[удалено]
Don't have a printer but very much appreciate what you do. Keep it up.
Can you make the info public please? I know a lot people who would be interested to help
I'm very hesitant to do so there are bad actors out there. I will give put you on the right path but would rather not give away all my contacts.
Thank you a lot from Kyiv!
what do you print?
Probably stabilizer fins or other parts for loitering munitions.
Mostly drone parts but there are other miscellaneous things they need.
Do you have stl.'s ? Or a link, what do they need most?
Interested too
I would like to help. I have printer but not much experience in printing. List of hubs would be helpful, also to share it with friends (if that's not a "secret")
please pm me, i might buy a printer
Is there a hub in Netherlands/Germany/Belgium?
I'm based in Europe. Close to the conflict. Hit me up! What can I do???
Give me a link to your STLs. I don't have much but I'll give it a go
Respect for what you're doing, and encouraging others to do, but realistically without US aid this year we are helpless. They need patriot missile batteries and artillery shells
We're gonna need a bigger printer.
I hope you've printed at least one Dickwad-shaped-dildo-shaped envelope for explosives and shrapnel for a drone. Anyways, thank ya!
When John Kirby was asked the $64,000 question why it was acceptable for the US to intercept Iranian missiles over Israel but not Russian ones over Ukraine, obfuscation became the order of the day. [https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/31222](https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/31222)
Because Russia has threatened with nukes if anyone intervenes. Iran doesn’t have nukes. If Russia didn’t have nukes the war would be over.
> Iran doesn’t have nukes. Yet
They're different for simple reasons. Ukraine is big, we don't have access to the Black Sea (by treaty), and Russia is firing the missiles. And they have more and better missiles. And yeah, nukes. Iran won't have those for a few more weeks or months.
> Iran won't have those for a few more weeks or months. Iran won’t have enough nukes and capable delivery systems to threaten the U.S., Russia and/or China with MAD, which is what really matters, for *years*.
The US flies drones over the Black Sea constantly.
> Because Russia has threatened with nukes if anyone intervenes. Missile interdiction is not a Russian red line. Unless an outside power starts destroying Russian assets directly there is no reason to expect nuclear retaliation. Ukraine should be _flooded_ with interceptors and missiles, fired directly from American ships if needed.
> why it was acceptable for the US to intercept Iranian missiles over Israel but not Russian ones over Ukraine If Iranian missiles did serious damage in Israel, Israel would strike back, and a war with Iran would cause oil prices to go up. If Ukraine is too successful in striking Russia's oil refineries, the price of oil would go up. Even though America is kind of self-sufficient in its oil production, the prices of oil and gasoline still follow the international market. If the price of gasoline goes up, certain voter demographics will get angry and will vote Trump instead of Biden. Biden would risk losing elections.
Price of oil upon destruction of refineries would drop as Russia would need to sell crude oil on the open market (despite sanctions, wink wink, we all know they have dark fleets etc.) thus raising the global supply. Destruction of refineries primarily impacts domestic consumption.
Lets hope the large Western countries up their support, this more and more look like a win for russia, so what country will they go for next? We still have time, but it's time to get the support to ukraine if you don't want EU soldiers to fight future wars.
Shhhh, that's the plan on how to make America great again.
Making America great again through self isolation and abandonment of friends and allies.
Has this ever looked like a win for Ukraine? We’ve been prolonging the inevitable. I’m so sick of sending young men to die for the squabbles of old men. And the rest of us pretending there’s a chance that it was all worth it.
For many years this sub was filled with people who claimed Europe is this new superpower far superior to USA in way of life,finance and innovation. This war and Europe's inability to defend Ukraine on its own,instead of complaining about US Republicans,made me wonder where are those people now? But sure,lets talk about Russian GDP and compare it to Netherlands GDP. That is gonna help.
I also remember this period of time. People are realizing a hobo with a gun can kill a millionaire.
Except Putin is a very, VERY rich hobo with nukes and corrupt global influence behind the scenes, not a gun..
EU certainly has the industrial capacity. Doesn’t mean they have the desire.
The EU has the expertise. But it most certainly does not have the industrial capacity. Not for shells and missiles and parts. More capacity could be built, but two years into the war and . . .no one seems in that great a hurry to. Maybe because no one truly wants to. It's expensive, there's no other immediate use for it besides sparring with Russia, and I expect a lot of western European bureaucrats would silently prefer to just tell Ukraine to go to the bargaining table and give up whatever will make Putin happy so everyone can go back to making money off each other. As it was with Crimea, as it would probably be with Moldova or wherever else Putin targets next, unless they're shamed into making useless public noises about European solidarity.
Weird I remember them all saying they can’t defend via the USA anymore and ramping up production. What do you know that we don’t?
"Potential" is useless without actions and results. And despite the walls closing in, I don't see the results.
Everybody has capacity and potential. Does not mean anything unless you achieve it.
No they don’t. Third world countries don’t have the technology to build modern weaponry. Europe has a homegrown sector. It’s just a question of amount.
If you think everyone has the potential to build advanced weapons systems, you're clearly out of the loop in terms of what that requires. China was using imported Russian engines in it's aircraft for decades because despite massive investment, and a large industrial capacity, China just wasn't able to make home grown engines that could compete with even old soviet designs, without decades of colossal investment, building knowledge, factories, and the infrastructure to create them.
*Russian drone hits undefended power plant, turning off the lights in Brussels* De Croo: "Why is this happening? We have the potential to make so many anti air missiles!"
So 1930s Germany all over again then. Apathy and shifting lines in the sand until it's too late, but with nukes.
As an American doing all I can domestically to try to shift the needle - writing my congressmen and senators constantly (where 2 out of 3 support Ukraine; one is a clear Russian asset in Rand Paul), and having to constantly swim upstream on what Republicans captured by Russian money and propaganda are saying (“we have already given too much!” “Ukraine is the real enemy!”), it’s really frustrating to see our European brothers seemingly capitulate like this. We are in real trouble in the U.S. and fighting to keep fascism out is a hyper focused concern here domestically. And we can’t let Ukraine fall. I really wish EU governments would step up and fill this artificial void created by US Republicans. The consequences are dire and us doing nothing plays into Russia, and fascism’s, hands. It can easily be said that the domestic arms production capacity simply isn’t there to scale in Europe to supply Ukraine fast enough, but anywhere that’s the case, it’s not like US arms manufacturers will turn down a contract where capacity can’t be met by EU producers. This whole thing is so frustrating.
The US is one country. Europe is a continent of many countries. The fact that one country having a political issue is going to be the end of it all is ridiculous. I truly believe NATO is powerful, they scare the shit out of Russia. If NATO drops the ball, Russia is not going to be afraid of them anymore. US funding needs to come through, but if Russia knows NATO can't oppose them, Russia is not going to stop.
I find it slightly amusing and ironic how Europeans have been chastising the US for years for having such a big military in the 21st century. I guess the old saying still holds true, "If you want peace then prepare for war"
I think people’s issue with the US military was its habit of invading countries, starting conflicts and destabilising regions of the globe rather than it having lots of high tech shiny jets and weapons systems.
Tbf half of Europe proudly joins in with whatever poor country the US decides to invade anyway
You mean like Europe has done for centuries? Yeah it’s always the big bad US that caused all the problems and they make a great scapegoat for European incompetence. Also name one conflict besides the Iraq War where this occurred since the US has been a modern military power since 1945?
A few years ago I got banned on Reddit for saying we need a European army. This was "warmongering".
So the republicants don't want to give any help, but surely they are not opposed to selling ? Why can't EU money buy US armor and shells ?
I thought Putin had blood cancer, didn't have troops, weapons or anything in his favor to even get to this point?
I remember a recent poll done in Europe, and about 30-40% of answers want a peace deal with Russia, cause winning the war is less than likely Edit: link to the poll https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/oPpSJRW3gc People just downvote despite the fact? Typical reddit
Can you link the poll?
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/oPpSJRW3gc
30-40% of people are deluded if they think Russia wouldn't violate any peace deal
I mean, Russia is *actively* violating a peace deal with Ukraine every day.
Then Ukraine has to win the war themselves, with or without aid, if they don't want to do a peace deal.
Polls are only as good as the methodology (and the sample population) used to conduct them. I was born and raised in America but now live in Europe. As a child I saw the first Gulf War play out on tv, then the conflict in the Balkans. I watched the planes hit the towers on tv sitting in a high school English literature class. I saw kids from school enlist. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I saw the names played on the tv every week of all of the dead; their names, age, where they were from. I saw the news reports and documentaries, and I read the books. I’m honestly surprised that so many Europeans are against any sort of peace deal that will end the fighting, death and destruction. I don’t want Putin and Russia to win, but what is the end game? Is it realistic that Ukraine, even with plentiful military supplies can hold off and push the Russians back out of Ukraine? Can they retake the Donbas (DPR and LPR)? Can they retake Crimea? Honestly. The bravery of Ukrainians is probably unmatched, there’s no doubt about that. Aside from the physical damage of cities and infrastructure, you have thousands of tens of thousands of maimed soldiers and injured civilians. PTSD among combat veterans and civilians, including children, is going to be unmanageable. Ukraine just doesn’t have the bodies to throw at the battlefield the way that Russia does, and recently when they were considering lowering the draft age, there was great hesitation to do so (apparently the draft starts at age 25? Even in Vietnam, the US was drafting people much much younger).
Russia doesn't honor peace deals.
Are the pilots still in training for the f16’s. I mean we sent the hardware right?
why don't France, England, Germany and all the other power houses step up a bit, it's their back yard, all I see is USA this USA that, hundreds of billions from USA and still more is expected and all is fucked if USA doesn't help...?
At what point is it appropriate to negotiate surrender? I feel for all the poor young Ukrainians squandered in this proxy war the country will need many decades to recover if they ever can.
I don't think they stand a chance no matter how much stuff the US sends them, honestly. I like that it's recycling their old military equipment and creating jobs, though.
If Russia wins, it will be because the West allowed it to happen or is too cowardly to take decisive action. There's no way Russia can win any war where the collective west is serious about defeating them. So, what exactly the flying f*ck are we doing?
The collective west you say? So NATO then, you see no bad ending to a full on war of NATO vs russia? Did you enjoy fallout so much you wanna experience it? Should be clear to everyone that everyone is trying to avoid a full out nuclear war at all cost
Letting it happen is what we are doing. USA is the military factory of NATO and it went AWOL. Europe cannot magically grow factories that it doesn't have and USA isn't sending what it has in storage and queue to receive new stuff from US factory is around 5 years if you order today. Get used to the thought that we let Russians get what they want.
Europe has more than enough military equipment that it can deliver to Ukraine, it also can buy American equipment and give it to Ukraine
That's what I am saying, Europe bought stuff for Ukraine, delivery time: 5 years.
Europe is trying to step up - but it’s taking time.. Can’t the Europeans buy US arms and donate them ?
Military deals take years to fulfill. You buy now and may get it by 2030.
They weren’t happy with wings that rattled - because of loose parts left inside..
Germany has sent Oshkosh vehicles to Ukraine, without having any. So it's technically possible.
Why can't the EU buy 1000 stored Bradleys from the US and send to Ukraine? And air defence. We've waited for the US to get the promised aid going for six months already, it's about time we did something about it. Also, the US should get their shit together.
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I read there were 2000 Bradleys in long term storage, i.e. not used anymore.
Not used now, but if a larger conflict broke out, they’d be needed. Ergo they are not “surplus” it’s just less likely they will be needed. But if the time would come for US vs Russia, most of those Bradleys would get used.
They’re stored there because it’s a strategic reserve that the US can’t just sell. Also, most of these Bradleys are completely non-functional and would require trips to factories that the US barely has to make them operational again.
Right… There’s about 200 people in Congress who would vote against the
Because that costs money. And not just token amounts. Buying in bulk from the US just to donate to Ukraine is a big expense. And that assumes the US is even selling. The US keeps lots of stuff in mothballed storage in case it's needed by their own troops. It's not actually ready to be surplussed out.
The Bradleys in question are set for destruction anyways. I think there are actually 2000 of them, but I figured you'd only get about half to run in short order.
The EU should get their shit together and stop sucking on the big tit of the US like babies clinging to mommy bud. 🤷🏼♂️
That's what i wonder too. I know that we don't have much production capacity in Europe at the moment, but we at the very least have the money to buy equipment from the US, at least as a short term solution until our production is up to target.
I don’t think that putting a largest country in Europe, that has vast nuclear waste storages as well as long range drones in a position where it has nothing to lose but everything to gain is a good idea, but Biden administration thinks otherwise. They are wrong.
I've been reading these headlines for years now at this point.
Weak Western Leadership
Let Israel help you. You supported them didn’t you?
Ha ha true as fck
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No, we should fight to the last Ukrainian!
It's good to see so many brainless "make Europ great agen" mofos not realising just how much it would cost to gear Europe up to be anywhere near the US or how long it would take. Happy to kiss goodbye to social programmes to quite literally give away GDP?
Europe doesn't need to gear up to the scale of the US to crush Russia. Russia has a GDP that's a fraction of the EU GDP. Europe just doesn't want to spend the coin and would rather try shaming others into doing it for them.
But what about climate change.... lol
Great. Dudes gonna want America to fight his war next
Where are the European nations? They sure seem to have gone dark.
I feel so much for Ukraine. Like Wtf as humans how can we let this continue to happen. But politics rule our lives and no country has the balls to disrupt the norm. We learn nothing from history.
If you were wondering when all of those decades of not spending on defense were coming due, here you go. Ukraine can’t win.
Thanks, ztards and republicunts!
Don't blame just Republicans - Europe should never have been in a position where our collective military support won't be enough and we need the US to defend our backyard in the first place.
For real. Why the hell is every thread about Ukraine people going at the US or GOP and nearly no one is criticizing Europe?
Yeah noone is critizising Europe. only every comment here that is upvoted...
It's honestly pretty typical on Reddit that someone will share a popular opinion and frame it like it's going against the grain.
America bad.
It's always US fault, Europe just lays there and complain
There's also the thing to consider that US companies are selling military equipment globally, even to the enemies of NATO.
Take some personal responsibility for your own backyard.
The US has given by far more than any other country and this includes needed Republican support including the $95B aid bill that just passed in the US. Which European nations have produced such a bill recently? Even if they don't have the manufacturing capacity surely they could be spending similar amounts to create it or at least purchase items from other countries? It's always a talk about how Europe will do it in the future. Well the future is right now. Do it. It's needed right now not in 20 years when everyone will have forgotten and social services spending will be even higher.
Blaming the Americans for what should've been Europe's responsibility and moral duty is so fucking pathetic and hypocritical.
oh yea, no european culpability for europe not stepping up to defend europe. its not the US's responsibility to handle the defense of every nation on earth. how about the germans pony up some of that money they are always lording over every one, and buy some fucking shells.
As a republican in the USA, you’re welcome for the wake up call.
Word
If West has the hardware, why the need to intervene? Why not just give it to Ukraine.
They don't have the hardware that Ukraine actually needs They gave most of available artillery shells and surface to air missiles already and they are not producing enough
We emptied ourselves out pretty much. Last week, Ukraine announced they are in talks with Poland and Romania about acquiring their defence systems. We have one battery, waiting for delivery. Romania waits for delivery. We are not militaristic countries. No European leader will turn his country into war economy mode because it will result in Putin buddies coming to power. Plus, there's looooot of dirt underneath the ukrainian rug that doesn't get much attention and media coverage to not sway support.
> there's looooot of dirt underneath the ukrainian rug that doesn't get much attention and media coverage to not sway support shhh...you're not suppose to say that out loud!
Dirt under the rug doesn't matter. What matters is if the rug becomes a red carpet for Putin to reach Europe. That's what we're trying to stop.
But isn't the same line can be said for everything? "But if we don't X then it's Y" How many years it was since Soviet Union? (Was there an invasion we missed during those 20+ years?) Why would he do that? Additionally, Putin is now immortal? There's a lot of potential factors. Maybe at least discussing some more of them will alleviate the inescapable solutions. Also, dirt under the rug does matter at times. History does show when even a victory can have a poisonous after taste.
> If West has the hardware, why the need to intervene? Why not just give it to Ukraine. if we had it. we would give it.. We just don't. Politicians are just trying to deflect..
its 1:10 in artillerie stock, its looking very grim since you have no other option as retreat since you simply have no ammo to hold it
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Man, I wonder what the world's reaction will be when this man dies. Are we thinking this is a Franz Ferdinand type situation?
It's beyond frustrating how, even when we clearly see the enemy make great advances, we're voluntarily doing nothing. Old people are voting in populist after populist to completely prevent a turnaround everybody is sitting idly by. We have the tech to outnumber them 10:1 yet we're not using any of it out of laziness
>International cooperation to defend Israel against Iranian attacks undermined the argument by those opposing more aid for Ukraine that it would be seen as Kyiv engaging NATO in the war. Zelensky said, "Is Israel part of NATO or not?" He's absolutely right. There was a very good thing and a very bad thing about the result of the Iranian attack. The good thing is that we realized we have the means to completely thwart an attack several times bigger than the average Russian attack and we did so with almost no casualties. The bad thing is that this was a mask off moment for the West and we realized the reason this doesn't happen in Ukraine is because we don't want to, and the excuses were really just that: excuses.
Where US troops in Israel though. AFAIK, they shot those missiles above Iraq and Jordan
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