Deploy jets in Romania to guard Ukraine, Europe urges Trump

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1. European countries want President Trump to deploy American fighter jets to Romania as part of the US security guarantees to end the war in Ukraine, The Times understands.

   Senior European military chiefs are discussing the deployment of American F-35s to Romania, where Nato is building its largest airbase in Europe, to deter Russia from reinvading.

   On Monday, Trump ruled out the deployment of American boots on the ground in Ukraine but said he was willing to provide “air” support as part of US security guarantees.

2. This is pretty embarassing honestly… all that superiority and mockery against Trump and we basically begs him for every single thing…

3. Europe just begging the US to start WWIII.

4. I’d rather see them in Estonia, TBH.

   Romania is fine if Ukraine is your only concern, but it’s too far south to get the whole job done.

   Basing them in Estonia would give cover for Finland and the Baltics as well as Ukraine and would force Putin to think very, very seriously before stepping over the Estonian border. (It’s one thing to invade a tiny NATO member. It’s another to start shooting directly at US personnel.)

   There’s still a couple of big, empty air bases sitting in Estonia that the Soviets left behind when they collapsed. Maybe you could just patch up those old runways a little, drop a couple of squadrons in there quickly, and kill three birds with one cheap stone instead of waiting for Kogalniceanu to be finished. NATO needs more aircover up north after expansion anyway. Might as well put it in place.

5. Why doesn’t Europe deploy jets?

6. Not that I necessarily disagree with basing US jets in Romania, but my question is why don’t European nations deploy many hundreds of their own aircraft in Romania? The US military has more combat aircraft in Europe than most European nations.

   > They want a US commitment to supply Ukraine with Patriot and Nasams air defence missiles to shoot down Russian attacks as well as permission to fly spy planes over the Black Sea.

   Firstly, the US needs all the Patriots it can get in the Pacific, and secondly, Patriots are extremely expensive systems (both the systems and the missiles) and the Ukrainians haven’t exactly been using them cautiously – they’ve taken losses trying to use them offensively, which is fine if they are building and paying for them themselves…but they aren’t, and they keep asking for more. They haven’t exactly been selective with the missiles either; i.e., they haven’t been saving them to use only against high speed missiles that nothing else can intercept, they’ve been using them as if there was an endless supply.

   Why would the US need to provide NASAMS, wouldn’t that be Kongsberg? Ask Norway. Or is the US expected to just purchase them from Kongsberg to provide to Ukraine?

   ETA: is Europe **still** not waking up that this is their problem to deal with and the US is there to provide *support*?

7. They are not begging for WW3, they are begging for nuclear Armageddon. they are actively pushing for Russia to use nukes as Russia won’t have any military option left to fight the US but nukes. Putin isn’t gonna wait for US planes to reduce his military capabilities further and further to the point of defeat.

8. You guys do it. You’ve got jets.

9. Cost per hour to fly and massive price discrepancy using AA missiles to take out a unguided shahed, it’s cheaper to fix the damage caused by the shahed in the unlikely event of it being on a path towards anything critical (10% of Romania is settlements so that’s a low risk).

   And using guns to take out Shaheds puts pilots at risk of flying through the debris and potentially loosing the jet.

   The risk of escalation too, and the percentage of drones that leave UA is low. The risk matrix isn’t in favour of air patrols.

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