The only way Europe can match Russia/China is to keep buying american made weapons. Maybe in 20-30 years the situation will be different and Europe will have the same capabilities of the US, but until then... buy, baby, buy!
It seems to me Donald is beheld in some way to Vladimir; what's being done now to my eye is too specifically about setting up UA for second RU invasion.
Donald then I think, step by step, is going to ally with Vladimir.
1. US aid to UA stops (done).
2. USA leaves NATO (on the way).
3. US troops in Europe leave or move to Hungary (floated).
4. Hungary is ejected from EU due to Orban obstructing everything he can.
5. Hungary becomes RU satellite state (maybe with many tens of thousand of US troops).
6. USA lifts its sanctions, placing it directly in conflict with Europe.
7. Donald invokes Insurrection Act, military units can now be used for civil policing (this is why top military brass and specifically top military lawyers removed).
8. Europe puts boots on ground and air cover over UA.
9. To "encourage peace", Donald now disables support for US weapon systems being used by Europe in UA. At this point, F-35 is history whether or not EU has dropped them or not.
10. Protests in USA, military used, people die, Donald suspends Constitution "to restore order and combat subversive elements".
11. No more elections. All court cases underway made irrelevant.
Any suggestions on where in the world will remain relatively stable?
I will be going to UA, to fight with them.
Only, ask your military to return against your just previous allies (at your own initiative) among which the one that helped your very nation to fight for its independence, with which you did cross-training and exercises, for the past 80 years... everyone is in for quite a bumpy road.
France over-run by Germany. Gestapo at work, with all its horrors.
UK+US land in French North Africa, part of taking Africa from Germany, part in the long run of liberating France from horrors of occupation.
French soldiers fighting, killing and being killed by UK+US troops.
And, I was more thinking of the situation on American ground, within the USA and between the USA and Canada. I don't mean it wouldn't happen. I mean that I don't think that would happen with 100% engagement from all US army. The disconnect and reversal of strategy of the US, against its own allies, is too sudden.
My thought here was that armies can fight with the most brutal oppressors of their very own country, against those who would liberate it.
Of course, all of them were wrong. Short of WW3 between Europe and the US, many awful things that were predicted have come true. DT has severely weakened the USA, weakened the stock market, damaged US reputation and trust in the US army, dismantled many departments, put useless shills in most important positions, pulled out of Ukraine, stopped aid to Ukraine, sucked up to Putin, and turned it all into a country that most people in Europe consider a hostile enemy (myself included).
So. For the sake of your fellow citizens, quit the excuses.
I think it's foolish to restrict operations to Ukraine though, and feel that the size of Russia is one of its main weaknesses. If there's to be a war, it should involve incursions into the US proper.
Given the size and battle experience of their armies I think that it's more probable that it's Ukraine that will cover Europe and not viceversa. And if they'll have to flee their country add a 12th point the UA army takes sanctuary in the EU that goes the way of Lebanon in the 70s when another army had to flee there.
If UA goes down, then EU goes down, because RU will attack before EU is ready.
This is why I think we see EU direct involvement in UA fighting; needed to keep UA up, and needed to get up to speed with drones.
Do you have any numbers or analysis to back this up, please?
A few counterpoints:
- Russia failed to 'take' a relatively unprepared Ukraine, and arguably has only managed the gains it has made because the support (from Biden US and EU) was drip-fed according to the Biden team's strategy.
- Russia is haemorraging fighters and modern fighting machinery in the current war in Ukraine. It's unknown how much longer the loss of life can be sustained without internal unrest. The absence of modern machinery would obviously make an invasion of Europe less likely to succeed.
- While Russia might now be a "war economy" I've seen reports that they can't economically sustain the war for too much longer.
- While the EU certainty needs to invest in defence, some countries are already strong, and would likely fight to protect the collective.
Overall, this suggests that Russia would fail against a united Europe, were they to extend beyond a defeated Ukraine.
Russia's economy is teetering and looks very weak now, but much of that is due to sanctions. Sanctions that trump will probably remove soon, for zero concessions. I'm not sure how effective EU sanctions will be on their own. Soon we will be seeing a much stronger Russia, already on a heavy war footing, start swallowing up a much weaker Ukraine. I don't like what might happen after that plays out.
But the western support was very small compared to actual western military capability.
Wouldn't freeing up Russia through removal of sanctions and a refusal to engage militarily resulting in an escalation in Ukraine and potentially beyond into Europe be seen as a big failure of his position?
The EU without the US can already produce 5th gen, the selling point of the F35 was 6th gen compatible with 7th gen (NGAD).
Russia is still flying more 4th then 5th gen fighters, because they can't get their bricks off the ground. Why would the EU want to copy the same mistakes of their enemy?
Just like any other military including the US, no?
I don't have access to perfect information, but I find the reports that Russia is unable to maintain their entire fleet creditable, and believe and/or trust the experts who confirm this analysis.
Obviously Russia has no 5gen at all (or just a few 5gen Su-57, if we going to name them 5gen).
Anyway, my point is that as of now Russia has no need for gen5 and can't afford it anyway, just like about anyone else except for the US and a few countries that have them but at the same time have to rely on the US anyway.
I expect a crash program to reengineer them has already started if only unofficially.
What matters these days is the cost of buying/flying/maintenance, software platform and what missiles they can launch.
Gripen has modular upgradable software, and supports modern Europe-made missiles such as Taurus and Meteor.
For the same reason I consider the F35 a failure.
Maybe we (as a Pole living in Norway) can't have state of the art jets, but in practice don't need them?
We (as the whole eastern block - Scands, Balts, Poland, Romania and Ukraine) should cancel our orders of F-35 and focus on developing our drone and strategic missile industry. And focus on investing, developing and buying from our closest allies - the eastern block.
Not on the countries that don't care because they are either too far from Russia (Spain, Italy) or have vested geopolitical interest in alllying with them (Germany). France and UK might want to join to balance out Germany.
At least that's what I understand from hearing smarter than me discuss the current situation.
The main reason that Ukraine and Russia have had to rely so heavily on drones is that they had no better alternative. The air forces on both sides are shit with zero (or effectively zero) 5th generation aircraft that can survive in a contested environment. The F-35 was designed for that mission and would at least have a chance.
I wouldn't call Russian AF "shit". The УМПК (JDAM) bombs crushed formidable defense of Avdeevka and now hit AFU hard in Sudja. Ka-52 helicopters stopped counteroffensive a year ago. Surely, sky is contested, but it's still important component that hurts Ukraine very hard.
> have had to rely so heavily on drones is that they had no better alternative
What would be an alternative to wing reconnaissance drones? What can hyper-equipped US armed forces offer as a replacement FPV and fiber-optics FPV attack drones? Yeah they have Reapers and other fancy expensive gear for the first 3-4 weeks of active war, then what?
The US has a variety of overlapping reconnaissance capabilities including not just large UAVs but also manned aircraft (including the F-35) and multiple satellite constellations. Over the next few years the priorities in that area should be to accelerate the B-21 Raider program (it will make an excellent recon platform) and develop some sort of prompt satellite launch capability to replace combat losses within hours. There is also a general recognition that we'll have to increase spending or shift budget priorities to build up the industrial capacity necessary to sustain longer conflicts.
Define "shit".
Today. So many things we have seen in the last couple of years have been pure sci-fi a decade ago. Switchblade 600, for example, has a loitering time of 40 minutes and a range of 24 minutes.
> and they barely move much faster than a carrier.
Fly in the direction bow to stern, low above the water. Or just ... loiter in the path of the carrier.
The Chinese are not stupid. Their A2/AD doctrine is based on large, expensive manned aircraft and fast missiles, not slow and weak little "drones".
Consequently I believe that if the EU is to intervene, which I think is a very reasonable thing to do, it should be by imitiating the Russian approach of using aircraft as flying artillery-- i.e. to release missiles etc., against Russian positions in Ukraine, but I also believe that we should attack Russian natural gas pipelines, ammonia plants, nitric acid plants, ammunition plants with long-range weapons. I also believe that it's reasonable to send in ground troops to seize Russian and Belarusian territory in locations where it can be determined that Russia lacks artillery, tanks etc., and to in that way force troop movements, thus depleting the front in Ukraine and allowing Ukraine to basically roll it over.
I believe that this is possible for several reasons, among them that we Europeans are three times as many as the Russians. I believe that it is unlikely to lead to nuclear war because I believe that the Russians are rational and well aware that any nuclear use by them leads to a proportional nuclear use by 'us', whatever that means, and that the number of nuclear weapons in Russian control is irrelevant for the reason that they're gone after an exchange of a mere hundred or so, so that anything beyond that is superfluous.
Unlike you, I don't think the EU had any business participating in this war.
I wouldn't dismiss a nuclear exchange quite easily.
There are some problems with Ukraine, there might be if there's too much corruption and oligarchy type stuff, so I don't want to absorb them immediately-- they need huge reforms, but I don't find them objectionable per se. I think they need to get smarter, get rid of their mafia etc., but it might be possible.
It's critical for the EU to prevent this kind of expansionist warfare on its borders.
If your threat model did include a war within former NATO members, the F-35 is the worst possible choice so another way of thinking about this is that they should pick the best option which is actually available. That would mean things like swarm attacks and strikes on the airfields where those stealthy but extremely fragile planes are housed. Even if the public range is significantly low, they’d need a base closer than Greenland to strike European targets.
BAE Systems along with other European arms/aerospace manufacturers are perfectly capable of making competing products.
They are more battle-tested than any other. America has been involved in a war or another pretty much continuously since the end of WWW2.
Not that they’re going to be allies much longer.
In Syria the US bombs things at their will, same in Somalia. In all Latin America conflicts the US went at it alone.
Maybe pay attention to Greece, Korea, Libya, Kosovo, Serbia, Yemen, Syria (1982), Iran, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, WW1, WW2
The fact that even as we bicker on this forum British and American forces are in Yemen pretty much says everything.
* correction: since 1776
There's no reason this can't be replicated by other rich nations but it won't be cheap or quick.
I don't see EU countries starting to invade other countries around the globe to test out weapons systems and battlefield tactics. The US on the other hand, kind of did this continuously since WWW2 (to mention recent history).
And there are high quality planes like the Rafale that aren't PaaS (Planes as a Service) where the owner can unilaterally stop you from using it.
And no country wants to wake up to a set of bricks when they really need warplanes all of a sudden.
America is currently doing everything for Russia! If we actually used the F35 against Russia right now Trump would probably immediately do everything in his power to stop that, just like he’s exerting pressure everywhere else he can in Russias favour
Honestly I’ll personally be buying as little American as possible going forwards
To me it looked like Bezos put the boot there himself, he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it.
However, any power able to incinerate large parts of the planet is a bit more than a regional power, in my eyes.
(Typing "sub" reminded me of the Kursk nuclear submarine that sank itself…)
Some of the P(weapon failure) is constant: from what I hear, a certain fraction of Soviet and US systems (and presumably everyone else's) just don't work.
If that was all it was, then you would be correct.
But: some failures come with age, and require ongoing maintenance to retain function. For example, I expect all the tritium has decayed, and also that in many cases the money that was supposed to get spent replacing the tritium was instead spent on a fancy yacht or a football team or a seat in the UK's House of Lords etc.
And I don't know how good modern anti-missile weapons are, but I would expect them to have improved; conversely, despite Russia's talk about new hypersonic missiles, what they've shown hasn't been very impressive, and they've even used up some of their old nuclear-capable missiles while attacking Ukraine.
I'm happy to be relaxed about this, but only because I have no power — 90% chance some attempted hot war is actually all duds is great for me personally, 10% chance everything burns is unacceptably high for someone running a country.
Russia and China are regional powers and can't project military power very far, excluding nukes. To do that you need a credible blue water navy. China is close though, and definitely projecting its economic strength.
Europe (lets just say EU + UK) could be a superpower. However they lack political unity. And still want big daddy US to do the heavy lifting.
Putin has nukes, apart from that Russia is a pretty irrelevant country.
More like this: Two super powers, and a terror nukes nation.
However, any power able to incinerate large parts of the planet is a bit more than a regional power, in my eyes.
But yes, agree with you about China.
Putin wants people to think Russia is a super power, when it's instead a corrupted inefficient mafia state. Look at research or startups coming from there (not much) or it's economy - the country is not interesting any longer (Putin has damaged it that much). Except for Putin attacking Ukraine, and his nukes and troll farms.
If Pakistan starts threatening other countries with nuclear war, and tries to invade a neighbor but mostly fails, is it then suddenly a super power?
Maybe "terror power" could be a new word
Clearly, it's not irrelevant if it's been able to drive a wedge between the US and Europe like this.
The Ukraine war was "successful" in destroying the possibility of railways between the EU and China.
The EU, ever the good vassal, now ramps up the rhetoric against Russia which is exactly what Hegseth wanted in the open.
The EU is still playing the U.S. deep state script and it is very likely that all the Trump pressure and insults are carefully planned political theater.
If the above conjectures are wrong and Trump is serious about peace with Russia, then the EU needs to pivot quickly to China and at least maintain reasonable diplomatic relations with Russia.
I find that becoming exceedingly unlikely. Trust has been destroyed, there is no easy recovery from that.
First, ex-neocon Rubio admitted on the Megyn Kelly show that the world is now multi-polar. Even if he believes that, why would he say so unless it's for show.
Then there is Lindsey Graham. In 2016 he gave warlike speeches to the Azov Batallion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ4e1A-LZEA
In 2025 he throws Zelensky under the bus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18oqMGLWcRA
Graham and probably Rubio are still neocons. Trump must be really powerful to keep all this under control.
Then there is the U.S. arms lobby, which is uncannily quiet even though they'll lose a ton of business when NATO becomes irrelevant. Then there are no reactions to Polish nuclear ambitions, which is weird unless the whole thing is scripted.
So there are two theories. Either Trump is carving up the world or he is acting.
BTW you don't seem to understand military well - F22 is much better plane than F35, but abysmally complex to do and expensive, thats why the low numbers. F35 has way too many compromises ie for us navy.
Also, as Ukraine war shows fighter jets are not that important for waging war if situation is more like peer vs peer, and not US blowing shepherds and weddings into pieces. Sure, they lob a bomb or two, sometimes launch a rocket but all from as much distance as possible. What wins such wars these days is artillery, massive amount of infantry and millions of various drones.
If nobody wants to buy any of that shit because of the knock-on effects of Trump’s self-sabotage and they start investing elsewhere, then those defence companies will sooner distance themselves from the US as well. Unless they’re in on whatever the administration is cooking up the money is still going to speak louder.