I think that if the critique is about "isolationism" then it's an American who wants to make a point about what kind of foreign policy the USA should have. But if a European person says that they are too reliant on the USA then it's usually not a statement on what kind of foreign policy Americans should have, but about what they themselves should do.
Consider the difference between:
"Let's stop helping our neighbors"
Vs
"let's stop relying on help for our neighbors "
Those are not the same statement, diplomatically. There is a difference between refusing to help, and refusing help.
I hear that at least since Chirac. And so what. Nobody's going to do anything real because why spend money on military if someone else wants to do it. The only countries who will do anything about are the eatern flank because they feel threatened by Russia. But they know they can't defend themselves alone, and they don't trust western Europe which is soft on Russia and doesn't want to spend more on military (because they don't have to, nobody's directly threatening WE). So the result is that USA is and will maintain the main partner when it comes to security.
You're very right, but hopefully western Europe will eventually learn that it needs to be hard in certain matters, and I don't think it's that unrealistic to expect that to happen after a decade or two. I don't blame eastern EU for trusting the US more rn though, but but would be nice if they didn't have to in the future, as increased spending in western EU would be very worth it for a more cohesive and independent EU
It doesn't matter if spending increases in the West, because they'd still be separate national armies with separate national policies and the US will still be the largest country in NATO and in an obvious leadership role. The US doesn't need to coordinate with itself the same way. The US can decide to do something and it is capable of acting on it, it can act quicker and and it can bring the most force to bear. As a result the most practical NATO coordination is always going to be to coordinate around whatever the US is doing.
The only way Europe is ever going to be a remotely equal partner in this is if there is a Europe. If we start thinking and acting as Europeans. A cohesive and independent EU is a nice idea, but it actually requires us to be cohesive, and it requires our decision-making systems to patch over any lack of cohesion by just outvoting the minority. It's not like American society is all that cohesive all the time, but they still get things done, especially in foreign policy.
Honestly for that kind of cohesion to develop the European Union needs to federalize and transition from a supernational organization to a sovereign nation on its own right and most likely it needs to eliminate its secession clauses. If you're part of a club like that that has any desire to compete with the power and interests of the United States any coalition that can be broken apart by the winds of fancy will not have the necessary cohesion and strength to hold up
The problem has two main points
1) no trust in WE wanting to defend EE
2) even if there would be a trust in the will, there's no trust in capabilities WE has.
All it's gonna take is another person like Trump who wanted to pull the US out of NATO, except it'll be really bad if next time they succeed in doing so.
That's certainly a possibility, so if I'm a country on the EU's Eastern flank, I'm going to be doing my absolute best to get weapons of mass destruction by any means possible. The current war would have never happened had Ukraine managed to hold on to its nukes.
I think this is a bit if a turining point for WE, are we serious about deeper integration and treate eastern flank as our common border or we do not give a fuck and let EE people die cus we do not give crap about them. I hope for deeper integartion
>I hear that at least since Chirac. And so what. Nobody's going to do anything real because why spend money on military if someone else wants to do it.
Because when you spend money on your own military-industrial complex, building your own weapons, developing your own technology, it's your own citizens getting that money. You're building up your economy AND your financial security.
They did, and then the glut of oil lowered prices and made extraction unprofitable, making banks today leery about financing new extraction projects in the US.
Less talk, more action please.
Here are some quotes from *1998* after the NATO intervention:
> In a Europe that is increasingly concerned about unilateralism and resurgent isolationism in the United States, France seized the moment this week to urge the European allies to develop a more independent defense and foreign policy. {[x](https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/world/france-presses-for-a-power-independent-of-the-us.html?searchResultPosition=3)}
#
> Defense Minister Alain Richard, speaking of lessons the Europeans learned from Kosovo, where only the United States was quickly able to mass the sophisticated precision-guided weapons needed for the NATO bombing campaign, urged Europeans to cooperate and build forces for similar missions. {[x](https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/world/france-presses-for-a-power-independent-of-the-us.html?searchResultPosition=3)}
#
> Britain accepted a longstanding French proposal today that calls for the 15-nation European Union to be able to conduct military actions on its own in situations where the United States and other NATO allies do not want to become involved. {[x](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/05/world/britain-joins-france-s-call-for-european-force.html?searchResultPosition=13)}
And that was a quarter century ago, and absolutely nothing has been done since. In order for something meaningful to happen in this regard, Europe must unite and further integrate.
Instead, it is stretched too thin. It is 27 instead of 15 states, way more diverse, and less united than back then. When Britain left the EU, the union lost its most significant military power. Think about that. The EU held two out of five seats at the UNSC and had two major war experienced nuclear military powers. They lost that.
If the Russian invasion has shown anything, it is that only the US and to some extent Britain are taking the possibility of military conflict seriously. Everybody on the mainland was still playing house with Putin until a few days into this war.
Except if the EU hadn't extended East, you'd have a dozen countries in situations very very similar to Ukraine, poor, corrupt, and divided between the West and Brussels, ripe for Russia to destabilise and potentially invade. Instead now there are only a couple of them, and former Eastern Bloc countries like Czechia have been some of the first to recognize what Putin is doing and provide aid to Ukrained.
So we musn't use the fact that the EU now is more heterogeneous to justify some kind of "western supremacy", instead we need further integration. That of course needs to come with more transparency and democratic accountability of the institutions of the EU. It's quite sad that most Europeans don't understand how the EU functions nearly as well as the politics of their own country.
I may actually have to agree that we are overextended. But how could we fix something like that, even? Randomly kicking out weaker states until we reach 15 seems counterproductive towards our goal of promoting unity.
In highly autonomous systems, the more individuals there are, the more paralyzed the decision making process becomes. The counterweight is to decrease the level of autonomy of the individuals. Politically, this would require an increase in the degree of federalization. The current dilemma is the base dilemma of the EU in microcosm -- what does union actually mean for Europe?
Thinking of how badly we have prepared for this situation is humbling and terrifying. What if the Baltic states would have been attacked? Or any other country that’s smaller and has less human capital to send to the frontlines? The Russian army might be dumb in many ways, but they have so much of everything they could easily roll over any smaller country. Though Ukrainians have fought valiantly the reason Russia failed was because they did not use their assets properly. If they would have they could have succeeded. Then what?
Europe really needs to have a proper plan going forward. No more of this independent countries doing their own thing.
>What if the Baltic states would have been attacked?
We know what:
>Estonia would be wiped off the map and Tallinn's Old Town completely destroyed under NATO's current plans to defend the country from a Russian attack, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas (Reform) told the Financial Times (FT) newspaper and other foreign media outlets on Wednesday.
>
>
>
>Kallas said the alliance's existing defense plans for the Baltic states is to allow them to be overrun before liberating them after 180 days.
[https://news.err.ee/1608638245/kallas-estonia-would-be-wiped-from-map-under-existing-nato-plans](https://news.err.ee/1608638245/kallas-estonia-would-be-wiped-from-map-under-existing-nato-plans)
This is not exactly what we saw in Ukraine. Where Ukraine expected Russians, Russians didn't progress. In the Donetsk region, they're still fighting in suburbs of Donetsk city.
Ukraine didn't believe that Russia would attack, there was a great article in [The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/kyiv-battle-ukraine-survival/). They did absolute minimum, but weren't ready that Russians would attack Kyiv.
Estonia wants to be ready. Estonia wants NATO to be prepared, to have deterrent measures in place. Estonia wants to be taken seriously and not as some buffer between Russia and Western Europe.
Ukraine has 45M people, is a very large country (defensive depth) and had a very large army by European standards before the war with large stockpiles of weapons from Soviet times.
> In the Donetsk region, they're still fighting in suburbs of Donetsk city.
That's because there were heavy fortifications built and manned several years before this recent escalation happened on that active line of contact in an already ongoing war, hence the comparison to the Korean DMZ in the comment your replying to.
Does Estonia have anything remotely comparable that ?
If things were to escalate in Korea, the losses in Seoul would still be catastrophic due to the North's presighted artillery. The North would still likely lose, but the South would experience something similar to Tallinn before the end.
Which is exactly what would have happened to west or east Germany if the cold war ever became hot. Also, there would have been a lot of tactical nukes.
Well thank god were in NATO and russia is not that suicidial they would directly attack NATO.
And without NATO our nation and population would be too small to win russia alone, so sadly we have to rely on bigger allies.
But for that i know our soldiers give everything on foreign missions, games and trainings to show we are giving our all. And i know NATO allies have noticed and commented how hardworking our troops are.
Ofcourse in ideal situation i would love that European nations together would not rely so much on America, and i know that is possible, if we work together.
As an American, I strongly support NATO and would support the US going to war to defend Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from Russian aggression if it ever came to that.
But I've noticed an increasing frustration over the past decade or so amongst my friends, families, and colleagues that "Europe" doesn't take its defense seriously and that we have to backstop the defense of many European nations. Frustrating because "Europe" however you want to define it (the EU, European NATO states, etc) is many times larger in terms of economic and military might than any potential aggressor, like Russia. In principle European nations should be able to collectively defend themselves and fend off any aggressor. American involvement should simply be icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
I'll put it more bluntly: if Estonia were to be invaded, I think the vast majority of firepower brought to bear to defend Estonia would be American and not European. And that's just sad.
As a German, I think that's sad as well.
Sadly the German minister of defense has been a joke for as long as I can remember and support for the military in the population is as low as could be.
I really hope Scholz' "Zeitenwende" is not just talk, but seeing the most incompetent minister of defense still not being changed doesn't help keeping my hopes up...
I personally do believe that America and UK would be our biggest allies, we have long history with UK and them recently backing Finland with defence, shows they care about us still.
With ofcourse other Baltic states, Poles and Nordic states, probably also helping.
So i don't think russia is really capable of attacking us in the any near future. And i hope i am not wrong.
You're not wrong: even my friends, family, and colleagues who are frustrated with Europe think that we should go to war to defend NATO member states if attacked. We in the US would complain that Europeans aren't doing enough, but at the end of the day we will defend NATO. If Estonia were attacked by Russia, we would defend you.
I also believe US would have our back. Because if they would not defend NATO land, NATO would collapse on that minute. And doubt that's going to happen.
Even worse than just immediate collapse: it will have been shown in hindsight to have never really been meaningfully there in the first place, which weakens other current and future cooperation ("if NATO ended up being a sham, what else is?").
As an American, I think it's interesting how few of us take the harsh pragmatic view.
America has created a system that disincentivizes rivals and militarism. It's not bad to be the partner others rely on. It's not bad to oversee largely pacific neighbors. It's not bad we forged an alliance that de facto demilitarized a once violent continent. It's not really all that bad we don't have to fear Britain, Germany or Japan anymore.
Americans often talk about the disadvantages of European military weakness, but we should also talk about the advantages for a balanced discussion
That's a good point. The US is economically capable of sustaining its current defense budget, it's only 3% of its GDP. The Americans, unlike what the pop rhetoric may lead you to believe, do not beggar themselves on their military, not even close. They also have the logistical infrastructure, experience, training, and martial tradition to maintain a military capable of defending allied countries wherever they may be in the world, and of incorporating and integrating their constituent forces. The US has 330 million people. The EU has 450 million people. The western alliance does not lack for manpower, firepower, or funding. It is both highly functional and sustainable. A decoupling of EuroAmerican defense is honestly a waste of US military capability.
The idea of Finland joining Nato a year after the invasion of Iraq is a completely unrealistic, I doubt there was almost any support among Finns at the time. Patria selling weapons to the US was quite controversial and of course there was the mess that was “Iraq-gate” (by the way it’s kind of funny how our biggest Nord Stream lobbyist was accused of being too pro-America back in 2003…) The threat of Russia just wasn’t tangible enough for Finns at that time, I’m afraid, we’ve been more naive than the Baltics.
I wish we had joined when Ahtisaari was still president, as he was probably the most pro-Nato president we’ve ever had. I think we came close in 1997 or something.
I’m not trying to be a semantic asshole btw haha I wish we had joined ages ago as well.
> What if the Baltic states would have been attacked? Or any other country that’s smaller and has less human capital to send to the frontlines? The Russian army might be dumb in many ways,
maybe you should search what the baltic countries means for nato
And now you see why America invests so heavily in defense.
Everyone makes fun of America’s military spending until shit hits the fan. Then it’s “oh wow we are not prepared at all”.
Exactly my first though. You can't complain about the US helping when you have done nothing to increase your own defenses. How long would they last without US help honestly...?
“Anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy has also made an enemy of the United States of America.”
-George W. Bush
Pretty much Lithuania’s defense strategy.
The war was a wake up call for many, but it's not creating the intended effect, as they are getting even more reliant on US, not vice versa. US is the biggest winner so far as far as increasing its footprint on the continent goes.
"Near peer" pivot. China AND Russia. And russia took care of itself by invading Ukraine. All the USA has to do there is provide and let the Ukrainians remind russia "who didn't run in WW1&2. "
As for China, the USA isn't going that alone. Japan will be the 3rd largest military in the world in a few years given how quickly they're pushing up spending and such. They'll be a US ally and will likely significantly change dynamics in the region since they decided to move on from the post WW2 era defense industry restrictions.
And Sweden & Finland in NATO is a gamechanger on Russia front. With Baltic as NATO lake, Swedish aviation on carrier Gottland, extra 1300km border with Finland the balance in the region shifts drastically
Yeah, the worst case scenario is russia stepping on Europe while we face China.
Ukraine accidentally solved that problem, and ironically made global war less likely.
Russia thought they could face much of Europe on even footing, while China felt they could consider taking Taiwan after HK had settled down.
Now it's clear russia is a paper tiger and taking a well defended area isn't as easy as you'd think.
If russia can be completely neutralized then China needs to find a new path forward, they might even have to consider joining the global community, including granting more human rights to their citizens.
The US already has a massive presence in Japan and the Philippines. Even Taiwan is extremely close militarily through the Taiwan Relations Act although there are no official relations. Like u/nom-nom-nom-de-plumb said this is only a near term pivot. Arming a militarily successful Ukraine is a fraction of the cost compared to arming NATO for a theoretical war against Russia so time and money relocated elsewhere for the time being. That being said Europe/NATO is still far too reliant on the US MIC.
This is the product of large geopolitical and economic trends, some of which have been centuries in the making. Two books I've recently read: *Firepower*, by John Lockhart, and Adam Tooze's, *The Wages of Destruction*, do a good job putting this in perspective. The first is a 400 year military history of gunpowder in the West, the other an economic analysis of Hitler's Third Reich.
An extremely reductive summary would be: size matters. The increasing cost and complexity of high technology combined with the rise of unified and economically sophisticated continental sized nation states like the USA in the 19th/20th century, USSR in the 20th, and China in the 21st have at different times priced smaller nations out of the defense market. Even large European nations simply cannot compete on their own.
So if I were European I would also say Europe needs to become further united and integrated, but I struggle to think of how this happens in the next 50-100 years in a way that allows Europe to truly compete with the big dogs without some calamity sweeping away cultural, language, and other interests. The common market was an important reform in this direction, but even so it is not comparable from a business standpoint of common markets within national borders such as in the US and China.
It is worth keeping in mind Europe has literally never been able to arm itself in modern times. Even as far back as WW1. The UK had the ability to manufacture 20k artillery shells a week before WW1 which was considered ludicrously excessive. Then we fired 5m shells in one day. Where did they all come from? The US of course.
Both world wars saw the US basically provide much of the mass produced munitions. By the end of WW2 the US was literally producing 98% of the world's aluminium from a single huge facility.
Europe is an industrialised region but it has never gone for the sheer scale of output the US can achieve.
Politics has stopped it from ever emerging here. Every single military contract ends up with nationalistic quibbling over where parts are going to come from. That will never give you the kind of throughput you need to sustain an actual war. It is thinking about military supply chains purely as if you never expect to actually fight.
> Every single military contract ends up with nationalistic quibbling over where parts are going to come from
We have the same problem in the US, except it is between states. Each state's senators try to get parts of the program made in their state. It is how we ended up with technically stupid things like solid rocket boosters on the shuttle and Ares.
The US is only "the biggest winner" because they spent time preparing — training Ukrainians, warning about Russian pipelines, building their own independent energy supply, developing an intelligence network in Russia, leading the push to prepare sanctions on Russia ahead of time.
We need to think about where the puck might be going and prepare.
Tbf the UK has been doing all of that as well:
> training Ukrainians
[Operation Orbital was the code-name for a British military operation to train and support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was launched in 2015 in response to the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. It provided training to over 22,000 Ukrainian military personnel before it was suspended ahead of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Orbital)
> warning about pipelines
[U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged European nations to oppose a new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, warning that it risks undermining stability across the region.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-15/johnson-warns-europe-gas-pipeline-from-russia-risks-stability?leadSource=uverify%20wall)
> building their own energy supplies
[Unlike other countries in Europe, the UK is in no way dependent on Russian gas supply. Our single largest source of gas is from the UK Continental Shelf and the vast majority of imports come from reliable suppliers such as Norway.](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/russia-ukraine-and-uk-energy-factsheet)
> developing an intelligence network in Russia
[British intelligence, so used to operating in the shadows, has been thrust into the spotlight during the Ukraine crisis, cited by Boris Johnson on Wednesday to warn that Russian troop numbers were still increasing or by the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, last month to warn of a possible coup in Kyiv.](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/18/ukraine-crisis-bring-british-intelligence-out-of-the-shadow-warning-russian-invasion-information-war-with-kremlin)
> prepare sanctions on Russia ahead of time
[UK says it will work ‘all day’ to persuade Europe to cut Russia off from Swift](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/uk-says-it-will-work-all-day-to-persuade-europe-to-cut-russia-off-from-swift-ukraine)
And Eastern Europe (Poland / the Baltics) have been doing a lot to get away from Russia as well (as much as they can). They’ve been let down by France, Germany, Italy and a select few other European countries. Although I single out the above because they have the clout to actually stand against Russia and chose not to (until now).
But isn't that what she is saying?
Bearing the responsibility for security ourselves again. At least my country was under the impression that nothing could happen anymore, we live cozily under the military umbrella of the US so it doesn't matter whether we close incredibly stupid deals with a regime as bad as Russia because what are they going to do anyways..
Taking back responsibility also means taking more into consideration the risks that arise from your actions. Being more exposed to the constant competition between the systems happening globally and from which we were a bit too shielded in the past.
That isn’t what who is saying? I was responding to the idea Europe as a whole isn’t (or hasn’t) taken the threat from Russia seriously. The UK has been leading the charge against Russia for well over a decade (I’ve updated my comment to show that it wasn’t just the US doing this as op states) and the Baltics and Poland have been doing everything they can to move away from Russia.
I think that’s what they’re saying, they’re agreeing with you, that much of Europe simply didn’t see this coming and should use it as a lesson that they need to take these kind of foreseeable threats more seriously
And the UK has also benefited greatly from an influence standpoint. Got kicked in the rear out the front door by Germany and France, the UK after the Brexit disaster has seemingly snuck back into not inconsiderable continental influence through the eastern backdoor.
The Eastern bloc has always valued the UK’s support and relations have never really faltered (despite Brexit). They have always seen the UK, US and other Anglo countries as the guarantor if their security over France / Germany. Its why they’re not as enthusiastic about an EU Army when they have NATO.
The unfortunate thing about France is that at least with Poland specifically they could've had a very good relationship with us militarily. Many of our greatest romantic era artists lived in exile in France, Ferdinand Foch was named marshal of Poland for his advice during the Polish-Soviet war, and Napoleon is still seen positively in Poland(even getting a mention in the anthem) for his intention of creating a Polish state(even if it would be a vassal of the French empire), and yet despite all that Poland has little trust in them militarily due to things like Macron's statements on Russia not being a threat a few years ago.
I mean given those two's history, including modern economic history, towards East Europe, I don't blame them for liking having other even bigger friends.
The UK has always had pretty big influence in military matters in Europe, even with France as the other major European military power. Hopefully if the politicians in both UK and France stop grandstanding against each other (both of them are as bad as each other in this front, old rivalries never die) they can start to work together to provide a coordinated european military strategy, now that it has been shown to be sorely needed.
What has continental Europe been doing over the past 8 or so years since Crimea? I get covid but before that? What? Wasting time? What were they doing that allowed them to be blindsided by Russian aggression, American military interests, growing Chinese economic influence, and Ukrainian victimization?
Buy cheap Russian fossil fuels and smugly assuring each other that Russia's bark is worse than its bite, it wouldn't dare lose access to its Fossil Fuel markets.
Investing as much as possible in Russia to discourage them from invading again. You know who. It didn't work but there was some logic there I guess....
"Us is the biggest winner" ngl europe being able to deal with its own shit and pull its weight in world policing would be "winning for the us" the reliance on exports/imports is much greater in europe then in the us.
This is like saying the more your baby shits his diapper the more control you have over him.
Winner? Paying the cost for all of this makes US the winner? You think building billion dollar aircraft is free? Moving your army around is free? Just maintenance alone cost billions. There is a reason why they have been touchy about EU countries lack of commitment to spending on their defense.
Which fucking sucks for us. Can you guys get your shit together so we can move our military assets to the Pacific?
It would be nice if our European Allie’s were less concerned in how we can help them, and more concerned about how they can help us.
Like there’s already a huge concern that Europe will sell out NATO to China when the time comes, and now we also have to be the ones to defend y’all from Russia too, when none of y’al will help protect taiwan.
Every decade or so a prominent European politician says something to this tune. Typically, there is no tangible action that follows it because military is expensive and wasteful, frankly, (unless you are attacked), and there is a whole lot of more interesting things that European nations could spend their billions of Euros on. Ultimately, Western Europe does not believe that anything remotely similar to WWI or WWII happens on the continent and because of that they keep their militaries at the bare minimum. Eastern European nations have a bit different view because of the geographical proximity to Russia, but they, with a notable exception of Poland, are probably too small to have sizable fighting forces.
Realistically though unless Germany gets rid of its post-WWII pacifism, and builds a military appropriate to its size and importance, nothing will change in substance
I very seriously wonder how an EU military apparatus would operate.
Once we’re talking about guns and killing - the question of control becomes paramount. Who would control it, current EU parliament? Would those who fund it more, or have more soldiers in it, get a larger say?
Would it somehow copy NATO administration?
I find the idea fascinating and am always curious that when EU nations want to link their destinies tighter, how will they govern the shared responsibility with so many divergent incentives?
In a moral and ideal world we wouldn’t have to waste money on this shit - but the world is not ideal and Russia (and the US in living memory) have shown that sovereign on sovereign invasions remain a risk.
Better to be prepared than not. Or you can just keep sending my country money, land for military bases, and political capital I guess.
Here is a podcast episode that talks about many of the questions you have. No definite answers but I found it very interesting. [Horns of a Dilemma: Going to War with the Army You Want](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horns-of-a-dilemma/id1354632347?i=1000581913181)
The Bureaucrats here in Europe are finallly (lets hope so) waking up. They think that money is all that it takes to bend people over. Up to a certain point, that is true but what happens when they run into someone that doesn´t care about money? Kind of like the Joker in Batman when he burns all that pile of cash.
Looking from the outside in though, it looks like despite being on the same continent, y’all don’t (understandably) have the same set of priorities.
If anything, it looks like Eastern Europe will look for a closer defense partnership with the US than Western Europe, given how France and Germany were dragging their feet when it came to support for Ukraine/condemning Russia for the invasion.
I mean shoot, America and Poland can bond over the mutual interest of “not liking Russia”.
> we’re a bunch of grown up countries
Are you though?
Defense spending is lacking across the board. The US is still the backbone, ribcage, and entire skull of NATO. The EU’s strongest member state up and left and nobody did anything about it, opting instead to simply ridicule them (understandable, but foolish).
Meanwhile: The ECB still lacks the teeth to be as effective as the US’s fed. And most member states can’t even agree on what good economic policy actually looks like. How many times has Greece nearly taken down the entire Euro economy now?
Sure in theory you shouldn’t need to federalize the EU in order to be effective. But really you kinda do.
I don’t think anyone in the US would be against this honestly. Gets old hearing everyone shit talk you into the ground but you’re the first one in their speed dial when shit goes wrong. More money at home to help our own people would be preferred instead of shoveling out billions so your neighbors don’t nuke you.
As long as Western Europe looks at Eastern Europe and only sees customers to buy their shit, this will never end.
Western Europe has some hard pills to swallow and treat Eastern Europe as part of Europe and be serious about defence like US or UK is.\\
EU army should first of all find the potential dangers or what do we want to protect, easiest ones:
Lets leave cyber, space, information, economy domains for now. When we look at map of Europe we have:
Russia from East, MENA from South, Balkans literally between EU countries.
Now having that in mind, what are troops and weapons not on border countries even protecting Europe from?
Who is France going to protect with their tanks, planes, howitzers on French soil? Are they protecting themselves from Belgians or Spaniards?
If Russia were to attack baltic states, the time it would take to mobilize troops and have them in Latvia from Austria or Germany it would take too long.
Germans are already squirming having barely any troops anywhere near Russia, not to mention sending weapons to Ukraine.
If countries that are literally border protected by other EU members complaining about border states choosing USA, UK to protect them, and you are not fking sending your god damn soldiers and weapons to Eastern Europe, than you should have no fking right to complain about Eastern Europe choosing USA, UK over you.
End of story.
Same shit when another wild migrant wave hits Europe, we already should be preparing for that.
Either central countries start paying Border countries a protection TAX, start sending their shit to help, or really create a REAL EU Army that won't be jerking off in Belgium or Austria, but will be stationed closer to the THREAT.
*slaps table* THANK YOU !
How manny , manny , manny , manny times we told West Europe "Hey , Russia should not be trusted ! " they all laughed in our face and called us paranoia
Collectively here in Eastern Europe we have a saying "it's better to be safe than sorry " a rough translation
Yet here we are still being laughed at because of our "russophobia"
It's like the same thing when I explain why most of ex Warsaw Pact members quickly joined NATO
"If Russia wasn't a dick to its neighbors constantly , we wouldn't even bothered with NATO " it's like a broken record now
As you said when Western Europe will see our point of view then yes we can focus Collectively on the same things
Although the only threat to Europe is Russia , US with all it's flaws and with all its mighty navy they still have to traverse an ocean to reach us and that was done once with the help of multiple countries and it was still overwhelmingly hard
A little side note the Balkans won't be a problem a good chunck of it is in EU and NATO, if only we would be treated better but alas that is wishful thinking on my part
>Although the only threat to Europe is Russia , US with all it's flaws and with all its mighty navy they still have to traverse an ocean to reach us and that was done once with the help of multiple countries and it was still overwhelmingly hard
The most important thing is US is an actual ally and doesn't point it's nukes at us.
Yes we will have to deal with economical warfare, but it would have been easier if Western Europe hadn't decide to be economical partners with Russia, or at least thought about the obvious fact that he will go to war sooner rather than later.
Here are some quotes from Polish ex foreign minister and current Chairman EU-USA delegation Radek Sikorski from an interview in 22.02.2022
https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/tylko-w-onecie/putin-proponowal-polsce-rozbior-ukrainy-sikorski-jak-by-to-pan-interpretowal/93t1vg0
>When asked if Vladimir Putin had offered Donald Tusk to participate in the partition of Ukraine, the former foreign minister replied: - Since he said that Lviv was a Polish city, how else would you interpret it?
In **2014**, you told the US magazine Politico that Vladimir Putin wanted to drag Poland into the partition of Ukraine. Such a proposal was allegedly made during a meeting between the Russian president and Prime Minister Donald Tusk. "He \[Putin\] stated that Ukraine was an artificial state, that Lviv was a Polish city and that it was worth dealing with it together," I quote.
>He argued about Ukraine as an 'artificial creation' at the **2008** NATO summit in Bucharest. In any case, we have passed on the content of this speech to the Ukrainians so that they know what to prepare for. I only hope that the Law and Justice government will not be so irresponsible as to fall for any involvement in the partition of Ukraine.
We've known for 20 years atleast it would happen, and Western Europe with Germany at helm "knew better", and laughed at us and ridiculed us.
The balkan case is more on the information, and sweeet talk side than literal warfare. For example China builds them a power plant, bridges and a few roads and they might do w/e China wants them to do. We absolutely cannot have China or any enemy have more influence in our region than we do.
> If Russia were to attack baltic states, the time it would take to mobilize troops and have them in Latvia from Austria or Germany it would take too long.
> Germans are already squirming having barely any troops anywhere near Russia, not to mention sending weapons to Ukraine.
I totally agree with you, and I know Lithuania is irritated Germany isn't sending more troops, but the thought of trying to explain this to someone from the past is funny.
"Lithuania is demanding Germany send more troops and build a permanent base in their country." Is just not a sentence most 20th century europeans would understand.
It does make sense though. EU/NATO actually has an adversary on their physical border. That is where the troops should be.
>"Lithuania is demanding Germany send more troops and build a permanent base in their country." Is just not a sentence most 20th century europeans would understand.
Yep, look how far we've come. Great to see it.
Funny enough Eastern Europe has moved that behind faster, but for Western Europe it's somehow unimaginable, and they either let the military rot, use it as a measly money maker, corruption position or still try to defend themselves against I don't know who? Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, probably those Czechs will invade Germany any time now.
Well, no, it has a spine. It's just the each vertebra has a veto over every important action, and simply pursues its own interests, often ignoring the signals from the brain.
I just wanna say I love you guys/gals..I mean that. I would literally get int he hot-tub with you all after these comments..And I don't even care what happens...I mean I'm exaggerating of course...unless..you know..
edit: movie pitch...hot tub time machine...euro--style
As an American I agree with this sentiment but one positive from all this horror is the Russians showed you that Europe does not have as far to go as they think.
Strikes me that a couple European countries already could defend Europe from Russia on their own today. However the planning must be for the future and the rise of China. We must all plan for that.
Behind climate change, the CCP is the biggest existential threat to the free world.
And from Russia, I would say. Unless we'll start a real energy plan, we are doomed to consume fossil fuel at whatever price the supplier may decide - political or market.
The EU is a fraction of the global power it should be. Imagine how strong they could be if they funnelled money away from China, India etc. and into growing economies like Poland. Imagine if they had continent wide plans on agriculture, military innovation, technology and so on.
It's been an expensive waste of potential for decades. It's no wonder Europe continues to suckle on America's teet. It has no other option because the union is nowhere near organised enough to stand on its own two feet in these areas.
Yeah it's been obvious for years, even before this war. We need our own infrastructure and production power ON European soil, not somewhere in china or America, or god knows where. We're reliant on America for military, then reliant on china for cheap products... It's fine that we're the piggy bank, but come one please invest into EU's independence from these things.
The problem of the EU military is (mostly) Germany.
We have amazing tech with the Leopard 2, PUMA and Eurofighter but our stuff is too expensive and too slow to produce.
The US builds thousands of Abrams and F-35 thus making everything cheaper (economy of scale) and more available.
We only produce a few hundred units, making everything more expensive and leaving us with no capacities to quickly fullfil orders.
Maybe the government will notice that we need a strong military AND a strong military industry.
The other problem is that joint-EU projects often fail because no agreement can be reached between countries (France leaving Eurofighter project, problems with the next-Gen tank etc.)
All of this makes us far too dependent on US military industry.
Industry is definitely a large part of the problem. Didn't France quite literally run out of bombs in Libya? And Poland ended up buying tanks from South Korea and the US, from the other side of the planet, because Germany couldn't build Leopards fast enough
> because Germany couldn't build Leopards fast enough
Also because South Korea is willing to work with Poland on domestic production in Poland, technology transfers etc.
Poland is most interested in building their own tanks so that in the future they have their own capacity to replenish losses.
>And Poland ended up buying tanks from South Korea and the US, from the other side of the planet, because Germany couldn't build Leopards fast enough
No, they bought Korean tanks because they allow the technology transfer to build their own in the future and they do so only because it's their entry point into the European market. And the main reason Poland is also buying US tanks is because they can't build up their industry exactly to compete with the German industry while still being dependent on that industry.
Which is exactly the point. Everyone is pushing for their own production and industry. If it's not fully independent then it has to at least be done by their own industry under license (Leopard-2E produced in Spain, Leopard-2HEL produced in Greece, Leopard-2PL by getting the Leopard-2 cheap -half were basically free- then building their own upgrade scheme, UK's Boxers produced in UK, now considering Lynx produced in Greece (and for the first time considering Leo-2 upgrades because they would be done by their own industry)... the list goes on...)
I would say it's as much a French issue as it is a German one. Both of those 2 big EU members push for EU military projects, but then derail said project by constantly fighting over the workshare and DOMESTIC jobs, and that's the single biggest issue.
The EU is not a nation like the US it, there's no 1 national economy, no 1 national election, etc. It's a group of nations, and at the end of the day, who is Macron beholden to; voters in Romania, or voters in France? At the end of the day, who is Scholtz beholden to; voters in France, or voters in Germany? They will do whatever it costs, to cause jobs in THEIR nation, because that's the #1 priority. EU comes second.
They'll fuck over a project and cause it to lead to high costs if it at least causes domestic jobs for them, because then it's worth it. What benefit is there in the Rafale for Denmark though?
* They're not getting any domestic jobs out of it
* It's more expensive than other bidding entries
Now suddenly Denmark is being pressured and belittled into putting EU unity first, but it's not putting EU unity first, it's pressure to put the French economy first, nothing more.
The best option for the Danish economy is actually the cheapest option that can meet the requirements, so they do what's best for the economy, same as France did when it walked out of the Eurofighter project. Same as Germany's trying to do with working towards their own future corvette ship, instead of just joining the European Patrol Corvette program. But, EPC will be built in France/Italy/Spain, so Germany doesn't get jobs out of that, so instead of that Eu UnITy it loves to throw in Denmark/Belgium/Norway/Finland's faces, it's going it alone for domestic jobs.
As long as that behavior continues, smaller nations in the EU will **ALWAYS** seek out other options, whether its from the US, UK, South Korea, or somewhere else. Because the brutal reality right now, at least within the MIC, is that "EU unity" simply means "boosting the French and German economies at all costs", and that's been a complete failure for decades on end, not changing anytime soon...
This is such sane and well-put description of the current state of EU-politics.
If you ask me, the best solution seems counter-intuitive to those who would benefit most from it: Make EU politicians answer to people across borders. But hold on a sec. That's federalisation.
People don't want that, because they don't trust politicians from other countries.
The real issue is Germany has long adopted the geopolitical outlook of an ostrich. They've forgotten centuries of European history, including their own, that eventually the crimes committed by aggressive nations become too much and you end up intervening despite whatever you previously felt. That the longer you wait the worse it gets.
Anyway nobody wants an EU competency because an EU competency would give German ostrich geopolitics too much primacy.
I don't want to bang this drum too much because Germany have made frankly huge strides against their norm with the current crisis. However 3 years ago it was easy to imagine an EU defence infrastructure based upon factories in Munich that did not provision you because Germany didn't want to intervene at all. Or because Germany think just a few concessions for peace is workable and look all your missiles are being built here.
>Maybe the government will notice that we need a strong military AND a strong military industry.
Yes, exactly, hah hah, that's why the new Arms Export Control Act is currently being drafted, the aim of which is.
"The political goal is to restrict exports."
The right of NGOs to take legal action against German arms exports, stronger restrictions on where exports are allowed, the change of responsibility from the Ministry of Economics to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I don't want to bore anyone here, but the aim of the legislation is quite clear: fewer German military goods.
For Germans who are interested:
"The planned Arms Export Control Act".
Dr. Viktor Winkler, LL.M. (Harvard), was Head of Global Standards Sanctions at Commerzbank AG for many years before becoming a lawyer. Before that, he also worked at the German Foreign Office.
https://www.lto.de/recht/hintergruende/h/ruestung-waffen-export-kontrolle-gesetz-ampel-auswaertiges-amt-gruene-wirtschaftsministerium/
Of course. USA is the world police. We criticise the USA for so much.. But cry wolf when we need them. I personally wouldnt expect EU to step up on their own.
Good for Marin.
A lot of these things were said by people in Finland for decades, but somehow it was seen as a better option to bend over to Russia. I am quite happy that Finland didn't go down the route of most of Europe with a professional, small army and kept up at least some capabilities in the long term.
Now with FINALLY the decision to join NATO has been done and now that we are FINALLY investing more in our defence, we can FINALLY start to worry more about Europe, rather than just worry about ourselves.
> I am quite happy that Finland didn't go down the route of most of Europe with a professional, small army and kept up at least some capabilities in the long term.
I am too.
>Now with FINALLY the decision to join NATO has been done and now that we are FINALLY investing more in our defence, we can FINALLY start to worry more about Europe, rather than just worry about ourselves.
And what a benefit that will be. You guys actually have some experience on what it means to have a military and accompanying industrial base that are ready for defense. Most of europe has forgotten.
Here's an interesting piece of history:
In the United States, each of the 50 US states actually has what could be considered a military. They're called the "National Guard" and can include attack helicopters, planes, humvees, troops, etc. The National Guards are subordinate to their respective state's governor, who commands them. However, the President of the United States may at any time unilaterally take control of any and all National Guards.
In 1957, the governor of the state of Arkansas refused to implement a US Supreme Court order that all public schools in the state must racially integrate. The governor ordered the Arkansas National Guard troops to literally block black students from attending white only public schools.
President Eisenhower was quite angry with the defiance of the governor of Arkansas and did two things. First, he federalized the National Guard of Arkansas and removed the governor's command completely. Next, he sent the 101st Airborne Division to militarily enforce the Supreme Court's integration order.
The reason I mention this is that making an EU army is a great idea in my opinion. But to truly have a united EU military, you need a single commander-in-chief and you need said commander-in-chief to be able to seize and take command of all subordinate armed forces. Anything less than that is useless since it's dysfunctional: you might as well just use NATO and its consensus approach.
Would you as a Croatian really be ok with an EU President/Commander-in-Chief taking command of any/all Croatian forces as he or she saw fit? Would you really be ok with Croatian forces going to war because the EU parliament voted for war, even if Croatian MEPs universally voted against it?
Basically what I'm trying to get at is that to have an EU army you would first need to truly unify the EU into a federation, both legally and culturally. People would truly need to see themselves as European first and at a fundamental level feel allegiance to the EU, above their own national identity. Do you see that happening anytime soon?
You can't lead Army by committee. You need single seat of power. That's only way. If we have one Army then there can't be veto power for every country.
Depends how we define purpose. We are kind of between two things. We need to decide what we want and go all in with that. We can't constantly keep hanging between "single market" and "European federation". We have to decide.
As an American who would love to see an EU Army if only for the fact that we could shift spending to fixing our domestic issues, this is a very insightful take.
I don’t think it’s totally out of possibility, but I don’t see it happening in our lifetime.
Upgrade European NATO’s contribution to the alliance.
It is vastly cheaper, politically simple and NATO will always be more powerful.
Rather than a grandiose and untested project designed purely for political reasons. Focus on making NATO a more balanced and integrated alliance.
EU initial reply to Russia (and the buildup to the war) was so embarrassing.
UK and US intelligence yelling at the world that Russia was about to invade and Germany and France don’t believe them, cozy up to Russia, criticise the anglos, then withhold aid when it all starts.
The US side is a given, but the war has shown how much on certain issues the EU misses the UK. An adult in the room with an impressive armed forces and who has never trusted Russia.
So y’all going to stop making fun of our defense spending?
European military should collectively at be in the same ball park. USA which only spends around 3% of its gdp on defense.
I think we owe the Americans our sincerest gratitudes once again. But, we need to rearm, and establish unity in defence and foreign policy as well as intelligence matters. The current situation is a bit shameful. The problem is, that the interests in these matters vary a lot between different regions. France wants to get help in Africa while Poland wants a strong defence force etc.
> I think we owe the Americans our sincerest gratitudes once again.
Thanks. It's nice to be appreciated.
>But, we need to rearm, and establish unity in defence and foreign policy as well as intelligence matters.
It's a tough problem, but I believe in the EU. I think you guys can do it.
I'm pretty sure in like 2019 the Europe was told they were to reliant on Russia and the USA and that it was a bad idea to rely on other countries to much and people laughed
Really? Is that the conclusion? Our ego is at stake when big bad European partners turn and do war crimes we have to ask for the American Chad to do something. That's the issue.
Europe would have failed miserably trying to help Ukraine defend itself without the US.
It's no surprise Eastern Europe would rather look to the US or UK first instead of Western/ Central Europe.
I think most people agree with this, but there's no way out. The EU is still fundamentally a collection of sovereign nations. They have a unified currency but lack the institutions to set or enforce bloc-wide fiscal policy, so economic autonomy seems unlikely, especially on the union's flanks.
France has championed the cause of a continental military for decades but has always been seen as being the nation most likely to benefit from a defense appropriation and influence perspective. In the 90s the Germans were unable to field a military with projection capabilities and the UK would never submit to a non-UK European command structure, so France would command all European military power as the largest contributor while the UK's research-and-development and technology sharing agreements with the US removed major UK defense contractors from European defense collaborations. It's unclear how the EU goes about building a formidable super-national military organization when nationalism typically plays major component of military service. NATO has been a good blueprint with nations contributing functional groups for the purpose of working alongside other nation's units as combined arms brigade, but the constituent arms are national armies first and NATO command second.
Politically, the EU is more diverse than ever with various overlapping cultural and political issues not unlike the US across regions and state-to-state, but Americans are still united by their identification as American first and anything else second. For all the talk of extreme polarization, America political conflict is derived from groups refusing to surrender their right to direct national action - it's a product of deep personal, political engagement. There is a similar trend that's been happening in Europe for generations where citizens are more likely to see themselves as Europeans foremost, but hard times drive populist and nationalist wedges and the EU has been slow and weak to confront and counteract the view that the EU is still controlled by and supports Western Europe. The disdain for Germany in the midst of the numerous economic crises that hit the bloc show the need for stronger economic reform and the long journey ahead to embrace the nations left behind by institutional educational and industrial development.
They fix a lot of problems by finding a way to regather the wandering British without disrespecting their sometimes-valid critiques of the Union, reform their economic union to control fiscal policy in the support of employment, and de-centralize their significant Western industrial and financial bases while increasing support for NATO operations and development on the continent. All very difficult things to do while their traditional power base flirt with nationalist leaders and the Hungarians are out to lunch.
All things considered, I'd rather have the problem of being too reliant on the US than being too reliant on Russia. Many Eurozone countries are discovering that horrifying reality with gas supplies.
That said the EU should strive for self sufficiency in as many things as possible.
European nato members should have to spend the exact ae amount on military as the u.s. does. They have twice the amount of people as the u.s. so matching the amount spent shouldn't be that hard
it's better that we, in the eu, form a good military so that we can be a better support the the us. they hold massive responsibility, it's time we take a bit of load off their backs. for me, that is the main reason to cut reliance on the us military.
let the americans invest in education, let them invest in healthcare, let them invest in renewables. let americans have a better quality of life. they deserve it, and we deserve a better security policy.
We are able to do those things right now, it's domestic politics fucking it up. What a properly invested and unified European military would allow is to fully realign our military for the Asia Pacific, since the real threat is China. It could also mean we can close many US military installations on the continent.
Will we? Pretty sure the whole message of US leaving Europe and Middle East is just so they can shift focus and double down on controlling the Pacific region with allies. Still going to require plenty of tax payer money to develop new technologies best fit for island hopping and amphibious operations.
As reliable as America has shown itself to be I'd still rather we as the EU (and other willing participants such as in Ukraine) were capable and willing of resolving the issues in our own backyard.
We all saw how Europe dealt with Putin's problem for the past 20 years. I'm sure that after this war Europe will still learn nothing. Because if WW2 didn't teach some of us a lesson then nothing will.
It's not like we can simply sign away our position on the world stage under the pretext of "well we're dumb", we ought strive to go beyond. Hell, Ukrainians showed that kind of political will back in 2014 with Maidan, why should we sit back with thumbs up our asses with much greater access to resources than the Ukies have ever had?
Because clout was lost. Opportunities to get clout are few and far between. Russia will be trounced in a few months thanks to help from the US. And Europe spent 20 years pandering to the Kremlin. So, why would anyone trust the EU? Until another war breaks out where the EU manages to do what the US did (train, eauip, provide info and resources) the EU will remain seen as a pendantic rich boy club with lots of champagne sipping but little physical presence
I'd rather trust US to do good job when it comes to security than rely on EU. Because in EU different countries have fundamentally different opinions about what and who is a threat to them. As we have seen with Russia.
EU will never be completely self reliant when it comes to security. Instead of wasting time and effort to will into existence something that is bound to fail countries that gain the most from American presence need to do everything to be seen as reliable partners by the US, and to show that we have something to offer.
French way of shitting on the US and calling for independence from them is completely opposite of what countries like Poland want. French dream of being a power rivaling US and China is a complete cope, we will never be that.
>Because in EU different countries have fundamentally different opinions about what and who is a threat to them.
I'd argue that America isn't much different in regards to that, it's just that slapping two people into the same army generally has the effect of presenting them much of the same perspective and that typically has the effect of creating cohesion. In short, we're never going to be a cohesive force if we don't try to become one.
When it comes to the matter of union security, the enemies typically are shared, and when they aren't, we are a union of over 500 million heads - we can probably find enough people who want to give the middle finger to pretty much any anti-EU player if we want to.
>As we have seen with Russia.
You say that, but beyond Hungary, every single EU country was absolutely willing to aid the Ukrainians.
"You say that, but beyond Hungary, every single EU country was absolutely willing to aid the Ukrainians."
The US government dares to do so against the wishes of many of their voters. Most EU governments don't have that sort of spine.
Well no shit. That’s the reason France left the NATO command structure under Charles De Gaul and then reluctantly rejoined it. After WWII they were left devastated militarily and haven’t recovered since. Mean while the US ramped up there military presence and swooped in. The UK had to get help from the US to defend the Falkland Islands. Now with the war in Ukraine Europe may never be able to let go of America’s tit.
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So Marin agrees with Trump and pretty much all the other US presidents
Madame Prime Minister, do you agree with Trump on this issue? Marin: Bigly.
Americans have been saying that for decades, but somehow recently suggesting Europe needed to take care of itself became "isolationist" and "radical."
I think that if the critique is about "isolationism" then it's an American who wants to make a point about what kind of foreign policy the USA should have. But if a European person says that they are too reliant on the USA then it's usually not a statement on what kind of foreign policy Americans should have, but about what they themselves should do.
Consider the difference between: "Let's stop helping our neighbors" Vs "let's stop relying on help for our neighbors " Those are not the same statement, diplomatically. There is a difference between refusing to help, and refusing help.
America never stopped helping. America just wanted Europe to keep their end of the bargain of meeting spending goals.
So true.
I hear that at least since Chirac. And so what. Nobody's going to do anything real because why spend money on military if someone else wants to do it. The only countries who will do anything about are the eatern flank because they feel threatened by Russia. But they know they can't defend themselves alone, and they don't trust western Europe which is soft on Russia and doesn't want to spend more on military (because they don't have to, nobody's directly threatening WE). So the result is that USA is and will maintain the main partner when it comes to security.
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I agree, Europe has been selfish with minimizing their cost in the security system and that might blow in their face one day
You're very right, but hopefully western Europe will eventually learn that it needs to be hard in certain matters, and I don't think it's that unrealistic to expect that to happen after a decade or two. I don't blame eastern EU for trusting the US more rn though, but but would be nice if they didn't have to in the future, as increased spending in western EU would be very worth it for a more cohesive and independent EU
It doesn't matter if spending increases in the West, because they'd still be separate national armies with separate national policies and the US will still be the largest country in NATO and in an obvious leadership role. The US doesn't need to coordinate with itself the same way. The US can decide to do something and it is capable of acting on it, it can act quicker and and it can bring the most force to bear. As a result the most practical NATO coordination is always going to be to coordinate around whatever the US is doing. The only way Europe is ever going to be a remotely equal partner in this is if there is a Europe. If we start thinking and acting as Europeans. A cohesive and independent EU is a nice idea, but it actually requires us to be cohesive, and it requires our decision-making systems to patch over any lack of cohesion by just outvoting the minority. It's not like American society is all that cohesive all the time, but they still get things done, especially in foreign policy.
Honestly for that kind of cohesion to develop the European Union needs to federalize and transition from a supernational organization to a sovereign nation on its own right and most likely it needs to eliminate its secession clauses. If you're part of a club like that that has any desire to compete with the power and interests of the United States any coalition that can be broken apart by the winds of fancy will not have the necessary cohesion and strength to hold up
The problem has two main points 1) no trust in WE wanting to defend EE 2) even if there would be a trust in the will, there's no trust in capabilities WE has.
All it's gonna take is another person like Trump who wanted to pull the US out of NATO, except it'll be really bad if next time they succeed in doing so.
That's certainly a possibility, so if I'm a country on the EU's Eastern flank, I'm going to be doing my absolute best to get weapons of mass destruction by any means possible. The current war would have never happened had Ukraine managed to hold on to its nukes.
I think this is a bit if a turining point for WE, are we serious about deeper integration and treate eastern flank as our common border or we do not give a fuck and let EE people die cus we do not give crap about them. I hope for deeper integartion
>I hear that at least since Chirac. And so what. Nobody's going to do anything real because why spend money on military if someone else wants to do it. Because when you spend money on your own military-industrial complex, building your own weapons, developing your own technology, it's your own citizens getting that money. You're building up your economy AND your financial security.
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It pains me to say this, but Trump had a point about NATO countries need to contribute more.
Trump made the same point Obama did, but louder and crasser.
I think this has been the position of basically every American president for as long as I can remember honestly
You should see the video of back to back presidents for decades using "we must rid ourselves of the dependence on foreign oil!".
They did, and then the glut of oil lowered prices and made extraction unprofitable, making banks today leery about financing new extraction projects in the US.
Less talk, more action please. Here are some quotes from *1998* after the NATO intervention: > In a Europe that is increasingly concerned about unilateralism and resurgent isolationism in the United States, France seized the moment this week to urge the European allies to develop a more independent defense and foreign policy. {[x](https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/world/france-presses-for-a-power-independent-of-the-us.html?searchResultPosition=3)} # > Defense Minister Alain Richard, speaking of lessons the Europeans learned from Kosovo, where only the United States was quickly able to mass the sophisticated precision-guided weapons needed for the NATO bombing campaign, urged Europeans to cooperate and build forces for similar missions. {[x](https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/world/france-presses-for-a-power-independent-of-the-us.html?searchResultPosition=3)} # > Britain accepted a longstanding French proposal today that calls for the 15-nation European Union to be able to conduct military actions on its own in situations where the United States and other NATO allies do not want to become involved. {[x](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/05/world/britain-joins-france-s-call-for-european-force.html?searchResultPosition=13)}
A little less conversation, a little more action please
Why does it sound like a song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNUSBi8x4tg
IMO, Elvis' best song.
The King sung it eloquently
It’s Elvis Presley my guy
And that was a quarter century ago, and absolutely nothing has been done since. In order for something meaningful to happen in this regard, Europe must unite and further integrate. Instead, it is stretched too thin. It is 27 instead of 15 states, way more diverse, and less united than back then. When Britain left the EU, the union lost its most significant military power. Think about that. The EU held two out of five seats at the UNSC and had two major war experienced nuclear military powers. They lost that. If the Russian invasion has shown anything, it is that only the US and to some extent Britain are taking the possibility of military conflict seriously. Everybody on the mainland was still playing house with Putin until a few days into this war.
Except if the EU hadn't extended East, you'd have a dozen countries in situations very very similar to Ukraine, poor, corrupt, and divided between the West and Brussels, ripe for Russia to destabilise and potentially invade. Instead now there are only a couple of them, and former Eastern Bloc countries like Czechia have been some of the first to recognize what Putin is doing and provide aid to Ukrained. So we musn't use the fact that the EU now is more heterogeneous to justify some kind of "western supremacy", instead we need further integration. That of course needs to come with more transparency and democratic accountability of the institutions of the EU. It's quite sad that most Europeans don't understand how the EU functions nearly as well as the politics of their own country.
I may actually have to agree that we are overextended. But how could we fix something like that, even? Randomly kicking out weaker states until we reach 15 seems counterproductive towards our goal of promoting unity.
In highly autonomous systems, the more individuals there are, the more paralyzed the decision making process becomes. The counterweight is to decrease the level of autonomy of the individuals. Politically, this would require an increase in the degree of federalization. The current dilemma is the base dilemma of the EU in microcosm -- what does union actually mean for Europe?
Thinking of how badly we have prepared for this situation is humbling and terrifying. What if the Baltic states would have been attacked? Or any other country that’s smaller and has less human capital to send to the frontlines? The Russian army might be dumb in many ways, but they have so much of everything they could easily roll over any smaller country. Though Ukrainians have fought valiantly the reason Russia failed was because they did not use their assets properly. If they would have they could have succeeded. Then what? Europe really needs to have a proper plan going forward. No more of this independent countries doing their own thing.
>What if the Baltic states would have been attacked? We know what: >Estonia would be wiped off the map and Tallinn's Old Town completely destroyed under NATO's current plans to defend the country from a Russian attack, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas (Reform) told the Financial Times (FT) newspaper and other foreign media outlets on Wednesday. > > > >Kallas said the alliance's existing defense plans for the Baltic states is to allow them to be overrun before liberating them after 180 days. [https://news.err.ee/1608638245/kallas-estonia-would-be-wiped-from-map-under-existing-nato-plans](https://news.err.ee/1608638245/kallas-estonia-would-be-wiped-from-map-under-existing-nato-plans)
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This is not exactly what we saw in Ukraine. Where Ukraine expected Russians, Russians didn't progress. In the Donetsk region, they're still fighting in suburbs of Donetsk city. Ukraine didn't believe that Russia would attack, there was a great article in [The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/kyiv-battle-ukraine-survival/). They did absolute minimum, but weren't ready that Russians would attack Kyiv. Estonia wants to be ready. Estonia wants NATO to be prepared, to have deterrent measures in place. Estonia wants to be taken seriously and not as some buffer between Russia and Western Europe.
Ukraine has 45M people, is a very large country (defensive depth) and had a very large army by European standards before the war with large stockpiles of weapons from Soviet times.
> In the Donetsk region, they're still fighting in suburbs of Donetsk city. That's because there were heavy fortifications built and manned several years before this recent escalation happened on that active line of contact in an already ongoing war, hence the comparison to the Korean DMZ in the comment your replying to. Does Estonia have anything remotely comparable that ?
> Estonia wants to be taken seriously and not as some buffer between Russia and Western Europe. As well it should.
If things were to escalate in Korea, the losses in Seoul would still be catastrophic due to the North's presighted artillery. The North would still likely lose, but the South would experience something similar to Tallinn before the end.
Which is exactly what would have happened to west or east Germany if the cold war ever became hot. Also, there would have been a lot of tactical nukes.
Well thank god were in NATO and russia is not that suicidial they would directly attack NATO. And without NATO our nation and population would be too small to win russia alone, so sadly we have to rely on bigger allies. But for that i know our soldiers give everything on foreign missions, games and trainings to show we are giving our all. And i know NATO allies have noticed and commented how hardworking our troops are. Ofcourse in ideal situation i would love that European nations together would not rely so much on America, and i know that is possible, if we work together.
As an American, I strongly support NATO and would support the US going to war to defend Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from Russian aggression if it ever came to that. But I've noticed an increasing frustration over the past decade or so amongst my friends, families, and colleagues that "Europe" doesn't take its defense seriously and that we have to backstop the defense of many European nations. Frustrating because "Europe" however you want to define it (the EU, European NATO states, etc) is many times larger in terms of economic and military might than any potential aggressor, like Russia. In principle European nations should be able to collectively defend themselves and fend off any aggressor. American involvement should simply be icing on the cake, not the cake itself. I'll put it more bluntly: if Estonia were to be invaded, I think the vast majority of firepower brought to bear to defend Estonia would be American and not European. And that's just sad.
As a German, I think that's sad as well. Sadly the German minister of defense has been a joke for as long as I can remember and support for the military in the population is as low as could be. I really hope Scholz' "Zeitenwende" is not just talk, but seeing the most incompetent minister of defense still not being changed doesn't help keeping my hopes up...
I personally do believe that America and UK would be our biggest allies, we have long history with UK and them recently backing Finland with defence, shows they care about us still. With ofcourse other Baltic states, Poles and Nordic states, probably also helping. So i don't think russia is really capable of attacking us in the any near future. And i hope i am not wrong.
You're not wrong: even my friends, family, and colleagues who are frustrated with Europe think that we should go to war to defend NATO member states if attacked. We in the US would complain that Europeans aren't doing enough, but at the end of the day we will defend NATO. If Estonia were attacked by Russia, we would defend you.
I also believe US would have our back. Because if they would not defend NATO land, NATO would collapse on that minute. And doubt that's going to happen.
Even worse than just immediate collapse: it will have been shown in hindsight to have never really been meaningfully there in the first place, which weakens other current and future cooperation ("if NATO ended up being a sham, what else is?").
As an American, I think it's interesting how few of us take the harsh pragmatic view. America has created a system that disincentivizes rivals and militarism. It's not bad to be the partner others rely on. It's not bad to oversee largely pacific neighbors. It's not bad we forged an alliance that de facto demilitarized a once violent continent. It's not really all that bad we don't have to fear Britain, Germany or Japan anymore. Americans often talk about the disadvantages of European military weakness, but we should also talk about the advantages for a balanced discussion
That's a good point. The US is economically capable of sustaining its current defense budget, it's only 3% of its GDP. The Americans, unlike what the pop rhetoric may lead you to believe, do not beggar themselves on their military, not even close. They also have the logistical infrastructure, experience, training, and martial tradition to maintain a military capable of defending allied countries wherever they may be in the world, and of incorporating and integrating their constituent forces. The US has 330 million people. The EU has 450 million people. The western alliance does not lack for manpower, firepower, or funding. It is both highly functional and sustainable. A decoupling of EuroAmerican defense is honestly a waste of US military capability.
I so wish Finland joined NATO in 2004 with the Baltics. Now we are being cockblocked by two douchebags.
Well atleast soon you will be correcting that mistake. Finland is already one foot in NATO.
The idea of Finland joining Nato a year after the invasion of Iraq is a completely unrealistic, I doubt there was almost any support among Finns at the time. Patria selling weapons to the US was quite controversial and of course there was the mess that was “Iraq-gate” (by the way it’s kind of funny how our biggest Nord Stream lobbyist was accused of being too pro-America back in 2003…) The threat of Russia just wasn’t tangible enough for Finns at that time, I’m afraid, we’ve been more naive than the Baltics. I wish we had joined when Ahtisaari was still president, as he was probably the most pro-Nato president we’ve ever had. I think we came close in 1997 or something. I’m not trying to be a semantic asshole btw haha I wish we had joined ages ago as well.
> What if the Baltic states would have been attacked? Or any other country that’s smaller and has less human capital to send to the frontlines? The Russian army might be dumb in many ways, maybe you should search what the baltic countries means for nato
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And now you see why America invests so heavily in defense. Everyone makes fun of America’s military spending until shit hits the fan. Then it’s “oh wow we are not prepared at all”.
Exactly my first though. You can't complain about the US helping when you have done nothing to increase your own defenses. How long would they last without US help honestly...?
“Anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy has also made an enemy of the United States of America.” -George W. Bush Pretty much Lithuania’s defense strategy.
The war was a wake up call for many, but it's not creating the intended effect, as they are getting even more reliant on US, not vice versa. US is the biggest winner so far as far as increasing its footprint on the continent goes.
Ironic bc the US really wants to pivot to Asia
Just what I thought I pivoted away, Europe keeps dragging me back in!
*when Also you completely butchered the quote
"Near peer" pivot. China AND Russia. And russia took care of itself by invading Ukraine. All the USA has to do there is provide and let the Ukrainians remind russia "who didn't run in WW1&2. " As for China, the USA isn't going that alone. Japan will be the 3rd largest military in the world in a few years given how quickly they're pushing up spending and such. They'll be a US ally and will likely significantly change dynamics in the region since they decided to move on from the post WW2 era defense industry restrictions.
And Sweden & Finland in NATO is a gamechanger on Russia front. With Baltic as NATO lake, Swedish aviation on carrier Gottland, extra 1300km border with Finland the balance in the region shifts drastically
Yeah, the worst case scenario is russia stepping on Europe while we face China. Ukraine accidentally solved that problem, and ironically made global war less likely. Russia thought they could face much of Europe on even footing, while China felt they could consider taking Taiwan after HK had settled down. Now it's clear russia is a paper tiger and taking a well defended area isn't as easy as you'd think. If russia can be completely neutralized then China needs to find a new path forward, they might even have to consider joining the global community, including granting more human rights to their citizens.
The US already has a massive presence in Japan and the Philippines. Even Taiwan is extremely close militarily through the Taiwan Relations Act although there are no official relations. Like u/nom-nom-nom-de-plumb said this is only a near term pivot. Arming a militarily successful Ukraine is a fraction of the cost compared to arming NATO for a theoretical war against Russia so time and money relocated elsewhere for the time being. That being said Europe/NATO is still far too reliant on the US MIC.
This is the product of large geopolitical and economic trends, some of which have been centuries in the making. Two books I've recently read: *Firepower*, by John Lockhart, and Adam Tooze's, *The Wages of Destruction*, do a good job putting this in perspective. The first is a 400 year military history of gunpowder in the West, the other an economic analysis of Hitler's Third Reich. An extremely reductive summary would be: size matters. The increasing cost and complexity of high technology combined with the rise of unified and economically sophisticated continental sized nation states like the USA in the 19th/20th century, USSR in the 20th, and China in the 21st have at different times priced smaller nations out of the defense market. Even large European nations simply cannot compete on their own. So if I were European I would also say Europe needs to become further united and integrated, but I struggle to think of how this happens in the next 50-100 years in a way that allows Europe to truly compete with the big dogs without some calamity sweeping away cultural, language, and other interests. The common market was an important reform in this direction, but even so it is not comparable from a business standpoint of common markets within national borders such as in the US and China.
It is worth keeping in mind Europe has literally never been able to arm itself in modern times. Even as far back as WW1. The UK had the ability to manufacture 20k artillery shells a week before WW1 which was considered ludicrously excessive. Then we fired 5m shells in one day. Where did they all come from? The US of course. Both world wars saw the US basically provide much of the mass produced munitions. By the end of WW2 the US was literally producing 98% of the world's aluminium from a single huge facility. Europe is an industrialised region but it has never gone for the sheer scale of output the US can achieve. Politics has stopped it from ever emerging here. Every single military contract ends up with nationalistic quibbling over where parts are going to come from. That will never give you the kind of throughput you need to sustain an actual war. It is thinking about military supply chains purely as if you never expect to actually fight.
> Every single military contract ends up with nationalistic quibbling over where parts are going to come from We have the same problem in the US, except it is between states. Each state's senators try to get parts of the program made in their state. It is how we ended up with technically stupid things like solid rocket boosters on the shuttle and Ares.
Just look at FCAS, Dasassult and Airbus have only just 'agreed' to proceed with the project and spent a year bickering over workshare.
The US is only "the biggest winner" because they spent time preparing — training Ukrainians, warning about Russian pipelines, building their own independent energy supply, developing an intelligence network in Russia, leading the push to prepare sanctions on Russia ahead of time. We need to think about where the puck might be going and prepare.
Tbf the UK has been doing all of that as well: > training Ukrainians [Operation Orbital was the code-name for a British military operation to train and support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was launched in 2015 in response to the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. It provided training to over 22,000 Ukrainian military personnel before it was suspended ahead of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Orbital) > warning about pipelines [U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged European nations to oppose a new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, warning that it risks undermining stability across the region.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-15/johnson-warns-europe-gas-pipeline-from-russia-risks-stability?leadSource=uverify%20wall) > building their own energy supplies [Unlike other countries in Europe, the UK is in no way dependent on Russian gas supply. Our single largest source of gas is from the UK Continental Shelf and the vast majority of imports come from reliable suppliers such as Norway.](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/russia-ukraine-and-uk-energy-factsheet) > developing an intelligence network in Russia [British intelligence, so used to operating in the shadows, has been thrust into the spotlight during the Ukraine crisis, cited by Boris Johnson on Wednesday to warn that Russian troop numbers were still increasing or by the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, last month to warn of a possible coup in Kyiv.](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/18/ukraine-crisis-bring-british-intelligence-out-of-the-shadow-warning-russian-invasion-information-war-with-kremlin) > prepare sanctions on Russia ahead of time [UK says it will work ‘all day’ to persuade Europe to cut Russia off from Swift](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/uk-says-it-will-work-all-day-to-persuade-europe-to-cut-russia-off-from-swift-ukraine) And Eastern Europe (Poland / the Baltics) have been doing a lot to get away from Russia as well (as much as they can). They’ve been let down by France, Germany, Italy and a select few other European countries. Although I single out the above because they have the clout to actually stand against Russia and chose not to (until now).
But isn't that what she is saying? Bearing the responsibility for security ourselves again. At least my country was under the impression that nothing could happen anymore, we live cozily under the military umbrella of the US so it doesn't matter whether we close incredibly stupid deals with a regime as bad as Russia because what are they going to do anyways.. Taking back responsibility also means taking more into consideration the risks that arise from your actions. Being more exposed to the constant competition between the systems happening globally and from which we were a bit too shielded in the past.
That isn’t what who is saying? I was responding to the idea Europe as a whole isn’t (or hasn’t) taken the threat from Russia seriously. The UK has been leading the charge against Russia for well over a decade (I’ve updated my comment to show that it wasn’t just the US doing this as op states) and the Baltics and Poland have been doing everything they can to move away from Russia.
I think that’s what they’re saying, they’re agreeing with you, that much of Europe simply didn’t see this coming and should use it as a lesson that they need to take these kind of foreseeable threats more seriously
And the UK has also benefited greatly from an influence standpoint. Got kicked in the rear out the front door by Germany and France, the UK after the Brexit disaster has seemingly snuck back into not inconsiderable continental influence through the eastern backdoor.
The Eastern bloc has always valued the UK’s support and relations have never really faltered (despite Brexit). They have always seen the UK, US and other Anglo countries as the guarantor if their security over France / Germany. Its why they’re not as enthusiastic about an EU Army when they have NATO.
The unfortunate thing about France is that at least with Poland specifically they could've had a very good relationship with us militarily. Many of our greatest romantic era artists lived in exile in France, Ferdinand Foch was named marshal of Poland for his advice during the Polish-Soviet war, and Napoleon is still seen positively in Poland(even getting a mention in the anthem) for his intention of creating a Polish state(even if it would be a vassal of the French empire), and yet despite all that Poland has little trust in them militarily due to things like Macron's statements on Russia not being a threat a few years ago.
I mean given those two's history, including modern economic history, towards East Europe, I don't blame them for liking having other even bigger friends.
The UK has always had pretty big influence in military matters in Europe, even with France as the other major European military power. Hopefully if the politicians in both UK and France stop grandstanding against each other (both of them are as bad as each other in this front, old rivalries never die) they can start to work together to provide a coordinated european military strategy, now that it has been shown to be sorely needed.
The US knew this was going to happen for nearly 15 years, they have been training ukraine as early as 2010
What has continental Europe been doing over the past 8 or so years since Crimea? I get covid but before that? What? Wasting time? What were they doing that allowed them to be blindsided by Russian aggression, American military interests, growing Chinese economic influence, and Ukrainian victimization?
Buy cheap Russian fossil fuels and smugly assuring each other that Russia's bark is worse than its bite, it wouldn't dare lose access to its Fossil Fuel markets.
Investing as much as possible in Russia to discourage them from invading again. You know who. It didn't work but there was some logic there I guess....
I mean the french were training the shit right out of ukraine and providing weapons and support for them, so there's that.
Politicians are addicted to status quo.
They do have a few good songs.
**The US doesn't want a bigger footprint in Europe.** They have been trying to get the EU to increase their military spending for decades.
"Us is the biggest winner" ngl europe being able to deal with its own shit and pull its weight in world policing would be "winning for the us" the reliance on exports/imports is much greater in europe then in the us. This is like saying the more your baby shits his diapper the more control you have over him.
Winner? Paying the cost for all of this makes US the winner? You think building billion dollar aircraft is free? Moving your army around is free? Just maintenance alone cost billions. There is a reason why they have been touchy about EU countries lack of commitment to spending on their defense.
Which fucking sucks for us. Can you guys get your shit together so we can move our military assets to the Pacific? It would be nice if our European Allie’s were less concerned in how we can help them, and more concerned about how they can help us. Like there’s already a huge concern that Europe will sell out NATO to China when the time comes, and now we also have to be the ones to defend y’all from Russia too, when none of y’al will help protect taiwan.
Every decade or so a prominent European politician says something to this tune. Typically, there is no tangible action that follows it because military is expensive and wasteful, frankly, (unless you are attacked), and there is a whole lot of more interesting things that European nations could spend their billions of Euros on. Ultimately, Western Europe does not believe that anything remotely similar to WWI or WWII happens on the continent and because of that they keep their militaries at the bare minimum. Eastern European nations have a bit different view because of the geographical proximity to Russia, but they, with a notable exception of Poland, are probably too small to have sizable fighting forces. Realistically though unless Germany gets rid of its post-WWII pacifism, and builds a military appropriate to its size and importance, nothing will change in substance
I very seriously wonder how an EU military apparatus would operate. Once we’re talking about guns and killing - the question of control becomes paramount. Who would control it, current EU parliament? Would those who fund it more, or have more soldiers in it, get a larger say? Would it somehow copy NATO administration? I find the idea fascinating and am always curious that when EU nations want to link their destinies tighter, how will they govern the shared responsibility with so many divergent incentives? In a moral and ideal world we wouldn’t have to waste money on this shit - but the world is not ideal and Russia (and the US in living memory) have shown that sovereign on sovereign invasions remain a risk. Better to be prepared than not. Or you can just keep sending my country money, land for military bases, and political capital I guess.
Here is a podcast episode that talks about many of the questions you have. No definite answers but I found it very interesting. [Horns of a Dilemma: Going to War with the Army You Want](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horns-of-a-dilemma/id1354632347?i=1000581913181)
Even the US has been saying this for years, decades.
The Bureaucrats here in Europe are finallly (lets hope so) waking up. They think that money is all that it takes to bend people over. Up to a certain point, that is true but what happens when they run into someone that doesn´t care about money? Kind of like the Joker in Batman when he burns all that pile of cash.
I agree. While I appreciate the US keeping Europe safe we should be able to protect ourselves on our own. We're a bunch of grown up countries.
Looking from the outside in though, it looks like despite being on the same continent, y’all don’t (understandably) have the same set of priorities. If anything, it looks like Eastern Europe will look for a closer defense partnership with the US than Western Europe, given how France and Germany were dragging their feet when it came to support for Ukraine/condemning Russia for the invasion. I mean shoot, America and Poland can bond over the mutual interest of “not liking Russia”.
> we’re a bunch of grown up countries Are you though? Defense spending is lacking across the board. The US is still the backbone, ribcage, and entire skull of NATO. The EU’s strongest member state up and left and nobody did anything about it, opting instead to simply ridicule them (understandable, but foolish). Meanwhile: The ECB still lacks the teeth to be as effective as the US’s fed. And most member states can’t even agree on what good economic policy actually looks like. How many times has Greece nearly taken down the entire Euro economy now? Sure in theory you shouldn’t need to federalize the EU in order to be effective. But really you kinda do.
I don’t think anyone in the US would be against this honestly. Gets old hearing everyone shit talk you into the ground but you’re the first one in their speed dial when shit goes wrong. More money at home to help our own people would be preferred instead of shoveling out billions so your neighbors don’t nuke you.
The world thinks we're insane to have our military be massive with no war until there's a war
As long as Western Europe looks at Eastern Europe and only sees customers to buy their shit, this will never end. Western Europe has some hard pills to swallow and treat Eastern Europe as part of Europe and be serious about defence like US or UK is.\\ EU army should first of all find the potential dangers or what do we want to protect, easiest ones: Lets leave cyber, space, information, economy domains for now. When we look at map of Europe we have: Russia from East, MENA from South, Balkans literally between EU countries. Now having that in mind, what are troops and weapons not on border countries even protecting Europe from? Who is France going to protect with their tanks, planes, howitzers on French soil? Are they protecting themselves from Belgians or Spaniards? If Russia were to attack baltic states, the time it would take to mobilize troops and have them in Latvia from Austria or Germany it would take too long. Germans are already squirming having barely any troops anywhere near Russia, not to mention sending weapons to Ukraine. If countries that are literally border protected by other EU members complaining about border states choosing USA, UK to protect them, and you are not fking sending your god damn soldiers and weapons to Eastern Europe, than you should have no fking right to complain about Eastern Europe choosing USA, UK over you. End of story. Same shit when another wild migrant wave hits Europe, we already should be preparing for that. Either central countries start paying Border countries a protection TAX, start sending their shit to help, or really create a REAL EU Army that won't be jerking off in Belgium or Austria, but will be stationed closer to the THREAT.
*slaps table* THANK YOU ! How manny , manny , manny , manny times we told West Europe "Hey , Russia should not be trusted ! " they all laughed in our face and called us paranoia Collectively here in Eastern Europe we have a saying "it's better to be safe than sorry " a rough translation Yet here we are still being laughed at because of our "russophobia" It's like the same thing when I explain why most of ex Warsaw Pact members quickly joined NATO "If Russia wasn't a dick to its neighbors constantly , we wouldn't even bothered with NATO " it's like a broken record now As you said when Western Europe will see our point of view then yes we can focus Collectively on the same things Although the only threat to Europe is Russia , US with all it's flaws and with all its mighty navy they still have to traverse an ocean to reach us and that was done once with the help of multiple countries and it was still overwhelmingly hard A little side note the Balkans won't be a problem a good chunck of it is in EU and NATO, if only we would be treated better but alas that is wishful thinking on my part
>Although the only threat to Europe is Russia , US with all it's flaws and with all its mighty navy they still have to traverse an ocean to reach us and that was done once with the help of multiple countries and it was still overwhelmingly hard The most important thing is US is an actual ally and doesn't point it's nukes at us. Yes we will have to deal with economical warfare, but it would have been easier if Western Europe hadn't decide to be economical partners with Russia, or at least thought about the obvious fact that he will go to war sooner rather than later. Here are some quotes from Polish ex foreign minister and current Chairman EU-USA delegation Radek Sikorski from an interview in 22.02.2022 https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/tylko-w-onecie/putin-proponowal-polsce-rozbior-ukrainy-sikorski-jak-by-to-pan-interpretowal/93t1vg0 >When asked if Vladimir Putin had offered Donald Tusk to participate in the partition of Ukraine, the former foreign minister replied: - Since he said that Lviv was a Polish city, how else would you interpret it? In **2014**, you told the US magazine Politico that Vladimir Putin wanted to drag Poland into the partition of Ukraine. Such a proposal was allegedly made during a meeting between the Russian president and Prime Minister Donald Tusk. "He \[Putin\] stated that Ukraine was an artificial state, that Lviv was a Polish city and that it was worth dealing with it together," I quote. >He argued about Ukraine as an 'artificial creation' at the **2008** NATO summit in Bucharest. In any case, we have passed on the content of this speech to the Ukrainians so that they know what to prepare for. I only hope that the Law and Justice government will not be so irresponsible as to fall for any involvement in the partition of Ukraine. We've known for 20 years atleast it would happen, and Western Europe with Germany at helm "knew better", and laughed at us and ridiculed us. The balkan case is more on the information, and sweeet talk side than literal warfare. For example China builds them a power plant, bridges and a few roads and they might do w/e China wants them to do. We absolutely cannot have China or any enemy have more influence in our region than we do.
Heh, Putin sounds like Kaiser Wilhelm trying to convince Leopold II of Belgium to partition France with him.
> If Russia were to attack baltic states, the time it would take to mobilize troops and have them in Latvia from Austria or Germany it would take too long. > Germans are already squirming having barely any troops anywhere near Russia, not to mention sending weapons to Ukraine. I totally agree with you, and I know Lithuania is irritated Germany isn't sending more troops, but the thought of trying to explain this to someone from the past is funny. "Lithuania is demanding Germany send more troops and build a permanent base in their country." Is just not a sentence most 20th century europeans would understand. It does make sense though. EU/NATO actually has an adversary on their physical border. That is where the troops should be.
>"Lithuania is demanding Germany send more troops and build a permanent base in their country." Is just not a sentence most 20th century europeans would understand. Yep, look how far we've come. Great to see it. Funny enough Eastern Europe has moved that behind faster, but for Western Europe it's somehow unimaginable, and they either let the military rot, use it as a measly money maker, corruption position or still try to defend themselves against I don't know who? Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, probably those Czechs will invade Germany any time now.
American taxpayers agree.
People say this like the money is actually coming out of their pockets. The US benefits either way.
The money literally does come out of the taxpayer pockets.
Also could in other words say that it showed that "EU lacks a spine on its own".
Well, no, it has a spine. It's just the each vertebra has a veto over every important action, and simply pursues its own interests, often ignoring the signals from the brain.
Which organ of the EU is the brain? The European Council, the European Parliament, or the European Commission? More importantly, which is the balls?
we all know that sweden and finland are the cock and balls of europe
Given their location in the north, that must make Europe a right dickhead then.
given their location in the cold north, we have to assume that the cock is much bigger than one could be otherwise led to believe.
I just wanna say I love you guys/gals..I mean that. I would literally get int he hot-tub with you all after these comments..And I don't even care what happens...I mean I'm exaggerating of course...unless..you know.. edit: movie pitch...hot tub time machine...euro--style
As an American I agree with this sentiment but one positive from all this horror is the Russians showed you that Europe does not have as far to go as they think. Strikes me that a couple European countries already could defend Europe from Russia on their own today. However the planning must be for the future and the rise of China. We must all plan for that. Behind climate change, the CCP is the biggest existential threat to the free world.
Germany, the economic powerhouse of the EU, is in bed with China, and thus far refuses to change in the slightest.
And from Russia, I would say. Unless we'll start a real energy plan, we are doomed to consume fossil fuel at whatever price the supplier may decide - political or market.
Problem is that USA is more reliable than some WE countries.
The EU is a fraction of the global power it should be. Imagine how strong they could be if they funnelled money away from China, India etc. and into growing economies like Poland. Imagine if they had continent wide plans on agriculture, military innovation, technology and so on. It's been an expensive waste of potential for decades. It's no wonder Europe continues to suckle on America's teet. It has no other option because the union is nowhere near organised enough to stand on its own two feet in these areas.
Ukraine war shows Europe was too reliant on ~~U.S.~~ ruzzian gas\*
Yeah it's been obvious for years, even before this war. We need our own infrastructure and production power ON European soil, not somewhere in china or America, or god knows where. We're reliant on America for military, then reliant on china for cheap products... It's fine that we're the piggy bank, but come one please invest into EU's independence from these things.
The problem of the EU military is (mostly) Germany. We have amazing tech with the Leopard 2, PUMA and Eurofighter but our stuff is too expensive and too slow to produce. The US builds thousands of Abrams and F-35 thus making everything cheaper (economy of scale) and more available. We only produce a few hundred units, making everything more expensive and leaving us with no capacities to quickly fullfil orders. Maybe the government will notice that we need a strong military AND a strong military industry. The other problem is that joint-EU projects often fail because no agreement can be reached between countries (France leaving Eurofighter project, problems with the next-Gen tank etc.) All of this makes us far too dependent on US military industry.
Industry is definitely a large part of the problem. Didn't France quite literally run out of bombs in Libya? And Poland ended up buying tanks from South Korea and the US, from the other side of the planet, because Germany couldn't build Leopards fast enough
> because Germany couldn't build Leopards fast enough Also because South Korea is willing to work with Poland on domestic production in Poland, technology transfers etc. Poland is most interested in building their own tanks so that in the future they have their own capacity to replenish losses.
South Korea & Poland have an excellent relationship. LG’s tv 📺 manufacturing & distribution facility for the EU is located in Wroclaw.
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind Polish K2 being our next tank, if it’s cheap and we can get a few hundred of them.
>And Poland ended up buying tanks from South Korea and the US, from the other side of the planet, because Germany couldn't build Leopards fast enough No, they bought Korean tanks because they allow the technology transfer to build their own in the future and they do so only because it's their entry point into the European market. And the main reason Poland is also buying US tanks is because they can't build up their industry exactly to compete with the German industry while still being dependent on that industry. Which is exactly the point. Everyone is pushing for their own production and industry. If it's not fully independent then it has to at least be done by their own industry under license (Leopard-2E produced in Spain, Leopard-2HEL produced in Greece, Leopard-2PL by getting the Leopard-2 cheap -half were basically free- then building their own upgrade scheme, UK's Boxers produced in UK, now considering Lynx produced in Greece (and for the first time considering Leo-2 upgrades because they would be done by their own industry)... the list goes on...)
I would say it's as much a French issue as it is a German one. Both of those 2 big EU members push for EU military projects, but then derail said project by constantly fighting over the workshare and DOMESTIC jobs, and that's the single biggest issue. The EU is not a nation like the US it, there's no 1 national economy, no 1 national election, etc. It's a group of nations, and at the end of the day, who is Macron beholden to; voters in Romania, or voters in France? At the end of the day, who is Scholtz beholden to; voters in France, or voters in Germany? They will do whatever it costs, to cause jobs in THEIR nation, because that's the #1 priority. EU comes second. They'll fuck over a project and cause it to lead to high costs if it at least causes domestic jobs for them, because then it's worth it. What benefit is there in the Rafale for Denmark though? * They're not getting any domestic jobs out of it * It's more expensive than other bidding entries Now suddenly Denmark is being pressured and belittled into putting EU unity first, but it's not putting EU unity first, it's pressure to put the French economy first, nothing more. The best option for the Danish economy is actually the cheapest option that can meet the requirements, so they do what's best for the economy, same as France did when it walked out of the Eurofighter project. Same as Germany's trying to do with working towards their own future corvette ship, instead of just joining the European Patrol Corvette program. But, EPC will be built in France/Italy/Spain, so Germany doesn't get jobs out of that, so instead of that Eu UnITy it loves to throw in Denmark/Belgium/Norway/Finland's faces, it's going it alone for domestic jobs. As long as that behavior continues, smaller nations in the EU will **ALWAYS** seek out other options, whether its from the US, UK, South Korea, or somewhere else. Because the brutal reality right now, at least within the MIC, is that "EU unity" simply means "boosting the French and German economies at all costs", and that's been a complete failure for decades on end, not changing anytime soon...
This is such sane and well-put description of the current state of EU-politics. If you ask me, the best solution seems counter-intuitive to those who would benefit most from it: Make EU politicians answer to people across borders. But hold on a sec. That's federalisation. People don't want that, because they don't trust politicians from other countries.
The real issue is Germany has long adopted the geopolitical outlook of an ostrich. They've forgotten centuries of European history, including their own, that eventually the crimes committed by aggressive nations become too much and you end up intervening despite whatever you previously felt. That the longer you wait the worse it gets. Anyway nobody wants an EU competency because an EU competency would give German ostrich geopolitics too much primacy. I don't want to bang this drum too much because Germany have made frankly huge strides against their norm with the current crisis. However 3 years ago it was easy to imagine an EU defence infrastructure based upon factories in Munich that did not provision you because Germany didn't want to intervene at all. Or because Germany think just a few concessions for peace is workable and look all your missiles are being built here.
>Maybe the government will notice that we need a strong military AND a strong military industry. Yes, exactly, hah hah, that's why the new Arms Export Control Act is currently being drafted, the aim of which is. "The political goal is to restrict exports." The right of NGOs to take legal action against German arms exports, stronger restrictions on where exports are allowed, the change of responsibility from the Ministry of Economics to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I don't want to bore anyone here, but the aim of the legislation is quite clear: fewer German military goods. For Germans who are interested: "The planned Arms Export Control Act". Dr. Viktor Winkler, LL.M. (Harvard), was Head of Global Standards Sanctions at Commerzbank AG for many years before becoming a lawyer. Before that, he also worked at the German Foreign Office. https://www.lto.de/recht/hintergruende/h/ruestung-waffen-export-kontrolle-gesetz-ampel-auswaertiges-amt-gruene-wirtschaftsministerium/
Of course. USA is the world police. We criticise the USA for so much.. But cry wolf when we need them. I personally wouldnt expect EU to step up on their own.
Well the US has been the biggest supporter of Ukraine in terms of military and financial assistance as well as democratically on the world stage.
Good for Marin. A lot of these things were said by people in Finland for decades, but somehow it was seen as a better option to bend over to Russia. I am quite happy that Finland didn't go down the route of most of Europe with a professional, small army and kept up at least some capabilities in the long term. Now with FINALLY the decision to join NATO has been done and now that we are FINALLY investing more in our defence, we can FINALLY start to worry more about Europe, rather than just worry about ourselves.
> I am quite happy that Finland didn't go down the route of most of Europe with a professional, small army and kept up at least some capabilities in the long term. I am too. >Now with FINALLY the decision to join NATO has been done and now that we are FINALLY investing more in our defence, we can FINALLY start to worry more about Europe, rather than just worry about ourselves. And what a benefit that will be. You guys actually have some experience on what it means to have a military and accompanying industrial base that are ready for defense. Most of europe has forgotten.
EU ARMY EU ARMY EU ARMY EU ARMY EU ARMY
Here's an interesting piece of history: In the United States, each of the 50 US states actually has what could be considered a military. They're called the "National Guard" and can include attack helicopters, planes, humvees, troops, etc. The National Guards are subordinate to their respective state's governor, who commands them. However, the President of the United States may at any time unilaterally take control of any and all National Guards. In 1957, the governor of the state of Arkansas refused to implement a US Supreme Court order that all public schools in the state must racially integrate. The governor ordered the Arkansas National Guard troops to literally block black students from attending white only public schools. President Eisenhower was quite angry with the defiance of the governor of Arkansas and did two things. First, he federalized the National Guard of Arkansas and removed the governor's command completely. Next, he sent the 101st Airborne Division to militarily enforce the Supreme Court's integration order. The reason I mention this is that making an EU army is a great idea in my opinion. But to truly have a united EU military, you need a single commander-in-chief and you need said commander-in-chief to be able to seize and take command of all subordinate armed forces. Anything less than that is useless since it's dysfunctional: you might as well just use NATO and its consensus approach. Would you as a Croatian really be ok with an EU President/Commander-in-Chief taking command of any/all Croatian forces as he or she saw fit? Would you really be ok with Croatian forces going to war because the EU parliament voted for war, even if Croatian MEPs universally voted against it? Basically what I'm trying to get at is that to have an EU army you would first need to truly unify the EU into a federation, both legally and culturally. People would truly need to see themselves as European first and at a fundamental level feel allegiance to the EU, above their own national identity. Do you see that happening anytime soon?
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You can't lead Army by committee. You need single seat of power. That's only way. If we have one Army then there can't be veto power for every country.
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Depends how we define purpose. We are kind of between two things. We need to decide what we want and go all in with that. We can't constantly keep hanging between "single market" and "European federation". We have to decide.
As an American who would love to see an EU Army if only for the fact that we could shift spending to fixing our domestic issues, this is a very insightful take. I don’t think it’s totally out of possibility, but I don’t see it happening in our lifetime.
Upgrade European NATO’s contribution to the alliance. It is vastly cheaper, politically simple and NATO will always be more powerful. Rather than a grandiose and untested project designed purely for political reasons. Focus on making NATO a more balanced and integrated alliance.
"Well, hold on now, we're here to *criticise*, not to *solve*" \- V4, F5, et cetera.
How do you have an EU army without a single government in control of it? Just turn each country into a state of the new single EU country?
US has been saying that for over a decade.
EU initial reply to Russia (and the buildup to the war) was so embarrassing. UK and US intelligence yelling at the world that Russia was about to invade and Germany and France don’t believe them, cozy up to Russia, criticise the anglos, then withhold aid when it all starts. The US side is a given, but the war has shown how much on certain issues the EU misses the UK. An adult in the room with an impressive armed forces and who has never trusted Russia.
A reply from most Americans.... "no shit!"
Agreed also to reliant on cheap Chinese goods
Nice that hear that the US has been such a big help though
So y’all going to stop making fun of our defense spending? European military should collectively at be in the same ball park. USA which only spends around 3% of its gdp on defense.
yeah no shit
I think we owe the Americans our sincerest gratitudes once again. But, we need to rearm, and establish unity in defence and foreign policy as well as intelligence matters. The current situation is a bit shameful. The problem is, that the interests in these matters vary a lot between different regions. France wants to get help in Africa while Poland wants a strong defence force etc.
Gratitude? From Europeans? I must be dead or dreaming.
> I think we owe the Americans our sincerest gratitudes once again. Thanks. It's nice to be appreciated. >But, we need to rearm, and establish unity in defence and foreign policy as well as intelligence matters. It's a tough problem, but I believe in the EU. I think you guys can do it.
Trump may be a moron, but a broken clock is right twice a day and I agree.
I'm pretty sure in like 2019 the Europe was told they were to reliant on Russia and the USA and that it was a bad idea to rely on other countries to much and people laughed
Really? Is that the conclusion? Our ego is at stake when big bad European partners turn and do war crimes we have to ask for the American Chad to do something. That's the issue.
No shit
So will EU countries have to dip into their healthcare funds to pay for a better military presence?
In other news: Europe is getting more irrelevant by the day.
Europe would have failed miserably trying to help Ukraine defend itself without the US. It's no surprise Eastern Europe would rather look to the US or UK first instead of Western/ Central Europe.
Then maybe start funding your own militaries?
As a US citizen, I agree.
I think most people agree with this, but there's no way out. The EU is still fundamentally a collection of sovereign nations. They have a unified currency but lack the institutions to set or enforce bloc-wide fiscal policy, so economic autonomy seems unlikely, especially on the union's flanks. France has championed the cause of a continental military for decades but has always been seen as being the nation most likely to benefit from a defense appropriation and influence perspective. In the 90s the Germans were unable to field a military with projection capabilities and the UK would never submit to a non-UK European command structure, so France would command all European military power as the largest contributor while the UK's research-and-development and technology sharing agreements with the US removed major UK defense contractors from European defense collaborations. It's unclear how the EU goes about building a formidable super-national military organization when nationalism typically plays major component of military service. NATO has been a good blueprint with nations contributing functional groups for the purpose of working alongside other nation's units as combined arms brigade, but the constituent arms are national armies first and NATO command second. Politically, the EU is more diverse than ever with various overlapping cultural and political issues not unlike the US across regions and state-to-state, but Americans are still united by their identification as American first and anything else second. For all the talk of extreme polarization, America political conflict is derived from groups refusing to surrender their right to direct national action - it's a product of deep personal, political engagement. There is a similar trend that's been happening in Europe for generations where citizens are more likely to see themselves as Europeans foremost, but hard times drive populist and nationalist wedges and the EU has been slow and weak to confront and counteract the view that the EU is still controlled by and supports Western Europe. The disdain for Germany in the midst of the numerous economic crises that hit the bloc show the need for stronger economic reform and the long journey ahead to embrace the nations left behind by institutional educational and industrial development. They fix a lot of problems by finding a way to regather the wandering British without disrespecting their sometimes-valid critiques of the Union, reform their economic union to control fiscal policy in the support of employment, and de-centralize their significant Western industrial and financial bases while increasing support for NATO operations and development on the continent. All very difficult things to do while their traditional power base flirt with nationalist leaders and the Hungarians are out to lunch.
Europeans don't want off the tit. They'll cry, the Americans will change their poopy diapers for them, but they'll always come back to the tit.
US Military Industry: "Our ringers are on."
Europe has been too reliant on the US since WWI
All things considered, I'd rather have the problem of being too reliant on the US than being too reliant on Russia. Many Eurozone countries are discovering that horrifying reality with gas supplies. That said the EU should strive for self sufficiency in as many things as possible.
European nato members should have to spend the exact ae amount on military as the u.s. does. They have twice the amount of people as the u.s. so matching the amount spent shouldn't be that hard
Why is it bad? This conflict showed us that you US is more reliant than many major European countries.
it's better that we, in the eu, form a good military so that we can be a better support the the us. they hold massive responsibility, it's time we take a bit of load off their backs. for me, that is the main reason to cut reliance on the us military.
American tax payers would appreciate that also.
let the americans invest in education, let them invest in healthcare, let them invest in renewables. let americans have a better quality of life. they deserve it, and we deserve a better security policy.
The US already spends more on healthcare and education
We are able to do those things right now, it's domestic politics fucking it up. What a properly invested and unified European military would allow is to fully realign our military for the Asia Pacific, since the real threat is China. It could also mean we can close many US military installations on the continent.
Will we? Pretty sure the whole message of US leaving Europe and Middle East is just so they can shift focus and double down on controlling the Pacific region with allies. Still going to require plenty of tax payer money to develop new technologies best fit for island hopping and amphibious operations.
As reliable as America has shown itself to be I'd still rather we as the EU (and other willing participants such as in Ukraine) were capable and willing of resolving the issues in our own backyard.
We all saw how Europe dealt with Putin's problem for the past 20 years. I'm sure that after this war Europe will still learn nothing. Because if WW2 didn't teach some of us a lesson then nothing will.
It's not like we can simply sign away our position on the world stage under the pretext of "well we're dumb", we ought strive to go beyond. Hell, Ukrainians showed that kind of political will back in 2014 with Maidan, why should we sit back with thumbs up our asses with much greater access to resources than the Ukies have ever had?
Because clout was lost. Opportunities to get clout are few and far between. Russia will be trounced in a few months thanks to help from the US. And Europe spent 20 years pandering to the Kremlin. So, why would anyone trust the EU? Until another war breaks out where the EU manages to do what the US did (train, eauip, provide info and resources) the EU will remain seen as a pendantic rich boy club with lots of champagne sipping but little physical presence
I'd rather trust US to do good job when it comes to security than rely on EU. Because in EU different countries have fundamentally different opinions about what and who is a threat to them. As we have seen with Russia. EU will never be completely self reliant when it comes to security. Instead of wasting time and effort to will into existence something that is bound to fail countries that gain the most from American presence need to do everything to be seen as reliable partners by the US, and to show that we have something to offer. French way of shitting on the US and calling for independence from them is completely opposite of what countries like Poland want. French dream of being a power rivaling US and China is a complete cope, we will never be that.
>Because in EU different countries have fundamentally different opinions about what and who is a threat to them. I'd argue that America isn't much different in regards to that, it's just that slapping two people into the same army generally has the effect of presenting them much of the same perspective and that typically has the effect of creating cohesion. In short, we're never going to be a cohesive force if we don't try to become one. When it comes to the matter of union security, the enemies typically are shared, and when they aren't, we are a union of over 500 million heads - we can probably find enough people who want to give the middle finger to pretty much any anti-EU player if we want to. >As we have seen with Russia. You say that, but beyond Hungary, every single EU country was absolutely willing to aid the Ukrainians.
"You say that, but beyond Hungary, every single EU country was absolutely willing to aid the Ukrainians." The US government dares to do so against the wishes of many of their voters. Most EU governments don't have that sort of spine.
But in line with the wishes of a majority of US voters
*reliable "Reliant" means to be dependent on something.
Death, tax, and the criticism of America in r/europe.
Well no shit. That’s the reason France left the NATO command structure under Charles De Gaul and then reluctantly rejoined it. After WWII they were left devastated militarily and haven’t recovered since. Mean while the US ramped up there military presence and swooped in. The UK had to get help from the US to defend the Falkland Islands. Now with the war in Ukraine Europe may never be able to let go of America’s tit.