There was an incredibly stubborn post-Cold War "end of history" complacency in Europe that really should have ended after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Instead it lasted until the full invasion in 2022.
What's been starkly revealed since is that Europe is woefully unprepared to respond to any kind of aggression, and aside from France's nuclear weapons, wholly reliant on America. At some point you have to get serious and live in the real world where threats still exist.
That's not complacency, that's a feature. The key to peace in Europe is the unified free trade zone on one hand, but on the other it's also disarmament while relying on NATO. Besides putting territorial questions aside, one of the main requirements of joining NATO was to discontinue the draft!
The entire security failure is by design, one that has been made a long time ago when the US force was way more capable and threatening in their stance. The annexation of Crimea was in a way calling that stance a bluff, and now everybody is juggling the question of rearmament like a hot potato.
Because we were all calm when the saying was that no two countries which had McDonalds would go to war against one another - and then they did, and now we all have McDonalds but we don't have standing combat capable armies besides NATO operable specialized arms for a good reason.
AFAIK small states are treated as exceptions because the conscription leaves you with the same amount of men as professional armies of bigger countries. But there has been a lot of talk in the past few years of changing this, but politically it would be immensely unpopular.
The majority of NATO members had conscription at the time they joined NATO. Also, the United States has been pressuring NATO members to increase defense spending for decades; Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO were a hardball negotiating tactic towards this longstanding foreign policy goal.
Sure. But the fundamental problem seem to be for the political gaist to be "defence friendly" while also not war mongering. The same few collegues I have that don't trust the politicians, the gov, collective endouvers etc with anything seem hell bent to project "we" want to die for them. It is beyond insane. If people want to lie in a trench led by Ursula ... well. Have fun.
Being "defence friendly" means also cultivating the mentality that lying in the trenches for your country/culture/values might be necessary.
Forget arms industry or military budget as a percent of GDP. The main problem is that Europe lacks the fighting spirit (with some exceptions like Poland). Countries like Germany will fold / capitulate to any demands if they suffer thousands of casualties.
I'm sorry, but this is rubbish. For example, the UK citizenry was almost completely pacifist two years before world war II, much more than Germany is now, and for stronger reasons; having lost a huge number of men during world war I. It didn't take the population very long at all to change its ideas once it was clear what was going to happen.
People make shallow remarks. You can't use that to predict what they will do when the chips are down.
Nobody wants to lie in the trenches to protect other people's wealth, but that's what usually happens. The poor are sent to fight and die, or to return home to poverty and disability if they survive.
I'm amazed anyone is willing to sign up to risk their life for $2K/month, even here in the US where military service has long been glorified.
This is why you need various manipulation* techniques: religion (to decrease the fear of death), patriotism, anger, glorification of war and heroism... I sometimes wonder if maybe the poor state of modern education is not just incompetence or a result of a cynical idea "stupid society is easier to control", but instead someone analyzed that an intelligent society would become atheist/cynical/pragmatic etc. resulting in severly decreased motivation to fight for the government.
* I think the word "manipulation" implies an intent to mislead someone, while some techniques influencing others are used by people unaware of the effects or (in)correctness of the propaganda; maybe rather than "manipulation" I should say "indoctrination".
If you look back at history mankind seems quite naturally inclined towards fighting wars. The manipulation techniques are more needed to maintain peace.
Indeed if you look at our closest animal relatives, the chimps, they are quite inclined to wipe out their neighbours without needing religion or cash payment.
I think it's seldom to protect other peoples wealth. I'm trying to think of an example where that was the case. More typically, as a Brit our last big war was fighting Hitler as we didn't like fascism and that. It was very costly for us wealth wise compared with say making a pact with him as he would have liked.
It s not that european nations arent aggressive (unfortunately nationalism is only sleeping in Europe, not dead). But the idea of collective european nation only appeals to the 3-4 core countries. Most eu nations have a different notion of national interests. Even with Ukraine which is supported by all, the level of support and expectations vary very widely
> cultivating the mentality that lying in the trenches for your country/culture/values might be necessary.
That would mean cultivating the mentality that a country is more than just an economic platform, because that's not something anyone is willing to die for. It means cultivating the dreaded nationalism.
> That would mean cultivating the mentality that a country is more than just an economic platform
Is it just that, or does it perhaps protect also other rights? Is the economic prosperity the only reason one might prefer living in Germany over Russia?
Point taken. But what about in Germany over Canada? Or Italy? Or Spain, or Australia, or the US, or New Zealand, or UK, or Iceland, or Taiwan, or Japan or... there are lots of mostly free countries (so long as you don't engage in the growing category of hate-speech) one can run to, once freed from the concepts of homeland and nation.
Will your whole family and friends run too? Will you move your whole social life with you or are you ready to accept your life will be torn apart?
Once Germany gets submitted without a fight, how long will it take until Italy is attacked? I mean, with this "running away" philosophy it's pretty easy to take countries without facing a resistance now.
A small price compared to dying in war. I'm not saying it's the right choice, but if you have no attachment to your country and people beyond it being a comfortable place to live, that's the choice most will make.
Let me present you an alternative. Europe can build up a credible defense capability which will provide a strong deterrence to Russia. In that case you don't have to die in the trenches and you don't have to spend your life running away from the aggressor.
Nazi Germany did not invade Switzerland, USSR did not invade Finland (after suffering horrible losses in the Winter war), even though both had their own claims on them, because the costs of such an adventure were considered too high. A big part of this deterrence was a population willing to fight to defend their homeland.
> Nazi Germany did not invade Switzerland, USSR did not invade Finland
To be fair these aren't exactly the most relevant examples. On paper the balance of power economically (and military to a somewhat lesser degree) is certainly on the side of the EU/NATO. It would be relative pretty cheap to invest enough just to deter a second rate country (besides nukes) like Russia.
Is Italy threatening to nuke or invade Germany because the Germans won't let them annex Austria? I don't think so..
Or are you suggesting that people can just move to another place when their home country gets taken over by fascist imperialists? Because that doesn't really scale that well...
I lack fighting spirit, don't want to spend money for weapons and I'm not afraid of Russia (live in Germany).
There is a lot of fear mongering.
Ukraine should make a deal instead of sacrificing people without limits. So many people died, for loosing later. If they wait too long there won't be any deal.
Russian deals don't look like what reasonable people think they should look like. They are only ever made to serve propaganda needs, you have fallen for it.
Who are you to say what a "real" Russian deal is? Are you a Russian citizen?
If no: then you can do NOTHING effective about Russia.
Reign your own war criminals in and bring them to heel. Only after you have done that, are you going to be in a position to do anything effective about Russia - if, indeed, the "Russian threat" boogeyman still persists, long after you've actually sent your own war criminals to rot in chains in The Hague .. which is, admittedly, quite unlikely given that the very same war criminals you would have to confront and prosecute are the ones telling you boogeyman stories ..
Well... the probably was option for a "peace deal" Ukraine just had to renounce all the territories Russia had occupied (and also parts of the annexed regions which Ukraine still controlled). They probably wanted other concessions as well...
So Boris Johnson single handedly changed the course of Ukraine’s history ?
Or, equally likely, he just arrived with guarantees that weapon deliveries would be maintained ?
Whether Russia presented a so called “peace deal” is irrelevant. The propaganda claim is Boris Johnson came in and somehow mind warped the Ukraine side.
Which, like a lot of propaganda in this war, completely removes the agency from the Ukrainians. Funny how that works.
Whatever he arrived with, it changed the plans of the Ukrainian government. I don't see how it removes any agency from Ukraine, or why that would even be a meaningful statement.
> Whatever he arrived with, it changed the plans of the Ukrainian government
So you're claiming that Ukrainian government was willing to give up all the annexed regions including the territories they still controlled? Because that's what Russia was demanding.
Dude, I have lived next to russia most of my life, when I was born, my country was occupied by russians as soviet union.
I can see russian propaganda from far away.
If you would stop and think what a "peace deal" with a vicious-murderous aggressor means then you would not spew such bullshit. russia started the war, killed hundreds of thousands of people already and you call for Ukrainians to surrender under "peace deal" so they would be tortured and enslaved under russian occupation.
Also you could look into history to see whether there are any "peace deals" with russia that have held and not been just a pause for more aggression and atrocities.
On the basis of your moral imperative, there are no Western nations worthy of the peace, either.
Its not like NATO isn't responsible for wide-spread destruction of sovereign democracies, also ..
That's entirely besides the point. These entities should be making peace with each other in spite of each others crimes.
It is your propaganda which precludes peace, because you are convinced, without rational thought, that peace is impossible... whereas, there was actually a peace deal brought to the table, nix'ed by NATO ..
Ukraine invited NATO-aligned actors to set up bases along its borders with Russia. That has been considered by the Russians to be an aggressive act warranting a hostile response.
I don't agree with the invasion and destruction of Ukraine's eastern regions to be an appropriate response - but me, not agreeing with something, doesn't make it propaganda.
Propaganda is "NATO and Ukraine have done nothing wrong, Russia are just inventing reasons". This propaganda is designed to prevent you from having a rational look at the reasons. Propaganda shuts down continued thought on the subject - I invite you to consider that perhaps you have not thought enough about why the Russians are willing to sacrifice so much, on their own borders.
Just as you are inviting me to really, really think about whether Ukraines' actions warranted this heinous response. (Clue: I don't agree with any war, or that there is any such things as an honorable war these days. No nation state is worth the life of another human being, period. Both Russian and Ukrainian citizens as well as their ruling political classes should be reminded of this fact, repeatedly.)
> Beginning with the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century, Russia managed to expand at an average rate of 50 square miles per day for hundreds of years, eventually covering one-sixth of the earth’s landmass.
Maybe, just maybe, consider whether any of this expansion has not been active war and murder?
You are doing victim blaming by putting any fault on Ukraine for trying to protect themselves from invasion. They did not manage to protect themselves and now are somehow at fault for war.
In your opinion the victim has to make peace not the aggressor. What a twisted mind.
You say both need to be reminded but somehow only say NATO is bad even tho NATO is not even part of this conflict.
No, there isn't, the whole conspiracy theory lies on a few sentences taken out of context. Spend an hour vetting sources and you'll find that it's a Russian PR spin without any substance.
Anyone can "prove" with public statements from top officials that the US goverment is run by aliens from outer space, if they can take three sentences of their choice out of context and freely ignore everything else.
It's not 1939 (as if their invasion of Poland was justifiable or is that not what you're claiming?). Nobody has been threatening Russian security for decades. Even back in the cold war does there were no serious plans to invade Russia itself.
> Please try to raise the level of discourse beyond the boogyman
That's sounds rather absurd... You're the one who's using propaganda bullet points like "It's about Russian security"?
Everything Putin is doing is worsening Russia's security situation.
As a direct result of Russia's war, NATO has expanded and Russia is now very much in China's pocket. China is quite happy to have Russia as a vassal state.
Russia had a mini civil war with Prigozhin's rebellion. Russians have been killing Russians.
Russia's life expectancy was already lower than that of developed countries and this pointless war of choice is steadily killing off an entire generation of young Russians.
Oh BS it's security. Like they are threatened by a small peacefull country next door with a comedian elected as president to join the EU, when they have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and a dictator skilled in mass murder.
Are you aware of the Monroe doctrine? Cuban missile crisis? Can you imagine the US reaction if Russia placed missiles in Canada or Mexico?
Mearsheimer explains the perceived threat aspect very well: it doesn't matter what YOU, the Americans or any outside observer thinks. What does matter is what the Russians think,
and they've made their thinking on having Ukraine be part of NATO very clear.
Russia has bordered two NATO counties for decades. There were no Russia threatening missiles in Ukraine.
Putin is probably genuinely threatened by the prospect of Ukraine being a prosperous democracy and his own people saying why do we have to live under tyrany then, but that's a different thing.
No, Putin is actually bothered by the presence of NATO bases designed to attack and invade Russia being established directly on his borders, within minutes of flight time to Moscow. He also had huge issues with Ukraines' NATO-funded biological warfare program.
The Russians were, as they made clear on multiple occasions, threatened by NATO moving into Ukraine and potentially placing missiles close to the Russian heartland.
The only ones installing missiles anywhere are Russians, most recently moving nuclear missiles into an unstable dictatorship in Belarus, right on EU and NATO border.
Why would NATO want to antagonize or threaten Russia directly? That's a serious question because neither the US nor Western Europe had any desire to start any direct or indirect conflict with Russia since 1991..
> missiles close to the Russian heartland.
Any factual evidence? In any case you do realize there are Russian missiles in Kaliningrad so following the same logic you would agree that Poland/Germany/Sweden etc. have a legitimate right to invade it to demilitarize and "denazify" it (in this case of course for real because Russia at this point is literally a fascist state, it ticks all the boxes after all) following the same "logic"?
>Why would NATO want to antagonize or threaten Russia directly?
Because the PNAC/CNAC plans for the economic survival of the USA and its western allies depends on the defeat of Russia and the balkanization of its resources?
Haven't you been paying attention? The PNAC/CNAC oligarchs and their military junta have made it quite clear for decades that they want what Russia's got...
> economic survival of the USA and its western allies
Don't be silly. Russia is a sidenote from the perspective of the west. Especially the US, they'd much rather focus on the pacific and their internal stuff.
I know Russians tend to be extremely paranoid about everyone being out to get them but that's more of an internalized issue due to historical reasons and the general tendency of blaming external powers for all of their domestic issues...
Tell me you haven't been paying attention to the oligarchs of the PNAC without telling me you haven't been paying attention to the oligarchs of the PNAC ..
So Putin's solution to this apparent dilemma was to start a war that has directly resulted in the expansion NATO? If NATO was a problem before then surely a bigger NATO is a bigger problem.
It sounds like Putin doesn't care much about Russia's security and he's only making things worse.
That "peace deal" would have required that Ukraine permanently recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea and the Donbas (on top of other concessions).
This is why Russia is called "expansionist". Because it likes to expand its territory.
Before Boris arrived to scupper it.
That's not what happened. I know you read some snippet somewhere that made it sound like that's what happened. But simply put, you're being played. And that's not actually what happened.
Every link of yours is a well-known spin. For example, Bennett has clarified that his words have been taken out of context and misrepresented, and Arahamiya has said that no-one on Ukrainian side belived that Russian peace plan was genuine and not a stalling tactic.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to switch to sites that don't have "conservative" in their URL.
That's the spin of those two observers. But there was a lot to more to the actual chain of events at the time.
And lo and behold, the fact of two guys stating a certain narrative about those events (then embellished up a bit by the publications quoting them) does not make it so. Even the article you're citing about Arahamiya's version of events isn't so clear-cut about the matter (it says Boris's advice was but one factor among many) as you're making it out to be.
It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for people to tell an invaded nation, with countless atrocities commited against them, to just give up and move on.
It's incredibly patronizing. Those silly Ukrainians don't know what they're doing, let me explain them what they should do. What's so wrong living under Russian yoke anyway? Russian ballet looks nice, it can't be that bad.
You are now moving the discussion from practicality to idealism. Doesn't really matter what ideals they have when they have to consider getting destroyed or not.
The side with no idealism is bound to lose, because for individuals it's better to run than to fight. Tragedy of the commons.
But what you're doing is a category error. It's a completely different thing to ask your enemy to surrender from asking your ally (in a loose sense) to surrender.
Japan was facing a superpower with unlimited resources. Ukraine is facing a second-rate region power which has nothing going for them besides nukes and a large pool of servile and suicidal recruits (so a bit like Japan in that sense). Not exactly equivalent situations?
> Ukraine should make a deal instead of sacrificing people without limits.
Imagine you're an Ukrainian. Is there a deal which you would not accept and rather continue fighting or would you accept literally any deal (including unconditional surrender)?
I find it interesting that it is always Ukraine that should surrender and not sacrifice their people. When Russia is sacrificing its people in pointless invasion that has been stuck in stalemate for a year.
They could end the war, and their suffering, tomorrow. They probably could even negotiate keeping Crimea.
Make an experiment and try to predict what would happen otherwise. Or just read my prediction below.
Countries who don't force people to fight are:
- much weaker in the case of war,
- with such policies not being (a well hidden) secret, an attractive target for a hostile country.
So such countries are going to statistically be attacked more often, and statistically lose more often.
So if you don't counter those statistical downsides somehow, you should expect such human-rights-respecting countries to eventually be displaced by less human-righty countries.
With NATO, advanced technology and enough people willing to fight you indeed might not need to force a draft; but clearly not the case for Ukraine.
I don't have perfect solution, but "to avoid being defeated by evil we must become evil ourselves" is not really the point. There are things that are lose-lose, making war worse for both sides. For things like chemical weapons we have treaties banning it, while for conscription all politicians are quiet about while pretending to care about human rights.
I'd say balance is important. You can't just say: "I'll start a company, where if a consumer reports he's unhappy with a product, service, I'll just refund his money unconditionally, because that's the world I'd like to live in." Maybe such approach is achievable in the far future, but you can't ignore the harsh environment of your competition and go straight for the ideal approach.
And yes, I know you might not consider my example of an ideal approach, but there's plenty similar examples to make, like a sports team being completely fair: recognizing their errors when even the judge doesn't, recognize negative errors of the judge against their opponents (and e.g. allow the opponent to easily get a point to cancel out unfair judge's ruling), never pretend an injury even though an opponent does it etc. Such a team would quickly become irrelevant.
In other words, your attitude is naive and it stems from a false dilemma that you can be either good or evil, disregarding the smooth gradient, where you can try to climb up reasonably high - higher than average - and pull the rest up.
You can't say "How am I supposed to run a company if I can't catch random people on the street and force them to work at gunpoint?" either.
There is nothing naive or idealistic about his position. Forcefully catching unwilling civilians and sending to slaughter is a human sacrifice going against the very idea of human rights. It is pure evil, there isn't exactly a lot of room for shades of grey.
To be honest, when I see the sophistry designed to justify the relegating of citizens to the role of an animal in the butchery by their own state, it looks like a classic horror material. Scarier than the descriptions of atrocities in the warzone. It's like a a cabal of cannibalistic cultists trying to gaslight normal people into thinking that killing those people is (and always was) absolutely normal and it is their very purpose to be slaughtered and it is you a weird freak for pretending that you have some rights and can decide whether you want to die for something or not.
> There is nothing naive or idealistic about his position.
Assuming you can just ask people to risk their lives to defend the state is both. (Not that it can't work in some circumstances)
> Forcefully catching unwilling civilians and sending to slaughter is a human sacrifice going against the very idea of human rights.
No, and I already explained why not: if you arrest an innocent person (or even sentence an innocent person to life in prison), you're obviously harming that person's freedom, but the alternative is to either:
- be perfect and never make mistakes: here's the naivety and idealism again
- resign from the justice system and have anarchy (that's not an improvement by any stretch of imagination)
Similarly with wars and conscription: without it, most (all?) states are too weak to defend and fall. Guess who defeats those states? Competing states with worse human rights (forced draft) or perhaps much worse human rights.
So Ukraine could just allow everyone to run away and let russia win. I can see some hypothetical back and forth between us, where we would eventually agree on a scenario where russia takes Ukraine and maybe some more states outside of NATO but eventually the NATO border stops the advances, and so I won't make an argument that people will eventually no longer have a place to escape to.
Here's the thing, however: people could easily escape before the war. By staying in the country, they agreed to the rules: everyone knew, that in case of war (that was looming for quite a long while) conscription will happen.
Assuming you can just ask people to risk their lives to defend the state is both.
Only in the cannibalistic belief of men being disposable non-sentient material for blood sacrifices on the state altar rather than real humans with rights. It is a question of priorities, not naivety.
if you arrest an innocent person (or even sentence an innocent person to life in prison), you're obviously harming that person's freedom
This only happens as a mistake, which makes your analogy completely nonsensical. No one in their right mind argues in favor of a false dichotomy like "Yeah, we just imprison random bypassers en masse and hope that some of them happen to be criminals. Do you want complete lawlessness otherwise or what?"
Forced conscription is not a mistake, it is intentional and official violation of human rights.
Similarly with wars and conscription: without it, most (all?) states are too weak to defend and fall
This sophistry can be adapted for virtually any crime against humanity.
How states without slavery can defend against states with slavery? They don't have a significant pool of free labor.
How states without death camps can defend against states with death camps? Their traitors/potential collaborators/regime enemies are all alive and roaming free.
etc etc
In reality, however, we don't see complete extinction of states with human rights replaced by the most inhumane regimes possible, not even the prevalence of the latter. The reason of that is very obvious: normal sane people aren't exactly enthusiastic to live in, defend or otherwise support the state that doesn't even consider them humans. Specifically in Ukraine and Russia with strong animal protection laws, stray dogs right now have more rights than male conscripts.
Competing states with worse human rights (forced draft) or perhaps much worse human rights.
Yet another sneaky attempt to minimise the atrocity scale. The state strips you of all human rights and sends you to the slaughter. What much worse human rights can you imagine? The state slaughtering you directly? Is that much worse?
Here's the thing, however: people could easily escape before the war.
That's a nice try at victim blaming but they could not. Before the war Ukraine was a usual third world country and like with most countries moving somewhere else wasn't easy at all. Current refugee programs weren't available for Ukrainians back then.
> but "to avoid being defeated by evil we must become evil ourselves" is not really the point
Well the world is not black and white.
> For things like chemical weapons we have treaties banning it
There was a treaty Russia signed (along with US, UK etc.) which guaranteed Ukrainian Independance back in the 90s. All treaties are less than worthless if you can't enforce them.
> while for conscription all politicians are quiet about while pretending to care about human rights.
Would you rather have conscription and not live in Russia? Or have conscription and live in Russia? Realistically these are basically the only options some people have.
Finland faced way worse population odds in the Winter war, yet still managed to stop the Soviets. They had to concede some territory, but it was very far from a surrender.
When did Soviet troops parade in Helsinki? When did Finland join USSR as one of its republics? Because that's what would happen if Finland surrendered. Finland was part of Russian empire just 20-something years ago, Stalin wouldn't be happy with just sliver of the land unless he was forced to a compromise.
> I lack fighting spirit, don't want to spend money for weapons and I'm not afraid of Russia (live in Germany).
Aren't those statements contradicting as at least two separate sets of ideas?
If you lack fighting spirit, you don't want to fight. So you should want more money spent on weapons, so that you don't have to fight. Aristotle said "if you want peace, prepare for war".
If you don't want to fight, you should be afraid of everyone who does: e.g. russia.
putin clearly said he wants to restore the old ussr borders. This means eventually taking eastern Germany. And then you just have to naively assume if he succeeds at that, he will stop at that. I mean, let's be honest, he can't possibly live that long to see his plan fully completed, but let's say he has successors continuing his work.
I know that there is this comfortable seemingly impenetrable boundary of NATO alliance: but recently Trump said he would invite putin to attack on NATO members that don't put enough GDP % into military spending (e.g. Germany), and new Slovakian government is significantly more prorussian (meeting with russia and Hungary).
In January 2022 experts almost unanimously said it would be ridiculous for russia to attack Ukraine.
Don't be afraid of russia, but also act to actually support your peace of mind.
There is no deal on the table, there never was. Putin wants them to surrender and more or less dissolve the army so he can take the rest without the fight.
Losing the UK's Royal Navy, special forces, and nuke force due to Brexit was also a strategic mistake, due to peacetime conplacency. It would have made more sense to be a bit more flexible with Britain.
Good point. I think, however, that there is still some validity in differentiating the two. Some NATO countries are outside the EU, and vice vetsa. Also, the US dominates NATO, and not the EU.
I don't agree with your comment. Unpreparedness is one thing, but you paint a picture of weakness and reliance. Why are there no Dutch F-35s or French warships in Ukraine? Where are the British special forces? Let alone the non-NATO countries of Switzerland Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden. Some NATO members have huge militaries, albeit with many NATO commitments, i.e. not even close to being utilized to their full potential. Others like Ireland have enough resources to fund those of close allies. Think of all those taxes paid over decades into defense. Together we could have stealth bombers in Moscow within minutes and helicopters and troops soon after. Wagner could have done it by themselves had they had the self-confidence. But no one is doing anything at all, simply because Putin has threatened to nuke us all.
Dutch have contributed massively relative to gdp. The British special forces trained Ukraines special forces after the war started. Sweden is in NATO. And you can't bomb a nuclear state.
The NL have contributed massively. I never meant that they didn't, I was selecting some powerful, random countries with still untapped resources to counter your comment that implied weakness. It was not at all my intention to diminish their contributions (consider that I didn't even mention those of Poland and the Baltics; even though I hate using GDP for this, but that is another discussion...): Again, my point was that, relative to what I imagine Europe's real military might is, it has not even really gotten started compared to what we could be doing, if only we weren't so scared of nukes. Just think of how we could have annihilated the soft target that was the disorganized 64 km Kyiv convoy, back in 2022. A quick search yielded that we have 1703 fighter jets in the EU-28, let alone the large warships, and who knows how many other assets. If we declared war (I'm not a lawyer, but it would easy to prove casus belli, and have jus ad bellum, given Russia's literal aggression and genocide). We could be attacking them along their entire (gigantic) border all the way to the east that they couldn't possibly hope to defend being so spread out. It would look totally different than the "weak" image we are projecting now because we aren't at war.
Sweden is not yet in NATO. They are on the verge of it, with Orban signing approval today, but Hungary has not yet formally submitted their instrument of ratification. Details matter when correcting people.
Well, the nuclear threat is no small threat. It's possibly humanity-ending. Specifically the nuclear winter.
It's amazing and I attribute it largely to American intelligence, how much russia was damaged with "only" a 10s advance on the Doomsday Clock (we're at 23:58:30 now).
> There was an incredibly stubborn post-Cold War "end of history"
It's hard to tell whether all these comments are part of online propaganda or people regurgitating propaganda they watched on youtube. Like clockwork, the same talking points with the same key words.
> What's been starkly revealed since is that Europe is woefully unprepared to respond to any kind of aggression
Europe is one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world. Maintains the largest armed forces in the world. And is one of the biggest aggressors in the world. Ask the north africans, middle easterners and sub saharan africans, etc.
> wholly reliant on America.
It's either be reliant on america or become our competitor. Besides, what's your point here? That europe wants a nuclear war with russia?
> At some point you have to get serious and live in the real world where threats still exist.
Europe is the threat. It's funny how the war in ukraine is between european military powers and yet you claim europe is unprepared for aggression. Most of europe is part of NATO, the biggest source of violence and aggression in the world.
Sure, we will hire a few thousand contractors to form a network of committees and prepare multiple sustainability plans and guidelines for the next seven years. We will also declare war illegal and fine violators with 70% of their gdp.
Whoever dares to challenge european sovereignty will be met with the collective wrath of our cookie prompts
The EU is not only materially incapable of war mode (too many second rate career politicians) but also strategically unaligned. One of its members is occupied by a nato country, and hasn't been supported when threatened. Eastern countries, particularly poland are understandably pushing hard for armament but they will be sorely disappointed when national vetoes start arriving
On the other hand, when Albania was attacked by Iran in 2022 their prime minister didn't invoke Article 5 because he has "too much respect for our friends and our allies to tell them what they should do."
NATO is just as seemingly unfair to its smaller members as is the EU. This is not because of any incompetence per se but rather just a phenomenon in any organization with differently powerful members. Places like US, Germany and Albania will never really be equal due to their respective bargaining powers - no matter what a charta says.
I think it's more reluctant to go into war mode. Europe did plenty of war in the not too distant past.
It was interesting doing a tour of Ypres where my grandad did artillery in WW1. It was really rather similar to the current war in Ukriane - largely static trenches with people lobbing shells at each other. Bigger though - approx 1bn shells fired and 14 million dead.
No one really wants to repeat that expect perhaps Putin. I suspect the current slowness in making 1/1000th as many shells is more down to a lack of enthusiasm for the whole business than being less capeable than a century ago. Indeed I thought we were over that stuff but I guess if Putin wants to go retro and roll tanks into the neighbours territories we are forced to respond.
The difference between now and then is that you're reading this on a screen instead of on paper. That, and it's gonna be different factions fighting. But the ramp-up was in the news for several years then, too. I never thought I'd live to see this, I thought this only happened in history books.
Just like western EU governments apparently. It turns out governing a country isn't just about balancing an excel spreadsheet of incomes and spendings, which seems to be the only thing our elites have bee trained for in the last 40 years
I thought we were better. But it seems to me like people has been swapped out. I dunno if I am psychotic or "everyone" else is. But then again, stuff like this have a higher risk of happening with bad and impopular leaders I guess.
Too late to buy EU defence stocks, too late to buy real estate, too late to simply stop getting intimate with Russia (are Germans still smirking?), with current economy nobody is getting a new job either. What have you done, Europe.
Making crass jokes about school shootings, alienating regional powers (Israel, Turkey, Australia, most of the Sahel), and ignoring the first conventional war on the continent this century.
Turkey and Israel alienated themselves. There was way too much will towards Turkey, and they kept blowing it every single time. And Israel.. well.. is Israel.
I live close to the border with Ukraine and I have no idea what you're talking about. Beyond it being a little harder to get an apartament due to the influx of Ukrainian migrants, it's business as usual. And I've not heard of any job market woes. The worst thing right now, and since a while, is farmers getting shafted by cheap grain imports from Ukraine due to lax control at the border, no tracking, and no punishments for buyers.
> is farmers getting shafted by cheap grain imports from Ukraine due to lax control at the border, no tracking, and no punishments for buyers.
they say that and yet much larger traffic of grain from Russia somehow doesn't hurt those farmers?! maybe it's because a lot of it is stolen Ukrainian grain so everyone should be hush shush about it
Several of the farmers protesting at the Polish botder are borderline state actors on Russian behalf, with connections to government officials being proven. Make of that what you will.
For 2023, the grain imported from Russia to Poland amounts to 1.2% of the grain imported from Ukraine. Should be 0%, but it's definitively not "much larger". How are you comforable with just making things up like that.
This is an outdated statistic. The EU as a whole is spending above the 2% and if you include broader items like railway improvements to facilitate moving US tanks, the number more than doubles. Some EU countries have given more than 2% to Ukraine on top of this
You can play games with numbers all you want to make things look less bad, but many of the major EU economies have significantly neglected military spending. Not only is there a huge lack of munitions across the continent, there's a huge lack of ability to make any. Sure the invasion of Ukraine made these countries scramble to start fixing decades of neglect, but the damage has already been done.
The numbers are about where the EU is now, not where it was 2+ years ago. The EU has increased spending and is increasing production capacity. They are doing something about it. The US seems unable to do anything right now because of politics
The EU has had a very significant change in attitude
- 2 years ago about defense spending
- 2 months about defense independence, after hearing Trump's comments about NATO and House Republicans unwillingness to pass foreign defense aid
Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea have taken note as well
While this might be true now, this has not always been the case.
And there are still some individual NATO members that want to make excuses instead of pay their fair share for the nuclear umbrella we are providing them, among many other things.
NATO funding is in the realm of a few million per year for administrative costs, and all members make these payments.
Perhaps you are referring to the requirement for NATO members to spend minimum 2% GDP on their own Military? In which case other responses explain that, on average, this is already occuring.
Further to that, percentage of GDP is a problematic metric to measure spending, as a member could in fact increase their military spending year on year, but if their spending increase doesn't keep up with their GDP increases then it can appear that they are spending less.
Maybe they will build out their own military industry causing the US to no longer have a much larger technological capability than it actually pays for from its own GDP and face more competition in weapon sales.
This is already happening. Poland & South Korea entered into a significant deal last year. SK is working with Poland to build SK mil hardware in Poland, which iirc, is a first for them. There are speculations that this is SK breaking into the EU market for tanks & spg.
Drones are reshaping conventional war at unprecedented speeds. Many things need to be rethought. Big ticket items and air defense are notable examples.
Porcupine defense is likely the best strategy for deterrence. Taiwan and her allies should take note of what Ukraine has accomplished in the Black Sea.
Your comment is probably sarcastic, but I think this new world disorder we slipping into will necessitate a more muscular Europe working in tandem with the US to counter our common enemies.
I would welcome a Europe that takes what is going on more seriously instead of hoping another pansy-ass raft of sanctions will make Putin or Xi shudder in fear.
What's been starkly revealed since is that Europe is woefully unprepared to respond to any kind of aggression, and aside from France's nuclear weapons, wholly reliant on America. At some point you have to get serious and live in the real world where threats still exist.