If Russia allies with China and attacked us now. We would be doomed to fail.
That should have been clear when Russia attacked Goergia.
The article is worth full reading. Not just the headline.
Could have sworn I read how Russia was doomed but now that US is being stingy it’s suddenly Russia going to win unless we all chip in more.
When is Russia going to lose?
Poland, Baltics etc. were saying that for a decade at least but no…. West knew better. West preferred to do business with Putin.
It’s a good read but its point is only about defence. This is the same mistake as most of the French strategy towards Germany in the 30s.
Yes, sure, the EU could invest billions to be able to defend Poland and maybe the Baltic states for months instead of weeks. Sure, it could provide air superiority for up to a year.
But then what next? If Russia is the aggressor, how do you defeat it then? Being stuck in an attrition conflict with Russia would be a win for Putin. Nobody would tolerate nuclear escalation.
That’s probably why the US, through Nato, would engage whatever happens on that front. It the US stay behind, Europe’s done.
I would say the only thing that can save Europe by now is doubling down on Ukraine, support a breakthrough towards the Black Sea and supervise a fair peace treaty. If Ukraine falls, we’re done.
Europe will never be strong enough to actually stop Russia, for various reasons.
* European politicians paid by Russia will play their role to derange any plan at resisting Russia
* Public opinion, poisoned by years of Russian PsyOps on social media, is pro-russia
* Europe is NOT a single entity, but is made of different nations that are more than willing to screw Europe for their own personal benefit.
Russia will win over time, and Europe will be part of Russia in less than 15 years from now.
EDIT: Also, the public is skewed towards support for Russia in the US, too. And a win by Trump in the upcoming elections will be a win for Putin. It will be the tipping point that will make Russia and China the new masters of the world. After that, China will, with enough time, crush Russia.
EDIT again: instead of downvoting me, answer me and tell me where I am wrong.
Indeed. But with the incompetence at the heads of most states where populism runs hot, I thing war preparations are the lowest on the priority list. After all, social services bring votes, fraudulent investments bring money, and … in case of a war, the politicians will simply fly off to some remote New Zealand and leave the country turn to ashes.
I mean, what are we doing now? Defence budgets have increased by 40% for no reason? Germany has ordered billions of euros of ammunition for no reason? France has nuclear weapons for no reason? Poland is buying 1000 tanks and 600 howitzers for no reason at all?
I really cannot understand what has gotten to people lately… we went from Russia trash can’t even beat small Ukraine to Russia strong can take over the world with pelmeni… why is everyone forgetting that EU remains rich AF and has nukes???
No..we do not care
Obama already said it 15 years ago, we are pivoting to Asia. Take good care y’all.
What we need is to have peace between Russia and Ukraine so the problem goes away.
Europe is not capable of deterring anyone. It’s a nice idea, but we all know if the shit hit the fan, Brussels would surrender unconditionally.
I hate what the Russians are doing as much as everyone else here, but let’s face facts. All of our leaders are absolutely spineless self serving career politicians. At the first whiff of trouble, theyd all be off in their jets to the Caribbean, leaving us to all become subjects of the Russian empire.
Even in peace time, they are basicslly selling our lands and freedom to the Middle East.
Yeah well too late now, we already gave all our money and weapons to Zelensky.
Two thoughts, one the US wont abandon NATO, two, a lot of you sound way too arrogant. You act like you could easily repel Russia even though your leaders are saying you’re not prepared. You also make it seem like Ukraine citizens dont have it that bad. Wouldnt you want to be so prepared Russia never thinks of invading?
I don’t understand why people fail to realise what’s at stake. Either we deal with Putin’s Russia now in Ukraine and end it there or we will deal with it later in countries that are either EU members or NATO allies.
European countries need to grow some balls first. Most of them rely at 100% on the US to defend them.
Trump already got elected once and nothing has changed. European politicians are ignoring the risk. They decided to ignore the problem and hide it with PR.
Europe had 2 years of time to do so. Where have we been?
I am slightly concerned NATO as a whole, inclusive of the US is quite the glass cannon.
Our weapons are mainly smart weapons with highly complex supply chains that would most likley not be operable in several war scenarios.
When they wargame NATO with USA vs Russia in an attempt to push Russia out of Ukraine, NATO essentially runs out of weapons 2 months into a shock and awe campaign, should Russia survive that 2 months (war games suggest they will) we have then spent 10-15 years worth of supplies in 2 months, with no realistic way to get that firepower back for a decade.
People here are delusional European weapon production in any meaningful capacity basically 0. Overpriced and in low numbers besides western europe would worry too much about escalation to defend EE
Nobody asks me but if I was EU I would:
1)Guaranteed contracts for ammunition factories. To ramp up production factories need to invest millions upon millions and it takes a year or two. It is very risky if they do not know for sure that the war will exist in this period and that they will get paid. Countries need to guarantee with contracts that this investment of theirs will be profitable or we will never ramp up production and stock up on ammo like theres no tomorrow.
A good deterrent would be if Europe had obscene amounts of ammo, especially mid and short range cannon shells to scorch earth any agressor for years. I am talking about raining down on enemy troops with ammo for very very long periods of time. Ammo is the number one problem IMO.
2) Heavy investment in drones. 3d printers making 3d printers making drone parts. Disposable 100$ drones or even kamikaze drones. Millions of them. A 100$ drone vs a million $ tank + heavy emphasis on training soldiers to use them.
3) More Nukes. I know its not popular but its one hell of a deterrent. If Russia has thousands of nukes and Europe is relying on the USA to have their back….
​
This is just me tho, nobody asks me.
>The most obvious example is Germany, which shortly after the Russian invasion made a public commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence by 2024, in addition to a one-off €100 billion investment in revitalising Bundeswehr capabilities
This is simply not true.
The german government has always said that they want to spend 2% on defense from 2024 on. This, of course, includes all military spending, including the extra one-off investment budgets that was never meant as an add-on but a kick-starter.
I know that many media reported this wrongly, and political opponents used this for their own narrow fights. But the government/chancellory were always clear on how it was meant.
It’s completely right.
With the number of conflicts and potential conflicts increasing over the course of the last few years, Europe needs to take matters into its own hands and not rely on the US, which will require the bulk of its forces in the East.
NATO’s European forces will require taming rising tensions and potential theatres in Russia, Iran and Yemen. The US, along with Australia, Japan and South Korea should exclusively be focussing on the threats of China and North Korea. Speaking of Japan, it’s time we allow them to take off the gloves and fully remilitarise.
The one thing that was clear towards the end of December is that China, Russia and Iran are largely pushing to involve the US in as many conflicts as possible, likely to cause domestic fatigue. Don’t be surprised if you see further military transgressions against Taiwan in the next two years.
24 comments
If Russia allies with China and attacked us now. We would be doomed to fail.
That should have been clear when Russia attacked Goergia.
The article is worth full reading. Not just the headline.
Could have sworn I read how Russia was doomed but now that US is being stingy it’s suddenly Russia going to win unless we all chip in more.
When is Russia going to lose?
Poland, Baltics etc. were saying that for a decade at least but no…. West knew better. West preferred to do business with Putin.
It’s a good read but its point is only about defence. This is the same mistake as most of the French strategy towards Germany in the 30s.
Yes, sure, the EU could invest billions to be able to defend Poland and maybe the Baltic states for months instead of weeks. Sure, it could provide air superiority for up to a year.
But then what next? If Russia is the aggressor, how do you defeat it then? Being stuck in an attrition conflict with Russia would be a win for Putin. Nobody would tolerate nuclear escalation.
That’s probably why the US, through Nato, would engage whatever happens on that front. It the US stay behind, Europe’s done.
I would say the only thing that can save Europe by now is doubling down on Ukraine, support a breakthrough towards the Black Sea and supervise a fair peace treaty. If Ukraine falls, we’re done.
Europe will never be strong enough to actually stop Russia, for various reasons.
* European politicians paid by Russia will play their role to derange any plan at resisting Russia
* Public opinion, poisoned by years of Russian PsyOps on social media, is pro-russia
* Europe is NOT a single entity, but is made of different nations that are more than willing to screw Europe for their own personal benefit.
Russia will win over time, and Europe will be part of Russia in less than 15 years from now.
EDIT: Also, the public is skewed towards support for Russia in the US, too. And a win by Trump in the upcoming elections will be a win for Putin. It will be the tipping point that will make Russia and China the new masters of the world. After that, China will, with enough time, crush Russia.
EDIT again: instead of downvoting me, answer me and tell me where I am wrong.
Indeed. But with the incompetence at the heads of most states where populism runs hot, I thing war preparations are the lowest on the priority list. After all, social services bring votes, fraudulent investments bring money, and … in case of a war, the politicians will simply fly off to some remote New Zealand and leave the country turn to ashes.
I mean, what are we doing now? Defence budgets have increased by 40% for no reason? Germany has ordered billions of euros of ammunition for no reason? France has nuclear weapons for no reason? Poland is buying 1000 tanks and 600 howitzers for no reason at all?
I really cannot understand what has gotten to people lately… we went from Russia trash can’t even beat small Ukraine to Russia strong can take over the world with pelmeni… why is everyone forgetting that EU remains rich AF and has nukes???
No..we do not care
Obama already said it 15 years ago, we are pivoting to Asia. Take good care y’all.
What we need is to have peace between Russia and Ukraine so the problem goes away.
Europe is not capable of deterring anyone. It’s a nice idea, but we all know if the shit hit the fan, Brussels would surrender unconditionally.
I hate what the Russians are doing as much as everyone else here, but let’s face facts. All of our leaders are absolutely spineless self serving career politicians. At the first whiff of trouble, theyd all be off in their jets to the Caribbean, leaving us to all become subjects of the Russian empire.
Even in peace time, they are basicslly selling our lands and freedom to the Middle East.
Yeah well too late now, we already gave all our money and weapons to Zelensky.
Two thoughts, one the US wont abandon NATO, two, a lot of you sound way too arrogant. You act like you could easily repel Russia even though your leaders are saying you’re not prepared. You also make it seem like Ukraine citizens dont have it that bad. Wouldnt you want to be so prepared Russia never thinks of invading?
I don’t understand why people fail to realise what’s at stake. Either we deal with Putin’s Russia now in Ukraine and end it there or we will deal with it later in countries that are either EU members or NATO allies.
European countries need to grow some balls first. Most of them rely at 100% on the US to defend them.
Trump already got elected once and nothing has changed. European politicians are ignoring the risk. They decided to ignore the problem and hide it with PR.
Europe had 2 years of time to do so. Where have we been?
I am slightly concerned NATO as a whole, inclusive of the US is quite the glass cannon.
Our weapons are mainly smart weapons with highly complex supply chains that would most likley not be operable in several war scenarios.
When they wargame NATO with USA vs Russia in an attempt to push Russia out of Ukraine, NATO essentially runs out of weapons 2 months into a shock and awe campaign, should Russia survive that 2 months (war games suggest they will) we have then spent 10-15 years worth of supplies in 2 months, with no realistic way to get that firepower back for a decade.
People here are delusional European weapon production in any meaningful capacity basically 0. Overpriced and in low numbers besides western europe would worry too much about escalation to defend EE
Nobody asks me but if I was EU I would:
1)Guaranteed contracts for ammunition factories. To ramp up production factories need to invest millions upon millions and it takes a year or two. It is very risky if they do not know for sure that the war will exist in this period and that they will get paid. Countries need to guarantee with contracts that this investment of theirs will be profitable or we will never ramp up production and stock up on ammo like theres no tomorrow.
A good deterrent would be if Europe had obscene amounts of ammo, especially mid and short range cannon shells to scorch earth any agressor for years. I am talking about raining down on enemy troops with ammo for very very long periods of time. Ammo is the number one problem IMO.
2) Heavy investment in drones. 3d printers making 3d printers making drone parts. Disposable 100$ drones or even kamikaze drones. Millions of them. A 100$ drone vs a million $ tank + heavy emphasis on training soldiers to use them.
3) More Nukes. I know its not popular but its one hell of a deterrent. If Russia has thousands of nukes and Europe is relying on the USA to have their back….
​
This is just me tho, nobody asks me.
>The most obvious example is Germany, which shortly after the Russian invasion made a public commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence by 2024, in addition to a one-off €100 billion investment in revitalising Bundeswehr capabilities
This is simply not true.
The german government has always said that they want to spend 2% on defense from 2024 on. This, of course, includes all military spending, including the extra one-off investment budgets that was never meant as an add-on but a kick-starter.
I know that many media reported this wrongly, and political opponents used this for their own narrow fights. But the government/chancellory were always clear on how it was meant.
It’s completely right.
With the number of conflicts and potential conflicts increasing over the course of the last few years, Europe needs to take matters into its own hands and not rely on the US, which will require the bulk of its forces in the East.
NATO’s European forces will require taming rising tensions and potential theatres in Russia, Iran and Yemen. The US, along with Australia, Japan and South Korea should exclusively be focussing on the threats of China and North Korea. Speaking of Japan, it’s time we allow them to take off the gloves and fully remilitarise.
The one thing that was clear towards the end of December is that China, Russia and Iran are largely pushing to involve the US in as many conflicts as possible, likely to cause domestic fatigue. Don’t be surprised if you see further military transgressions against Taiwan in the next two years.