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28 Comments
The biggest problem is not even the military equipment and personnel. The biggest problem is the mindset.
Short anwser : France can hold its ground. Poland is investing well. The other countries are often too reliant on external (US) investment and have weaker armies.
Political will is changing that with the war in Ukraine, but it might be too late to change shift, as it takes a long time to train, man, and equip a good army. Investment should have been made earlier.
Current “best” solution is an European Army. The french model is currently the most developped and self sufficient on the continent to provide its backbone. But it will be a logistical nightmare and a huge political endeavour, with many ramification on the international scene.
If Trump is reelected Europe will come together. The problem is there has to be an external shock like the loss of the US as an ally or a literal war before democrats get the legitimation to cross all particularist considerations. This is good in peacetimes as is effectively hinders autocrats from just taking power, but it is really fucking for the next decades of european security.
Defend against what / who?
Aliens? Probably not.
Russia? That shouldn’t be a problem.
Norway has conscription. Every year about 50K people become eligible.
They only call in about 8000, of which not all actually end up serving.
Of those about half go into the army.
Norway has a total of 4600 combat troops in our army. That is about 3.3 days worth of fronting losses in a Ukraine style war…
If Russia has this much trouble defeating Ukraine (alas armed with NATO weapons), I don’t worry about actual NATO countries/alliance.
Not after Trump leaves NATO and pacts Russia…
SO do they expect luxemburg to be able to defend itself?
The goal of nato IS to be able t jointly to defend yourself. Whats the point of nato if everyone still needs to be able to defend itself?
And yes, even without the US the rest of nato could stand up to a country like russia if it would attack.
Most “powerful” EU countries struggle to get new recruit. Current recruits openly said that in case of war they just quit.
Hungary already saying that they willing to surrender as soon as Russians or Chinese airlifted to Budapest.
European Nato countries have more conventional military capabilities than Russia. So of course they can.
Looking at the political situation I sometimes wonder if there’s anything worth defending.
Yes, Putler is on the path of expansion, but on the other side it’s complicated. Sometimes I feel EU progressives are doing more against my interest than Putler and his Chechen gangsters would.
Then, why would I actually want to invest my blood, sweat and tears into defense of a system that looks quite rotten to me? As a white male I’m at the bottom of the progressive feeding chain. As someone working I get nothing from the state, I pay taxes. As someone who saved and invested I’m just being punished by the state with additional taxes and I’ll never get anything from the state, I’ll have to finance the others. The thought of being dependent on the state fills me with dread as I expect nothing good.
Look at someone young, who would typically serve in the military. Like 20-30 years old. What does such a person have to fight for? Real estate prices went through the roof and few available jobs pay so little that it’ll never be enough to have own home. On top of it all they see how foreign people move in, get accommodation from the state, get pocket money, all that without investing any work at all and listen to progressives tell you how you need to cut your carbon footprint and eat bugs, while they fly jets to Dubai climate conferences to take part on lavish banquets. Fight for that?
Two nations in Europe have nuclear weapons.
I think we should first analyze how Russia, who gives their soldiers fake body armor, expired rations and buys artillery shells from North Korea is skimping on their military, before asking if Europe can defend itself…
No. At least for RO ( see my previous comment ).
edit. Too any westerners interested, RO is not your meatshield.
We didn’t last this long by catching bullets for someone else.
If you continue bungling UA, consider writing off RO as well.
Despite what some ( in the West ) might think, CEE is watching closely.
the short answer is no
The military readiness of central and west Europe is a fucking joke compared to the east.
They can defend themselves mostly because Russia can’t afford to fund a war, and there is no other threat to the EU.
With Russia stuck in Ukraine, the actual imminent threat of direct Russian invasion is the lowest it has been ages. At the moment, in terms of relative power, European NATO is stronger than in decades. European NATO is entirely capable of defending itself even without direct American involvement.
But the war in Ukraine won’t last forever, and even if Russia is driven out and their economy crashes, they won’t be gone permanently. They will rearm and try again. Therefore, the current focus should be on aiding Ukraine as much as possible, and preparing for a renewed Russian threat in a few years by replenishing supplies, ensuring that existing equipment is actually maintained, and increasing recruiting. For most countries, simply consistently reaching the 2% guideline will be sufficient. Although I would recommend at least a few years of spending above that level to make up for too low spending in the past.
Additionally, Russia is ramping up its hybrid warfare. More spending alone won’t solve that problem. What it requires is a change in attitudes away from cowardly appeasement etc. and towards having some spine and actually holding Russia accountable by whatever means are available.
I would guess, that today most European militaries aren’t ready for war. It will take some years to change that, even with sufficient funding and successful recruitment efforts.
For example, the German army completely disbanded its anti air service about a decade ago and there was no effort, for example at the air force, to replace the lost close range AA capabilities. In times of drone warfare a catastrophic gap in defense capability.
It’s not done with buying some Sky Rangers and IRIS missile systems. Completely new units have to be established, trained and integrated into the existing and future structures (brigades and divisions and all the logistics behind them).
Currently the plan is to have the Bundeswehr war ready again in 5 years.
Depending on how the situation (with Russia) develops, it can easily take longer, or maybe faster, if the proper “motivation” happens. I assume if we or our allies really come under direct attack and entire Europe switches into a state of emergency and war economy, things can happen very fast.
Meh. Basically the article complains about France and the UK and not “Europe”.
They are completely ignoring the Poles’ capabilities. They talk about naval power yet they do not mention Italy at all.
Simply put, the military is not popular in Europe, especially Western Europe and there are goddamn good historical reasons for that.
The americans WILL NOT abandon NATO allies, irrespective of who wins the elections and the Russians are NOT able to threaten EU states.
Stop fearmongering.
It would be great if we could read the bloody article.
Not really. No one says it out loud but NATO is a wildly assymetrical alliance and most members expect the rest, and really just the US, to come in and save them if need be. Europe grew too complacent and disarmed themselves too much. Now they’re underequipped, understaffed, and unprepared to deal with a possible larger conflict. Only the border states are actually taking their defense seriously but that means that their defense is not a rock but a bubble, if the surface is breached there’s nothing stopping the aggressor after that. Shifting the weight of responsibility like that in an alliance that is supposed to be symmetrical is not only unfair but unrealistic. The border states are much poorer and much less able to maintain a strong fighting force compared to the northwestern states.
No
If we would combine the militaries as well as the military purchases, we could be a world power, without spending more money.
Defend against who? There’s no country or group of countries who would try. If you mean Russia, then obviously yes we’re ready. China couldn’t, nor could any other country. So yes and not only that, nato would win and win by a long margin.
Modern wars don’t need bodies
The one thing i hope changes about NATO and especially Europe is we need to swallow our pride and standardize equipment.
Sending Abrams, Leopards and Challengers 30 at a time to Ukraine is such a logistical headache.
Europe needs a European Battletank, AFV & APC. (everyone should just get on the Leopard train).
Fingers crossed the EMBT doesn’t split up like these things always do.
Defend from whom exactly?