Read this article! Hits all the right notes on this issue in my opinion.
I will share a couple of good sections:
> But the United States needs to want this to happen.
> France, which is kind of wishy-washy on the NATO command structure, has long been the big proponent of European strategic autonomy. Meanwhile, the United States has been torn between urging Europe to spend more on defense while being quite happy to let European countries rely on the United States for things like airlift and basic satellite surveillance. And obviously, from a strictly American viewpoint, the best outcome is one in which Europe spends generously to create well-equipped, highly effective military forces that basically only work as auxiliary troops to U.S.-instigated missions.
> But that’s not realistic. The question facing us is whether it’s second-best for Europe to have strong and capable forces that can operate autonomously or for Europe to have forces that are largely weak and ineffective. As Max Bergmann details in this excellent report for the Center for American Progress, back in the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States very specifically pushed against the creation of EU defense capabilities because they didn’t want Europe to be able to do anything outside of the framework of NATO — i.e., without the United States.
….
> The tough part of this is that just as you sometimes need to let your kid make his own mistakes, if we want Europe to sustain a real defense capacity we need to create a situation where we’re not going to bail them out.
> This shouldn’t be accomplished with Trumpy bluster and hectoring or done in a rush or the middle of a crisis. But we need to set a timeline on which we say that while we are happy to help in various ways, we are just not going to be primarily responsible for the defense of Poland and Latvia. That, in our opinion, there should be forward-deployed forces in those countries but they should not be Americans, not because “AMERICA FIRST!!!” but because American support is truly needed in Korea and Japan and Australia and the Western Hemisphere while it’s dispensable in Europe.
In order for Europe to do this it needs to actualy start manufacturing it’s own stuff, that seems impossible within the next 10 years without massive investments.
It’s not just fighters and helicopters, you need standardized artillery, artillery shells, tanks, tank ammo, machine guns and machine gun ammo.
Everything I read about shows that the USA doesn’t just supply weapons, but also in many cases the ammo for the weapons because the US military outproduces the entire EU in terms of small arms and heavy arms ammuntion.
That’s the reason the USA can and is still supplying Ukraine with such large amounts of firepower, because in reality it’s the only country that can. Europe has mostly already emtied it’s reserves of munitions and supplies and is extremely limited in it’s production.
A European military could easily become the most powerful military in the world, but the vast majority of our “leaders” want us to stay a US vassal focused on nihilistic values.
And the sooner it happens, the better.
For that, eastern Europe should first have confidence that they won’t be thrown to the wolves by western europe
Yes, but they don’t want this to happen, they’re just being their usual hypocritical selves.
Europe needs it’s own military-industrial complex, it has the resources to build it, the only thing against it is politics and American interference. Then you have Americans on reddit whining about how they pay for Europe’s defense. So stop. They created this system after WW2, security for influence is a long outdated deal and is ill adapted in the times we’re living in.
A good way to achieve this is an EU army, which the US and UK have strongly opposed. UK is out so they have no say in this anymore. US is the only obstacle. And also they want us to buy stuff from them! That is unreasonable and irrational, the production capabilities and supply chains need to be based in Europe not outside it and across oceans.
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Read this article! Hits all the right notes on this issue in my opinion.
I will share a couple of good sections:
> But the United States needs to want this to happen.
> France, which is kind of wishy-washy on the NATO command structure, has long been the big proponent of European strategic autonomy. Meanwhile, the United States has been torn between urging Europe to spend more on defense while being quite happy to let European countries rely on the United States for things like airlift and basic satellite surveillance. And obviously, from a strictly American viewpoint, the best outcome is one in which Europe spends generously to create well-equipped, highly effective military forces that basically only work as auxiliary troops to U.S.-instigated missions.
> But that’s not realistic. The question facing us is whether it’s second-best for Europe to have strong and capable forces that can operate autonomously or for Europe to have forces that are largely weak and ineffective. As Max Bergmann details in this excellent report for the Center for American Progress, back in the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States very specifically pushed against the creation of EU defense capabilities because they didn’t want Europe to be able to do anything outside of the framework of NATO — i.e., without the United States.
….
> The tough part of this is that just as you sometimes need to let your kid make his own mistakes, if we want Europe to sustain a real defense capacity we need to create a situation where we’re not going to bail them out.
> This shouldn’t be accomplished with Trumpy bluster and hectoring or done in a rush or the middle of a crisis. But we need to set a timeline on which we say that while we are happy to help in various ways, we are just not going to be primarily responsible for the defense of Poland and Latvia. That, in our opinion, there should be forward-deployed forces in those countries but they should not be Americans, not because “AMERICA FIRST!!!” but because American support is truly needed in Korea and Japan and Australia and the Western Hemisphere while it’s dispensable in Europe.
In order for Europe to do this it needs to actualy start manufacturing it’s own stuff, that seems impossible within the next 10 years without massive investments.
It’s not just fighters and helicopters, you need standardized artillery, artillery shells, tanks, tank ammo, machine guns and machine gun ammo.
Everything I read about shows that the USA doesn’t just supply weapons, but also in many cases the ammo for the weapons because the US military outproduces the entire EU in terms of small arms and heavy arms ammuntion.
That’s the reason the USA can and is still supplying Ukraine with such large amounts of firepower, because in reality it’s the only country that can. Europe has mostly already emtied it’s reserves of munitions and supplies and is extremely limited in it’s production.
A European military could easily become the most powerful military in the world, but the vast majority of our “leaders” want us to stay a US vassal focused on nihilistic values.
And the sooner it happens, the better.
For that, eastern Europe should first have confidence that they won’t be thrown to the wolves by western europe
Yes, but they don’t want this to happen, they’re just being their usual hypocritical selves.
Europe needs it’s own military-industrial complex, it has the resources to build it, the only thing against it is politics and American interference. Then you have Americans on reddit whining about how they pay for Europe’s defense. So stop. They created this system after WW2, security for influence is a long outdated deal and is ill adapted in the times we’re living in.
A good way to achieve this is an EU army, which the US and UK have strongly opposed. UK is out so they have no say in this anymore. US is the only obstacle. And also they want us to buy stuff from them! That is unreasonable and irrational, the production capabilities and supply chains need to be based in Europe not outside it and across oceans.
The idea of an European army is laughable.