EU does not have a great track in terms providing security for its members. Nord Stream was pushed by Germany even though it was obvious that this would make Germany depended on Russian gas. Germany killed the plan of common European gas purchase from diversified sources - they wanted to buy it alone, to sell it further and get even more economical advantage over other EU countries (because, unless you don't know, gas from Russia is a green energy, CO2 free).
That's why Germany to the very last moment was opposing arms sale for Ukraine and until the 3rd day of the Russian invasion on Ukraine was opposing sanctions. Blinken was not getting off his plane for good three weeks while traveling to convince European partners from Italy, Germany, France, Hungary that Russia is a real danger and has to be stopped. Long time has to pass before Germany will be consider to be a trusted partner, their silent support for Russia was clear not only to Poland or Baltic countries - Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Romania, Moldavia, they all have seen what is happening and will think twice before trusting Germany.
Nobody sane will undermine the role of NATO and USA/UK when it comes to European security, over my head I see US and UK spy planes and drones that are flying all days and nights over eastern Poland, providing intel for Ukrainian forces.
No country in Europe is capable of pursuing large military operation, France stumbled over their own feet when trying to change ruler in Libya several years ago and France has the best army in continental Europe. Go figure that! They needed US support at the end.
Another big problem is the pathetic state of German army, especially heavy component, luckily they have just decided to put significant amount of money on making Bundeswehr a real force since right now with its 300 tanks (three times less than Poland) it is a sad joke.
Germany and a lot of politicians in other countries just woke up from 30 year long dream that Russia is and can be normal country. In a few years a lot of what you're talking about will be thing of the past.
>Another big problem is the pathetic state of German army, especially heavy component, luckily they have just decided to put significant amount of money on making Bundeswehr a real force since right now with its 300 tanks (three times less than Poland) it is a sad joke.
Tanks seem to be more and more of a joke in a modern symmetrical conflict right now.
I wish we didn't buy Abrams, but more jets and SAMs.
"Nord Stream was pushed by Germany even though it was obvious that this would make Germany depended on Russian gas."
Many held the view that a more interdependent world is a safer world.
Without such interdependence, the West wouldn't have the ability to impose economic sanctions.
If those sanctions wind up having the effect of shortening this war or lessening the likelihood of future war, then this view will be vindicated.
If not, then we've got a very dark future ahead of us as military conflict (and possibly the end of the world as we know it) will become ever more likely.
They're also the ones refusing an outright ban on Russian gas and oil right now, because they're addicted to it. This is why Eastern Europe, Poland and the Baltics trust the US and UK, France but not Germany. President Trump was right to pressure them get off Russian gas, build an LPG terminal and increase their military spending to at least 2% of their GDP. Other NATO members complied, but not Germany. They are going to do it anyway now that Russia has invaded Ukraine. Both the ≥2% and the terminal.
This can change, and probably will now. Liberals want a peaceful, rules-governed world, like international law.
When a country so flagrantly violates those rules with the consent of other large nations like China, and does an enormous amount of harm, extreme threat (or use) of force is the only valid response.
EU militarization is near certain to happen. And hopefully much of Asia too. Taiwan needs a militarized Japan
Kosovo? Iraq? Libya International law? Trying putting all these into a single sentence. Unfortunately in the last 20 years West lost all claims for upholding “international law” or “rules”.
> That's why Germany to the very last moment was opposing arms sale for Ukraine and until the 3rd day of the Russian invasion on Ukraine was opposing sanctions.
That's not a fact but pure speculation which I find very far fetched considering how pro Putin half of Germanys ministry was.
I find it much more likely that they're simply paid off as most of them have already been proven to be corrupt with various scandals. Heck, the green party was on television shilling for Putin and how overblown the fear of war is on the weekend before the invasion.
In my view the only benefit to an EU Army would be as a way to demilitarize EU member states so that they can't start a war with one another as they no longer have a military to directly control. Recreating NATO (and dissolving decades of institutional investment) and calling it the EU Army and then excluding the United States from backing you up just does not seem like a smart idea. Partnering with the U.S. is a good and desirable thing and is always a matter of choice. It just sometimes seems like it's not a choice because scenarios in which you are not choosing the United States are almost non-existent.
NATO does it's thing in the MAD game... but it's involvement in any European regional conflict can only be problematic or ineffective.
Eg. a non-NATO EU army could get more involved in Ukraine, and maybe other wars int the Middle East and Africa to, if it weren't tied down to the big heavy NATO that would always go "but muh, can't do that, because global nuclear war".
The MAD thing really just applies to Russia (China too I guess?). France was in Africa pretty recently as a non-NATO involvement [1]. The United Kingdom faced off against Argentina in the 80s as well [2].
What do you envision a non-NATO EU army would be doing in Ukraine that isn't currently being done?
Without the United States backing up the EU wouldn't Russia just threaten EU member states and make them back off? It kind of seems to me that NATO is what's keeping Europe from breaking out into a war outside of just Ukraine. Why wouldn't Russia invade Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia? What would Germany do about it? What if Russia sank France's aircraft carrier? Would they still continue the fight? Not to mention the ability of the U.S. to do logistics to help European countries supply weapons to Ukraine to help them fight. Hell, nobody in Europe believed Russia was going to do it while the United States and United Kingdom were screaming bloody murder about it.
"The MAD thing really just applies to Russia (China too I guess?)."
And North Korea, and soon possibly Iran.
It's not clear how much longer the nuclear genie can be kept bottled up. Belarus is already asking for its nukes back from Russia. It's likely that other countries that feel threatened may start pursuing their own nuclear programs now that they see how vulnerable non-nuclear nations are to attack.
In the long term, technological advances will concentrate ever more power in the hands of the few, and MAD may start applying to other technologies, not just nukes.
To the largest extent, MAD applies to Russia and USA, they have by far the most nukes.
I am Czech and this war convinced me to be against our membership in NATO, which I think is ill-conceived, for the following reasons:
1. We should have our own defense, both on national and EU, and not rely on USA, who might have different interests, and is not always making us safer. USA might accidentally provoke Russia (their archenemy) or they might decide not to get involved in our defense for political reasons (actually, in democracy, it should be their right), leaving us exposed.
2. NATO causes proliferation of nuclear weapons, by expanding the trigger area, and also stations nukes in countries that don't own them. I favor a complete denuclearization of the world, IMHO MAD is a crazy theory that relies on rationality of people involved too much.
3. European NATO members are at this moment incapable of stronger (military) help to Ukraine, because of the nuclear (MAD) threat. NATO is now actually a reason why we cannot fight Russian invaders the same way Allies did fight against Nazi Germany.
> European NATO members are at this moment incapable of stronger (military) help to Ukraine, because of the nuclear (MAD) threat. NATO is now actually a reason why we cannot fight Russian invaders the same way Allies did fight against Nazi Germany.
MAD is only the problem here to the extent one assumes that the US nuclear shield, and MAD, still protects you from nuclear escalation by Russia in the event of nuclear escalation by Russia if you are out of NATO.
Otherwise, the problem shifts from MAD to unilateral assured destruction, which is an even bigger constraint on your action against Russia’s whims.
No, the hope is, if say, Germany and all the North and Eastern Europe is out of NATO, they would make their own coalition, which would be non-nuclear and could go to war directly, to defend Ukraine better. The MAD not working properly complicates the situation, yes, but then our only other choice is capitulation to Russia. As I said, long-term, I favor complete nuke ban in which NATO is not helping (largely due to lack of US willingness), unfortunately.
> No, the hope is, if say, Germany and all the North and Eastern Europe is out of NATO, they would make their own coalition, which would be non-nuclear and could go to war directly, to defend Ukraine better.
A non-nuclear coalition faces unilateral assured destruction against a major nuclear power unless the latter is deterred from nuclear escalation by an outside force (in practice, another major nuclear power.)
> As I said, long-term, I favor complete nuke ban
Sure, and once you have accomplished and permanently secured compliance with that, your non-nuclear coalition could work for situations like the present one (but then, all existing coalitions would also be non-nuclear.)
What makes you think Russia wouldn’t use nukes if an alliance of Western European states entered the war against them? Especially if they don’t have nukes to attack. Do you think Russia would just lose the war happily?
Precedent of not using nukes before (excluding Hiroshima), not wanting to lose nukes against nuclear states, but most importantly, us treating our enemy with a modicum of dignity, just like Allies treated the Germans. If we truly believe that we are freeing Russia from oppressive dictatorship that got them into a war, it shouldn't be a big problem.
I think all the game theory "rationality" is off the table anyways, because the very act of Ukrainian uprising against Russian invasion is already irrational (see ultimatum game). And the act of some other countries acting on Ukraine's behalf is irrational too.
MAD is just a THEORY. Very nice mathematically, but the real world is much more nuanced. And IMHO it's a scarecrow used to justify ownership of nuclear weapons, which are just horrible and should be banned.
Addendum: Hitler actually wanted to destroy Paris (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Decree), but it, almost by miracle (in reality it was brave work of different people involved) survived. We need to have a hope, but also get rid of all the nukes.
This is just so naive and unrealistic that I don't understand how anyone could believe it. You can't count on adversaries acting with dignity when they have core interests at stake. In the future more countries will acquire nuclear weapons, or ally with nuclear powers, specifically because of what happened to Ukraine.
I think you can make a better counter-argument than "it's unrealistic, people are stupid and they won't do it". The idea that more nukes are making the world safer is like the idea that everybody having a gun is making USA safer.
There has been some progress on this in recent years, see https://www.icanw.org/. And in fact the nuclear arsenals of USA and Russia have been (albeit too slowly) reducing over the past 30 years. But more governments (NATO expansion) relying on nukes for their security (which is a false sense) is a pretty big setback.
It's not a matter of stupidity at all, it's purely self interest. Giving up nukes is irrational when they're such an effective tool.
The USA and Russia reduced their arsenals primarily as a cost savings measure. Keeping the weapons systems operating is shockingly expensive. Modern delivery systems are more accurate so we can now ensure MAD with fewer warheads.
I think I already addressed "rational self-interest" (and how it can lead to stupidity) elsewhere in the thread. It's not an end-all be-all of human nature.
> Eg. a non-NATO EU army could get more involved in Ukraine,
That would trigger a nuclear bomb from Russia, the same as with NATO's involvement. When a nuclear power gets involved (and an EU army would posses nuclear weapons) then we enter the MAD scenario even if we want it or not. Re-labelling the Europe-based part of the NATO forces as "EU Army" I'm afraid won't foul the Russians.
You must accept that your adversary is rational if you aim to avoid nuclear war because if you believe that they're mad and can't behave rationally then you have only one logically-consistent option remaining.
> You must accept that your adversary is rational if you aim to avoid nuclear war
In practice, humans are neither entirely rational nor entirely irrational. Humans occupy different positions on this spectrum according to genetics, culture and circumstance.
If we want to avoid triggering escalation events that may lead to an eventual nuclear episode it seems sensible to avoid certain emotionally-charged and chaotic situations such as having the armed forces of nuclear-armed states or their close allies in direct combat with each other.
> Re-labelling the Europe-based part of the NATO forces as "EU Army" I'm afraid won't foul the Russians.
That's true, yes. But in an alternate reality, where NATO doesn't exist after Cold War, the European countries have built up their own defense (maybe shared to an extent to allow compatibility), and they create an ad-hoc pact based on situation presented, this would, I believe, give us better options to help defend Ukraine. And maybe, who knows, Putin wouldn't even go crazy being paranoid about NATO.
There is no reason for Russia to do so. Ukraine is not part of Russia. There already is a precedent for military operations in a country occupied by Russians (when Trump bombed Syria).
You could claim that Putin was bluffing, but he recently said that if NATO tries to take back crimea, he will use nukes and it will be bad for everyone.
France has nukes though. So I think you still have the MAD issue. Maybe France doesn't have enough of a stockpile to destroy all humanity 8x over, but not sure how much that changes the game theory.
> Maybe France doesn't have enough of a stockpile to destroy all humanity 8x over, but not sure how much that changes the game theory.
I think we currently have 2 submarines with 150 nukes each around the world. Probably not enough to end humanity, but enough to ensure mutual destruction.
Yup, deterrence theory is quite interesting and every country has different strategies. One doesn't need hundreds of nukes to deter an enemy from nuking them.
For example is a large difference between massive retaliation [1] which the US uses to deter North Korea, and minimal deterrence [2] used by China (during the cold war), or Pakistan currently.
Secondly it's not just the amount of nukes that influences deterrence, it's how one says they will use them. For example China has pledged "no first use" from the moment they got their first nuclear weapons, whereas the Russia and the US both adopted official policies stating the right of first use.
Modern ballistic missiles have multiple independent warheads. For example the French M51 has "6 to 10" independently targetable warheads. The submarine carries "only" 16 of these missiles.
They wouldn't have to share them with an EU army, they could leave them for "national use" only and avoid any possibility of escalation.
Now the EU Army being a non-nuclear entity would make anyone using nuclear army against them "the villain" and onward one could easily justify using "all means" (there's stuff there I'd say even nastier than nuclear...) against them, so a "moral" deterrent could work fine in practice (since everyone knows you're technologically capable of developing the really nasty stuff if anything motivates you to...).
Which "stuff" is even nastier than nuclear? Chemical weapons aren't very effective against modern militaries. Biological weapons are nearly as dangerous to the user as to the target.
probably it's more like sharing "the COST of maintaining and upgrading it" :)) ...EU Army funds would probably be better spend on tech for urban/guerrila warfare + next gen UAVs, eg. stuff you'd actually end up using in a real war!
Heck Russia would probably have the military capability to actually win this war cleanly and quickly of they didn't have to invest billions in their strategic weapons that will (hopefully) never be used. If the current world leaders are competent, they are probably only pretending to properly maintain and upgrade strategic WMDs while covertly diverting the funds to other secret operations... If WMDs are actually used, we've all lost anyways, so it probably only makes sense to keep a huuuuuge stash of the cheapest + most destructive and suffering-maximizing stuff around (I imagine some hellish bio thing) for pure revenge end-game.
In War NATO makes sense as command structure. But I can imagine "EU Army" structure for things like equipment procurement, trainings and so on for the economies of scale and better alignment.
It makes little sense for small EU countries to do that by themselves, when the whole of Slovakia will have like 6 fighter planes and 20 IFVs. At the same time, procurement is pretty political, since many countries are deep in weapons trade, so maybe it wouldn't work.
Maybe we could get rid of the Gorch Fock [1] while we're at it. A sailing ship in the 21st century, causing repair costs well in excess of 100 million EUR, and killing sailors in training. JFC. A lot of people had to pay a lot of taxes to finance that shitty exercise in futility.
I really like how the steel hull looks on these boats, specifically the Eagle and the Peruvian boat. It's seems so out of place, my mind just expects to see a wooden hull.
The last politician in charge of German defence procurement failed upwards and is currently the (unelected) President of the European Commission thanks to some clever political wrangling, so odds probably aren't great on that front...
I think the best path forward for Europe should be to have both. Keep NATO as a strong alliance and build an EU Defense component as a non-alliance. That will make things much more complicated for whoever wants to endanger European security in the future.
> Build an EU force so that Austria and other non NATO members such as Sweden and Finland can participate
Austria is an odd example, given that it's completely surrounded by "friendlies". What would the Austrians gain by joining NATO? It's fairly clear what they would lose, which is the ability to stay out of a future NATO conflict.
Thought experiment: let's imagine the UK or the US were to somehow kick off a hot war with - let's say - Chinese forces, on/around the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
Do any of us seriously believe that the UK or the US just press some magic "Article 5" button and troops from all over NATO just grab their weapons and set off round the world to join in the fighting?
Looking back at the history of NATO's Article 5 it's clear it has more holes than a Swiss cheese. It's political theatre.[0]
Article 5 only applies if a country is attacked. So if the US or UK are attacking, it doesn't apply. However if China attacks the UK in Asia, then article 5 applies and NATO countries will coordinate to respond to that, militarily of not. This is called deterrence.
> Austria is an odd example, given that it's completely surrounded by "friendlies".
This kind of thinking has produced the current nightmare IMO. The unwillingness to invest in common security has enabled Russia.
> Article 5 only applies if a country is attacked. So if the US or UK are attacking, it doesn't apply.
Without wishing to get all silly, most wars tend to involve both sides fighting.
What's the actual threshold for a NATO member declaring "an attack" to be able to claim assistance under Article 5? Their first ship sunk? Their first aircraft shot down? Their first casualty on the battlefield? First civilian killed in terrorist attack? First cyber-attack?
“A serious cyberattack could trigger Article 5, where an attack against one ally is treated as an attack against all”
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General[0]
It would appear to be a completely blank cheque for military action, based on suitable political theatre. Think Wag the Dog (1997 movie).[1]
> demilitarize EU member states so that they can't start a war with one
> another as they no longer have a military to directly control.
And how would those demilitarized states defend against coups d'état? If your answer is the police then I ask how does the police decide which side to take? And do you really want police armed sufficiently for that purpose? And trained? At that point, you've got an Army with full police-level access to citizen records, investigation capability, and internment options.
I’m not against an EU military in principle, so my question isn’t loaded, but genuine curiosity. What would prevent an EU Army from possibly forming a corrupt military leadership?
It's a good question, and probably has no good answer.
As it is, a current corrupt European military is constrained to a single nation, and would have to coup that nation before conquering the continent. There would be no such natural constraint for a unified EU military.
And when Germany is no longer satisfied with Greek loan defaults due to the Greeks simply not taxing their population? Do you think that Germany will let Greece tank the Euro without exhausting every option on the table, including replacing Greek politicians if necessary?
If this sound far-fetched to you I implore you to look at the last decades' relations between the countries.
That's a weird question. In some countries armies aren't even allowed to participate in domestic events ( e.g. Germany). And how would the army know better than the police which side to take?
- Some autocrat-minded person gets elected as President of the US and refuses to provide the EU money, services, and weapons until the EU complies with some demand against it's own interests.
- Perhaps in combo with the second item, the US could lead the EU on, to further it's interests, and let the EU down at the worst possible times.
>Recreating NATO (and dissolving decades of institutional investment) and calling it the EU Army and then excluding the United States from backing you up just does not seem like a smart idea.
Why is that? I personally would love to see an EU army formed with no backing whatsoever from the US (this would probably mean that NATO would have to be dissolved).
> Do you really want to have to worry about the US acting as an enemy
That's already on the cards, as Trump so helpfully demonstrated. Also, the US cooperates with Japan, SK and other countries without them being in NATO, so I don't see why they'd consider an EU Army as an enemy if they're strategically alined - and if they're not, it won't change anything because the Americans will do whatever they want anyway.
So yes, all for an EU Army that doesn't rely on the US.
> Also, the US cooperates with Japan, SK and other countries without them being in NATO
The US has bilateral treaties in which the US undertakes NATO-like commitments to Japan and South Korea, and bilateral or multiteral (e.g., AUKUS, Rio Treaty) agreements with US-outward or mutual defense provisions with others, sure.
Are you imagining a similar relation with the EU replacing NATO, and, if so, how is that substantively different from just keeping NATO?
What would have happened during the war in Iraq with a EU army? A few countries, including France who would presumably be the major contributor to this hypothetical army, didn't want to go.
The same thing would have happened. Even with an EU military, member states would still maintain their own national militaries and could deploy them independently. Just like how NATO didn't participate in the Iraq war but several member states did.
The point is in having a standing general staff and standard operating procedures, reinforced by periodic joint training exercises. This allows for taking action much faster, with lower risk of errors versus starting from scratch for each operation.
In practice a prospective EU military would probably just copy most aspects of NATO, just with a slightly different set of missions and member states.
FWIW, having a joint (and much respected) army in pre-1990 Yugoslavia did not stop the country dissolving in a pretty bad civil war (or you could say war between neighbours depending on what kind of federation/union you consider Yugoslavia to have been).
Sufficiently fueled nationalistic sentiment can break through any attempt to "hide" it. Not even financial interdependence could keep the country together (plenty of companies depended on sourcing parts in other republics).
Working together with the US will always be a necessity, as will working with other allies, no country can really handle these situations alone very well.
We already have armies at the country level, plus NATO, creating an EU army seems like a way of saying "yeah this EU army here is totally different from NATO" which I doubt Russia will really be swayed by.
I say the following as a former officer in the French army, which I'm sure you'll agree is one of the more active armies in the EU. We nominally have country-level armies. Their funding is consistently reduced and their numbers regularly downsized, and this trend exists across Europe. One might nitpick by pointing to specific budget increases, but the trend is undeniable if you look at it on any reasonable time-scale.
I can think of no European country that has an autonomous standing army, capable of deploying itself to the theater of operations, resupplying and sustaining combat efforts without the support of US logistics. To point at the mere existence of national armies is to play word games. The EU members have outsourced their defense to the United States, and are now paying the price.
EDIT: to be clear, I am quite skeptical of an EU strategic command.
The reason is simple: you need extensive logistics support for expeditionary warfare. European states are not really structurally placed to engage in this kind of thing: ever since the Suez crisis, it's been obvious that we basically live in an US world order, and doing expeditionary stuff without the American's say-so is a bad idea. So, since you're going to need American permission anyway, you may as well plan on relying on their capabilities.
It is precisely the decades after decades resignation to "US number 1" that maintains this status quo!
There is no inherent weakness of Europe. It has far more people than the US. All that welfare state makes it far more efficient too in many matters.
A little "Military Keynesianism" would, frankly, be really good for solving Europe's problems of higher unemployement and whatnot too. I am generally against such things, but the welfare states make the risk of runway jobs guarantees and military industrial complexes less bad.
In general, Europe missed out on Keynesianism it seems (the military or non military varieties). 70+ years of welfware states is being undone by stupid austerity. They figure out how to be good to the poor (unlike US) and not do austerity (like the US, despite what you may think), and they should leap ahaed of us.
If you look at GDP charts, the US is very dynamic in comparison to the EU. I think the EU is a better model, but when it comes to raw economic, military and diplomatic power, there's no comparison.
If you go back to the decades in which the US became the world hegemon (post-war era) the difference is way more stark. It's not that the EU resigned - it's that the US muscled them out!
But that is precisely because a lack of autonomous spending in the EU!
One theory is that in Europe in the 1980s, workers became so much more empowered that the private sector lost the will to invest. Start with https://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf for the basic concept here, but there are many more examples.
A VAT-funded balanced budget welfare state is a purely redistributional mechanism which, while great, is not sufficient to undo this sort of thing.
Direct government spending like the military sort is a way around this. Maybe the workers are militant, but will the democracy just allow itself to decline military because you don't feel like dealing with that?
I don't know. It seems to me that compared to every other form of state spending (roads, healthcare, etc), military spending is conspicuously poor in terms of return on investment.
I think the US is a very weird state - it's probably the most consistently old-school liberal state in the world, it has negligible worker activism, colossal natural resources, and its position as world hegemon gives it all sorts of non-imitable economic advantages. I don't think you can copy the US if you're not the US - the closest in terms of economic policy is the UK, and the UK economy is kind of like a corpse in a bin bag.
Just because the Americans have this problem doesn't mean the rest of the world is doomed to have it as well. I submit that there is a significant cultural element at play, here: Europeans have known war at home in a way that the US never has, and are much less gung ho about military power. In fact, you might even argue they are gun shy to a fault, so it seems unlikely that this slippery slope will cause actual slippage.
I address that will the welfware state helping: industrial complexes are surprisingly grassroots in the United States, because if you loose your job you are so fucked.
If people simply don't need jobs as much, on the margins, it's much easier to have healthy conversations about what investment is actually good, vs what is just make-work or worse.
Ignoring the fact that the Suez crisis was largely a turning point for the English, your argument is circular. The entire point is that we need to re-invest in these capabilities to some degree.
How so? The Suez invasion didn't fail because the British (or the French) didn't have the logistics to supply their forces. It failed because the US wasn't OK with it happening.
The point is, France could build whatever expeditionary force it could fit within its national budget, and it would still be completely useless for national strategic interests, because you could only really use it if the Americans agree you could use it. Thus, it would just end up doing stuff that fits in with American strategic imperatives.
The French do have an expeditionary force, and they are not even shy about using it - they deploy to African states as a matter of routine, in practice, without any US involvement or say in the matter (afaik). But it has become increasingly clear that effective conventional warfare is now reserved, in practice, to superpowers - and even them have trouble with it, as seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine - because of the scale of the challenge.
I think modern armies don't want to do "what it takes" for total subjugation like used to happen with armies in earlier wars. They didn't fight in cities because they razed them to ground and killed everyone there militant or citizen. Thus wars drag on for decades. I am not for that kind of warfare, but total war is the only way those types of wars are won. There is no humanitarian outreach or talks.
> The French do have an expeditionary force, and they are not even shy about using it - they deploy to African states as a matter of routine,
Yeah, I was kind of glossing that over. I don't know if French military involvement in Africa has been particularly helpful to France, and it seems less likely still that it has been helpful to Africans (with a few exceptions, Jean-Bedel Bokassa comes to mind).
I think you're underselling the effectiveness: there have been many post-colonial interventions by european forces that have ended in the european's favour. Sri Lanka's genocidal suppression of the Tamils, for example, or the propping up of Bahrain.
The broader point is, at no point do these actions run against US interests.
> I don't know if French military involvement in Africa has been particularly helpful to France
A number of African countries continue to store their reserves in France and work with the CFA Franc, which makes it worth it.
> there have been many post-colonial interventions by european forces that have ended in the european's favour
Yeah, but they are all in the past. It's today's news that the French failed in Mali. The combination of increasingly-difficult asymmetrical warfare (with guerrilla becoming more and more effective) and practical cuts to national budgets make such interventions increasingly ineffective. If even the superpowers cannot pacify medium-sized nation-states anymore, individual states have no realistic chance to achieve anything alone.
> If even the superpowers cannot pacify medium-sized nation-states anymore, individual states have no realistic chance to achieve anything alone.
My sort of uninformed reading of the problem in Mali / Sahel desert insurgencies is just that the French didn't do a very good job at a strategic level, which isn't really the military's fault.
It strikes me that most of the western debacles have been essentially down to a pretty thin understanding of how to discover and support regional partners. There's no quantity of bombs or boots that would make the Afghan kleptocratic torture state command a plurality of support, and worse, the Americans were temperamentally incapable of building bridges with the kind of people that could form a stable government.
My feeling is that resources aren't the problem: the problem is that (for a number of reasons) western policy making elites are just making the wrong decisions, both in terms of how ambitious their projects are (the post-invasion Iraq project was insane), and in terms of who they choose to work with.
If you take Iraq for example, the US chose to marginalize Iran early on, despite the fact they would have been (practically speaking) a great partner, who were more than willing to involve themselves in Iraqi regime change.
Some of those countries will probably diversify their reserves into a broader mix of foreign currencies and precious metals. Recent sanctions against Russia have shown that no state can really rely upon reserves stored in a foreign bank. Access to those can be blocked with the stroke of a pen.
>France could build whatever expeditionary force it could fit within its national budget, and it would still be completely useless for national strategic interests, because you could only really use it if the Americans agree you could use it.
You have that exactly backwards. The French expeditionary force can only be deployed with American approval because it requires American logistics. If this were not the case, you would have something approximating Russian expeditionary capabilities.
No, my point is that the Suez crisis proves that even if you do have logistical independence, it doesn't matter, because the US can crash your economy and excoriate you in the UN if you do something they don't like.
The US didn't single-handedly crash the British economy during the Suez crisis, and it wasn't a pure logistical/political defeat in the field, either. In fact, it was very much a military defeat, as well. The British defeat was the sum total of all these parameters rather than any single one. By contrast, France's ability to apply military force is interdicted by precisely one parameter: logistical dependence on the USA (worsened by the US' underhanded acquisition of Alstom, I might add). As such, I don't think your point stands.
You keep on referring to it as a british defeat, but it was a joint effort between britian and France :). Iirc, the US didn't need to crash the british economy, they simply threatened to devalue the pound, denounced the invasion publicly, then the europeans called a ceasefire (unilaterally? I'm not sure).
At no point in either the french nor the british military operations do you see either tactical defeats or supply issues.
> I can think of no European country that has an autonomous standing army, capable of deploying itself to the theater of operations
That has been intentional. Deploying forces outside your borders is what empires do. It's out of scope for the military forces of ordinary countries.
Most military forces only exist to defend their own territory. For most West European countries in the past 20-25 years, the only realistic threats were their neighbors and the US. Because all of those were allies, the primary purpose of the military was maintaining the readiness to scale up in case the world becomes more dangerous again.
It will be interesting to see what will become of Europe now that Germany has decided they are allowed to act like an empire once again.
What have seen since WWII is that military attacks are extremely hard. Just about all successful missions have support of the local population in the attacked countries.
Yes, the US can take over countries like Iraq or Afghanistan. And then what? Is there any net gain for the US? On the other hand, NATO bombings in former Yoguslavia led to a situation that is still more or less stable today.
Russia quickly took over Crimea, which has strategic value and has support of the local population. But now they are stuck with a nasty and costly war in Ukraine.
So it is not clear where in the world Germany would play 'empire'.
I wonder to what extend an army can maintain an effective defence if there no need for any defence for many decades. Many western European countries have not been attacked since the end of WWII.
The FFL is quite independent in terms of logistics, no? They recruit right out of my alma mater, the US Marines.
What you're describing is taught to us as the difference between an occupying force and an expeditionary force. Occupying forces don't really need to be trained on seizing forward air bases because someone else does that. That kind of army functions a lot more like well-armed police. The Marines has a different decree, which holds most units at a high level of unit readiness because the president has the capacity to deploy them for 30 days at any given time. We operated most battlefield functions as internal jobs, aside from ships logistics, and cross-training is heavily emphasized to combat cost. Interestingly enough, the Marines is the smallest and least funded branch in the armed forces - so it would appear the difference is primarily in culture, logistics, and tactics.
Edit:
All this said, we operated and trained with British, Korean, Aussie, and Dutch military components that had and trained on these capabilities.
>The FFL is quite independent in terms of logistics, no?
I guess that depends on what you consider to be logistical independence, but at the theater scale, the answer is "no". Physically moving personnel and materiel to Africa, say, is almost always handled by the U.S. Air Force to a very large degree. See for example, Operation Serval.
The USMC works hard on cross-training to reduce costs, meaning that they can go out and complete short term objectives using fewer guys than other groups might need.
My MOS was a 2844, which was a Ground Radio Technician. I could repair and operate every radio the USMC had at an advanced level. I then received courses on how to provide EMT-level care on the battlefield, machine gunners school, vehicle operations (command, gunning, operation, egress, maneuvers), basic generator troubleshooting, vehicle maintenance training, artillery/medevac coordination, advanced SatComm training, etc... This is specifically so that teams are a) self-sustaining (one team can accomplish many jobs outside of their primary job) and b) to reduce the number of on-hand resources the USMC requires to function.
I'm not entirely certain, but it seems that French operations in Mali were done with some German and British logistic help ( but nothing France doesn't have), and the US didn't participate.
There are lots of Americans who agree with you and would LOVE to see Europe get better at this stuff and take a load off of our national expenses and bank accounts :) .
You're probably wrong on the effects though. I don't see the us defense contractors and arm producer accepting that much of a cut in their budgets. Also, an unified eu defense force would undercut a lot of military contracts between EU state and us companies, and the loss of customer in this market is quite hard to offset
The US has a big military-industrial complex. A capable EU-army might result in a focus on weapon production in the EU. Quite a loss for US industries.
Of course allies are necessary, but which allies and how many is the question. It depends on the situation. You shouldn't need the US for a mere deterring garrison, only if there is actual fighting to be done.
The EU has many more people than the US, and is still fairly wealthy on the main. If there is a relatively big EU military, we in the US have a chance of reforming and shrinking our monster.
The point of an EU army is not to appease Russia --- that indeed wouldn't work. The point is to give Europe some real sovereignty whereas today it has a hugely captive foreign policy.
Read the thread! The EU and many small allies like South Korea and Japan have absolutely ROSEY relations with The US because they need The US.
This is a massive strategic advantage that no sane American wants to give up.
It's also one of the few things in politics that is a win win. It largely discouraged bad actors from war(despite Ukraine rn we have still lived in relative peace for a long time). EU gets defense, US gets clout to negotiate with everywhere. Best friends.
>This is a massive strategic advantage that no sane American wants to give up.
I'm sure you are saying this from a point of privilege. If you are upper middle class or higher in the US you are benefiting from this arrangement.
Otherwise you are in an endless treadmill of barely surviving with the fear of no safety net and one missed paycheck away from ruin. I'm sure this vast underclass would say that instead of wasting money on this military instead a proper safety net + opportunities for advancement (eg. free college/healthcare) should be created...you know all the benefits that Europeans have and take for granted(built on the backs of Americans in a way).
>It's also one of the few things in politics that is a win win. It largely discouraged bad actors from war(despite Ukraine rn we have still lived in relative peace for a long time). EU gets defense, US gets clout to negotiate with everywhere. Best friends.
Yes it has made a lot of despicable people in the US very rich.
But a clear path to better oneself is the dream of a modern society. No one is promising equality of outcome. But we should work towards equality of opportunity. With this system in place, a person can look at the market, put in the effort and better their situation in life with the greatest chance for success.
If you treat it as an investment in your citizens that on the average will bring a return on the investment(in the form of a better educated workforce able to contribute to the country's bottom line) then you can have a scenario where some major in underwater basket weaving while others take a chance on STEM degrees. On average, the country is better off. In the end, the opportunity was there for all.
This path already exists. We have community colleges that are almost free which can be followed up by state colleges that admit almost anyone. And both offer many types of flexible classes. Someone can easily do a 4 year degree with minimal debt.
If you make things completely free then they will just be abused and wasted.
>This path already exists. We have community colleges that are almost free
So we have Biden to thank for moving the needle a tiny bit further (lets ignore all the lost time and opportunity by not even having these basic options until 2021) but things still fall massively short.
I'll just take NJ as an example since it is a more liberal state and is generous with its welfare.
In 2021 Gov Murphy signed a law that gives students in a household earning 65k a year or less free community college.
Off the bat: It excludes people who did not complete high school. There is no guaranteed avenue for them to complete the GED tuition free, some can get Pell grants, others can get other various grants but this goes back to the point I was making that the opportunity is not there for everyone. I guess they are just losers and should be thrown on the side of the road right?
For background, I used to work with community college teachers and so I have some background on how the entry level classes are run. They have basic math(pre-algebra), basic English and basic history classes that are requirements for all degrees and are typically remedial classes that require 2 or more subsequent classes afterwards to satisfy what is typically the first math/english class for STEM degrees. (The sequence is typically Basic Math -> Pre-Algebra > Algebra2 -> Pre-Calc -> Calc and only STEM take the later classes).
The college purposely runs dozens of sections all through the day for these classes to help give the utmost flexibility to students who are trying to get back onto the right track. Every semester without fail 80%+ of the students either drop out, fail, or otherwise do not complete the courses. You have no freakin idea how difficult it is for someone who has fallen by the wayside and is struggling to survive to then have to learn these subjects from scratch on top of their existing obligations. The amount of privilege you have to just casually brush aside how serious the problem is proof positive that we as a country are screwed long term. Its going to end up like Brazil, a large underclass with a small lucky elite.
Lets continue with Gov Murphy's bill.
Requires you to take 6 credits at a time, potentially further excluding people who may have to work multiple jobs or have other obligations just to survive. I guess they should just keep working and maybe something will change in their lot down the road so they can take the 6 credits.
If you do not maintain satisfactory academic progress, you are booted out for good. So you have to remain in good standing and not have any screwups (ie. things like losing your job on top of struggling in difficult classes). I know many people that ended up on probation in their first semester and they were lucky enough to afford to remain in college and eventually complete their degrees(many of them are software developers now). Poor people? Well screw them. Unless they are perfect they don't deserve success.
NJ has the concept of dual enrollment where if you are super bright and motivated you can enroll in CC classes while in high school and earn credits. Those students are not eligible for this grant. So anyone who is poor but motivated will have yet another hurdle. Maybe they can find other avenues to pay but the point is that this system is not as straightforward as you are so casually describing.
The following fees are not covered:
• Books (purchased or rental)
• Equipment/Supplies/Uniforms (purchase or rental)
• Insurance/Health Fees
• Application Fees
• Library Fees
• Late Fees or Fines
• Testing/Portfolio/Audit Fees
• Licensing/Certification Fees
• Criminal Background Check Fees
• Parking Fees
• Gym/Fitness Fees
• Aviation/Flight Time Fees
• Change Fees
• Graduation/Diploma Fees
• Transcript Fees
• International Fees
• Out-of-state or Out-of-county Fees
• Curriculum Review Fees
• Payment Plan Fees
So like I said, finally some progress after so many years of struggle by activists to get something but not quite there yet.
>which can be followed up by state colleges that admit almost anyone
You are clueless as to what real Americans have to deal with on a day to day basis and here you are thinking that those state schools admit just anyone. We should give as many tools as possible to help people be successful but they still have to put in the work. With all of the issues I described above, these odds of success get worse the more you have on your shoulders. Maybe if you don't have to worry about income yeah you can get into a third tier state school with little effort(Rutgers requires a B/B+ avg for STEM so maybe something like NJCU or Montclair state or worse) but you don't seem to have an internal understanding at how much harder it is for people with all these other burdens.
>If you make things completely free then they will just be abused and wasted.
Of course there will be some people who go and earn multiple degrees. This happens in Europe. Do you really think this abuse is worse than the waste in the military, all the pork that is in every freaking bill, and the corruption in just about every industry? This is an INVESTMENT in the people of the country. Whichever way you look at it, it is a net benefit for the citizens to get more educated, even if it is in underwater basket weaving. You casually dismiss the fact that people still have to spend 4 years earning the damn degree so its not even like typical entitlement programs where supposedly free money is just handed out. There is still a massive opportunity cost for the person wanting to get the college degree.
I won’t write as much as you, but anyway, CCs were cheap before Biden - not sure how much it’s changed with him. I spent a year at a CC so I know what it’s like and you are doing a lot of exaggerating. E.g. listings a bunch of bogus fees that would never all apply to a single person and are typically small. And it’s not hard to get exemptions for hardship or retake classes… you don’t get booted out forever. Also, complaining about a 6 credit hour minimum, really?
It sounds like you want adult daycare where everyone gets an A and can then continue on to Berkeley.
If you actually spent time around a CC then you would know that there are lot of unserious people that come through and refuse to put in the minimal effort and fail for that reason. What usually happens if that they grow up (e.g. get a job and get married) and come back later and do much better.
> but anyway, CCs were cheap before Biden - not sure how much it’s changed with him.
Cheap is relative depending on your income level. Prices have also been going up year after year so when you went to school may not reflect current prices. Seeing as you seem to have a mentality that is not considering of facts on the ground, it appears like you went to school quite a while ago.
>I spent a year at a CC so I know what it’s like
So did I, In fact I worked with CC professors and administrators. I mentioned that in the reply you clearly didn't read.
>and you are doing a lot of exaggerating. E.g. listings a bunch of bogus fees that would never all apply to a single person and are typically small.
Of course not every fee applies to every student but the point was that all these fees are a further hinderance to paying for that tuition. Furthermore, if the fees are supposedly so cheap, why aren't they covered? Surely if you think it isn't an issue then just extend the full coverage to all students no?
> And it’s not hard to get exemptions for hardship or retake classes… you don’t get booted out forever.
I'm not sure if you just misread my statement or just don't care but I am referring to NJ's specific program. Of course you don't get booted out of CC, it is open enrollment! But this rule is just another way to filter out even more people, like I said, screw up your one chance and you are finished, on to the street with you.
>Also, complaining about a 6 credit hour minimum, really?
Yes because about 13M people hold two or more jobs.
Sure it won't harm every applicant but yet again for the nth time, the point is that it is another hurdle preventing people from escaping their current conditions. Again if this is such a non-issue to you then surely you'd agree the rule is dumb and should be removed no?
>It sounds like you want adult daycare where everyone gets an A and can then continue on to Berkeley.
I don't know where these smug idiots crawled out of after Trump got elected but I remember a time on HN when your kind of personality wasn't constantly roaming around and acting in bad faith.
>If you actually spent time around a CC then you would know that there are lot of unserious people that come through and refuse to put in the minimal effort and fail for that reason. What usually happens if that they grow up (e.g. get a job and get married) and come back later and do much better.
Completely disagree: The majority of the people who were failing out of those remedial courses were middle age or older. Yes there are young people fresh out of HS flunking out but they are a smaller percentage of people and typically do not take those remedial courses. Those courses start at more of a high school level. Thats how bad it is although it seems like you live in a different universe so I wouldn't expect you to realize it anyway.
Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, MediCal, Unemployment, EBT (food stamps / free food), Welfare, pandemic stimulus checks, etc.
US social spends more, by % of GDP, higher than Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Israel, Switzerland, Iceland, Ireland, South Korea, and more. And we have certain differing classically liberal economic policies that have bolstered our GDP considerably, so 18% of $60k is even better than 18% of $40k.
Yeah this gets trotted out every time. The requirements and hoops you have to jump through for all the Medi* programs makes it such that unless you are destitute + cross your i and dot your t you will not be entering those programs. I went through this very scenario when I as a developer ended up in a situation without income a few years back. Coverage does not start for many of these programs until you have passed an income year where you are under the threshold. So for that gap you are on your own. Failure to make sure you application perfect is also cause for fines and backpay down the road as my mother experienced (she got a multi thousand dollar bill from our state's Medicaid program two years after the fact just because her application was not perfect and they discovered the issue later on.)
Medicare is an exception as it is a simple age based formula but it still has premiums. Furthermore as my Father who passed away 1 month before his Medicare eligible date can attest, many people need the healthcare before they reach 65. It is a complete scam that there isn't adequate coverage before that date and it serves as a funnel to limit the amount of people who make it to that date(but still pay into the program despite not ever benefiting).
>Social Security
Is not adequate to provide benefits for the vast majority of counties in the US. You must supplement with additional retirement. Again my parents living in a liberal state with higher than average(but no where near highest) cost of living would be screwed. They are lucky that they worked as Engineers/Developers so they could afford to save up money but most are not that lucky.
Again, suffers from the same needs based testing as the Medi* programs. It is designed such that unless you are a perfect applicant, you are not getting in and the wait list for some of these programs are so long that it is pointless. This situation has resulted in a massive underclass that is barely ineligible for these programs yet are not wealthy enough to lead a basic dignified life.
>pandemic stimulus checks
You seriously trotting out the one time check? This shows how privileged you really are that you have no clue whatsoever as to how a large chunk of America is really living.
>US social spends more, by % of GDP, higher than Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Israel, Switzerland, Iceland, Ireland, South Korea, and more. And we have certain differing classically liberal economic policies that have bolstered our GDP considerably, so 18% of $60k is even better than 18% of $40k.
Like everything in this country, all these programs are abused by anyone who can benefit: contractors, bureaucracy, and politicians who can use it to pad re-election hopes. I'd bet money that the majority of the American underclass would GLADLY swap seats with someone in those other countries yet I bet the opposite is not as true.
> The point [of an EU army] is to give Europe some real sovereignty (...)
Who would one put in charge, though?
I'm not sure getting the 27 member states (who are already very much individually sovereign) to pool their sovereignty is going to be quite as easy as some think.
The EU can't even agree on how to pick the President of the European Commission - see the statements in February 2018 by the EU Parliament on how this should be done, followed by nomination of the 'Spitzenkandidaten' and debates between candidates in early May 2019, followed by the elections at the end of May 2019, followed by ... Ursula von der Leyen getting the job in July 2019. Not exactly democracy at its finest.
I strongly disagree. Our entire strategy as an armed force is centered around force projection. We have bases in more than 70 countries and we have a number of carrier fleets and incredible logistics capabilities that allow us to project force almost anywhere in the world.
Obviously we can't know for sure what a world without a large American military would be like, but a big goal of that force projection is to reduce the chance of major conflict from bad actors.
Nuclear deterrents and the United States' military dominance have done a fairly good job of keeping peace in large parts of the world. Russia attacking Ukraine is the first major war in Europe in decades.
Agreed a bit, there is definitely elements of instutitional self preservation for its own sake. And certainly the defense contractors are scared to have less of their main client.
But getting rid of this "world police" "free world" bullshit will still help a lot. Consider, right now the US military budget is bound to balloon some more because of this war, without us doing any fighting. Military Keynesianism --- chest puffing handshake.
Finally, if are allies can defend themselves, they will have more spine to call out our bullshit with things like Iraq.
> Consider, right now the US military budget is bound to balloon some more because of this war, without us doing any fighting. Military Keynesianism --- chest puffing handshake.
We are sending actual weapons and machinery, which need to be replaced by new weapons off the factory line. One Javelin missile costs $175k.
"In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania, unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they can make the trip by land to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and other major cities."
Anti tank and anti air weapons are so cheap compared to the things they destroy. If shifting the balance of power against Russia is a goal, that is money well spent
I wonder what would finally cause the US Dollar to finally collapse? Would it be China somehow? Either way, the only thing propping up this machine is the fact that the US dollar still means something. What would the world look like post-US?
I noticed that recently my local dollar store has now become the 1.25$ store. This can't bode well for the future...maybe we are experiencing the fall right now. You wouldn't really know until after the fact.
Pretty much every fiat currency experiences inflation. That's not a serious problem as long as it remains below hyperinflation levels.
The US Dollar can only collapse if the federal government defaults on its debts, or institutes currency controls which make it no longer convertible. The government only accepts tax payments in Dollars, so anyone subject to US taxes has no choice but to hold some Dollars.
I used to think that but now I think it is far more. Countries where we have bases essentially become vassal states, reliant on us for protection. This means we get favorable trade agreements as well as the opportunity to shape the world to our needs. It allows the US to exert massive influence over the course of world events and allows for the perpetuation of the US as the worlds top economic power.
I agree that the US military is huge and expensive, but that doesn't address 'military need,' which is a question of which missions are worth funding and what the requirements are for each.
If your goals are just coastal defense and prevention of invasion from Canada and Mexico, then that's significantly easier. Those aren't the US goals and haven't been for a long time. And it seems to be overwhelmingly the case that any potential defense partner for the US (aligned interests, not judged to be themselves a threat) can successfully pass off military spending to the US.
I agree completely. I think I am making more of a point about the "tail wagging the dog" in the US military strategy you mention.
We have created economic dependencies on our vast military spending. At a fundamental level, the $1 trillion spent on defense ends up in the hands of US service members and defense contractors. They spend that money back in the US economy.
When viewed from that (cynical?) perspective, it isn't surprising that the military's spending and scope grow year after year.
The chances of a war between Europe and Russia without American involvement do indeed seem very remote.
But some would say at present, the EU is the junior power in the EU-USA military relationship, despite its greater GDP; and that it's embarrassing we can't do our fair share.
And America is a democracy - so at any time they could elect someone who puts America first and doesn't value an alliance with a bunch of weak, argumentative allies. Or someone with an appetite for spreading freedom abroad, who resents their allies not being at their side.
>And America is a democracy - so at any time they could elect someone who puts America first and doesn't value an alliance with a bunch of weak, argumentative allies.
This will not happen at least until the baby boomer generation dies off. In the last election we saw clear as day how suppressed any candidate outside the mainstream really is. (Not talking about Trump but Sanders).
I believe there is a large population of pissed off Americans that want to end this arrangement but they are not going to be able to exert their power until the generation that greatly benefited from the US being world police finally kicks the bucket.
No, we don't want that over here. I prefer to have US troops here than troops who are paid/ controlled by Brussel politicians that are disconnected from reality.
Their economy is less linked to the global economy than almost any other big economy, they definitely have enough resources to sustain themselves and Americans in general are becoming more inward focused.
It would take a lot more than that. There's very little support on either side politically for leaving NATO for example, which is why even Trump didn't push for it.
The US could modestly reduce its global military footprint, and refocus those resources better on Europe (Russia) and Asia (China), and that would probably work out just fine.
Most Americans like their big military, even though they gripe about its cost. If there were a strong majority sentiment to reduce that military or pull out of the world, Trump would have done better against Biden.
Americans are tired of the stupid shit - invading & occupying Iraq; invading and occupying Afghanistan (occupying it for two decades for nothing). That money we poured into nothingness in Afghanistan, could have plausibly done wonders for Ukraine in numerous ways. Our attention and those resources would have been vastly better spent shoring up the new, fragile democracy in Ukraine than on an Afghanistan that was very unlikely to have a positive outcome.
That isolationism lean, which is a modest minority group politically, will tend to come and go. It's amplified currently due to the stupidity of what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US also had some of that culturally after the disaster of Vietnam. Overall it's a good thing to have that minority isolationist political wing, it might help tilt the US toward not doing the next Iraq. Some counter-weight to our rah rah rah global adventurism is important.
> Our attention and those resources would have been vastly better spent shoring up the new, fragile democracy in Ukraine than on an Afghanistan that was very unlikely to have a positive outcome.
The sad part is that you didn't even gain an ally at the end.
The kind of money you invested in Afghanistan, spent wisely in Ukraine, would have yielded a nation of ~45 million people eternally grateful to the US.
In an immensely strategic location in the world. A Western power controlling Ukraine really does control Russia and these days the Middle East, too.
And that's from a base that is culturally and stability-wise much better than toxic allies like Saudi Arabia.
>Most Americans like their big military, even though they gripe about its cost. If there were a strong majority sentiment to reduce that military or pull out of the world, Trump would have done better against Biden.
The 2020 election was a referendum on COVID so it is not a fair comparison. Trump was on track to defeat Biden before COVID hit and he totally bungled the response. In addition to that Trump increased his turnout significantly (as did Biden but I attribute that to COVID and hatred of Trump's personality). If another well mannered populist comes along during non pandemic times, I fully believe he/she would mop the floor with the establishment. Trump laid out the map for a path to break through establishment stranglehold on the white house. Its unfortunate that Bernie couldn't get past the DNC's attempts to pull the rug from under him but Trump showed that the Republican party does not have as many roadblocks so you cannot be as dismissive of populists as you are given the facts on the ground.
There is about 30% of Americans (we'll call this generation Trumpers) that have always wanted an isolated America. Another 30% in the middle and about 40% globalists and have been for decades since WW1
Some countries are so small it might just as well be "we already have armies, at county level". Apparently, these days EU actually needs something like Force de Frappe second strike capabilities. What a sad time.
The trend is very much in the opposite direction. This is a tiny blip on the radar compared to the overall trend of defunding and downsizing European militaries.
You're right looking back, but this might just be the turning point. The German chancellor just announced an increase of military spending to exceed 2% of annual GDP, as requested by NATO allies for a very long time; to supply weapons to Ukraine; and to support the EU buying weapons for Ukraine.
As a German, each one of those points is really far out of what used to be the political mainstream for many, many decades, and has broad support. It feels like things really are shifting.
Yes, and comparable announcements have happened before. They have never lasted very long. Things might be changing, but they also might not. You're just making a proclamation of faith, here.
Yes, they increased from "hiring enough people to give Putin directions on the way to Berlin" to "way smaller than you'd expect with a lunatic next door". Germany announced an increase to 2% of GDP. For the three decades prior to the fall of the Soviet Union it averaged 3.5%.
> They’d much rather have America sink into debt than touch the sacred cow of EU social spending.
The US isn't sinking into debt (just) because of the military...
The US is choosing to overspend to help grow its economy and maintain a very lavish lifestyle for its population. It's banking on its currency being a global reserve currency.
The US population is in debt. Decreased military spending could go into 10x’ing the number of doctors/nurses/hospitals, but our system has instead 10x’ed the number of weapons/soldiers.
The US doesn't need 10x the number of doctors, nurses and hospitals. It needs to reduce costs in its existing healthcare system by a minimum of 1/3 to match other affluent peers. By doing so it could instantly expand Medicaid at little to no cost to around 40% of the population; it would make it a lot cheaper to backstop people with guaranteed coverage (no job, you're guaranteed Medicaid coverage, etc); it would make Medicare cheaper, which would reduce the deficits (now and in the future); and it would save households a lot of money on their health bills. The US has to shift further to a rationing care model (which is resisted in the US), as with all universal systems, to slash costs.
The US already has by far the world's most expensive healthcare system. Building a lot more hospitals would be a cost nightmare that would further drown the system.
US households are in excellent financial shape in terms of debt at both the median and the average, better than many of its peers (if you want to see horrific household finances, check out Scandinavia). US household monthly debt costs as a share of disposable income remain near the lowest levels in 40-50 years.
You could immediately reduce US military spending by $300 billion and it wouldn't make any consequential difference in the deficits problem the US is facing over the next 30 years, because it's overwhelmingly caused by required entitlement spending. There is no scenario where the US doens't run perpetual trillion dollar deficits, unless entitlements are reformed or taxes go way way up. We could already entirely get rid of the military and we'd still be facing enormous deficits in the coming decades, that's how bad it is.
entitlement spending is tied into medical and other prices that are out of control. A lot of that wealth would be much better spend by the poor and middle class than by the wealthy hoarding it away.
Let's stop beating the bush and say it as it is: there's no "real" EU without an EU Army!
...regardless of what the US does or doesn't do. NATO serves a different purpose.
If we ever want to get close to the dream of an European Federation we need to get the Army done. Then maybe some EU equivalent of the FBI (no Interpol doesn't cut it, something with trained men with guns and bugs and all, and EU only).
Even a possible future improvement of the relationships between Europe and Russia is contingent on this: we need to be able to talk with Russia without the US sitting at the table, and to have the option to also act against the interests of the US. Which, frankly, don't really coincide that much with that of Europe anymore.
>If we ever want to get close to the dream of an European Federation we need to get the Army done.
If we want an EU army, we need a single EU foreign policy first. Otherwise who decides when to use it?
And if we have a single EU foreign policy, how do we deal with NATO? Do state that are non-aligned just have to suck it up? How do we deal with France's military adventures in Africa? Do the countries that object to them have to suck it up and Françafrique quickly collapse? What's the EU position on the Carlingford Lough Dispute? Is Imia in Greece, or not?
> Then maybe some EU equivalent of the FBI (no Interpol doesn't cut it, something with trained men with guns and bugs and all, and EU only).
This bit is ongoing; The European Public Prosecutor is the first step in this, and frontex are already armed. Note that despite the EU having armed forces, the oversight mechanisms for them are, so far, atrocious. Perhaps we should fix those before expanding to an army?
> Even a possible future improvement of the relationships between Europe and Russia is contingent on this: we need to be able to talk with Russia without the US sitting at the table, and to have the option to also act against the interests of the US. Which, frankly, don't really coincide that much with that of Europe anymore.
Do you have a course of action that you think we should be pursuing that we cannot currently? I can't think of one, but it may exist. And if you do, is it one that would command support in all EU states, or is the first step getting foreign policy to move to QMV? And if that's the case, how do you plan to win a referendum in Ireland to (effectively) abolish Irish neutrality?
To address all/most concerns at once: you kind of need to put the cart before the horse on this one... once an army exists, people will have to come to an agreement on using it.
And on the EU/Russia/US thing, I think the "goal" should be of "maximizing the possibilities for future actions", no actual goal in particular should be pursued.
And mindset wise, I think we should try and rid ourselves of this quasi-hyper-rationalist analysis-paralysis inducing mindset where one needs to answer a zillion questions before being allowed to do anything... Sometimes where you have high uncertainty in all directions the best thing to do is just ACT as long as you can guess around the overall direction of action, and let some of the consequences handle themselves. Action will generate more information, and hopefully that information will de-balance the probabilities and future decisions will be obvious once some of the fog clears. If you just "sit and think" entropy just increases around you, things fall apart more and more, the information you get is even more murkier and require even more analysis and discussion and negotiation and you just get paralyzed and decompose...
After brexit EU countries account for 20% of NATO military spending [0]. Granted, it might have increased a bit lately but still it would seem EU army would be a joke compared to NATO.
> Can't blame them, but Europe needs an EU Army so working with the US is a matter of choice, not necessity.
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Unless the EU gets a tier one strategic nuclear power as a member (which, short of radical regime change in Russia, a radical expansion of the EU’s geographic focus, or the emergence of a new major nuclear power doesn't seem likely), the motivation for wanting a permanent US tripwire force doesn't go away with an EU army.
Insufficient operational warhead count (and size; how much you can take is an issue here) for MAD against Russia, leading to an insufficient guarantee that their tripwire forces would provide sufficient certainty of an immediate unacceptable conflict.
Eh? France and the UK have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the population centres of Russia. Let's be frank, as much as the Geneva Convention says 'play nice', if nuclear weapons are involved, are you going to use them to bomb an airbase in Siberia, or hit Red Square dead centre? That's enough.
France/UK have enough so that an attack on France/UK can cause unacceptable losses for Russia (the loss of 5-25 of its biggest cities) at the cost of the existence of the entirety of France/UK after Russian retaliation.
But let's say Russia uses tactical nukes to kill a Polish air base or an Italian carrier or an Estonian infantry division? Would BoJo or Macron press the button and consign his nation to nuclear destruction? No he certainly wouldn't.
I said that, if MagnumOpus believes the French wouldn't launch, that's not relevant to dragonwriter's observation the EU doesn't have many warheads, which DrBazza was replying to.
Lol what? UK and France absolutely have enough warheads to end Russia if they should choose to do so. They could level every major city in Russia and Russia as we know it today would break up into several states in the following weeks. Putin knows that.
You do know that Putin's bluster notwithstanding, MAD only applies to nuclear conflicts? EG Russia can march into Poland and that doesn't instantly 'trip' MAD.
> You do know that Putin's bluster notwithstanding, MAD only applies to nuclear conflicts?
This is inaccurate.
MAD applies with progressively decreasing strength to:
(1) Nuclear conflicts, (2) direct conflicts between nuclear powers, (3) direct conflicts between a nuclear power and the powers with which a nuclear power has a firm defense commitment, (4) direct conflicts between parties where a different nuclear power has firm defense commitments to each, ... (there are more categories where it has some attenuated impact, but it gets pretty weak beyond this point and the heirarchy becomes murkier)
Tripwire forces are a means of moving category #3 into category #2 as a means of deterring them (also, #4 into #3, which is sometimes also of perceived importance.)
The whole WWIII argument against NFZ in Ukraine is that it elevates a conflict that is not on this chart at all straight to a #2. If you think MAD applies only to nuclear conflicts, you don't understand the role of MAD.in deterrence very well.
Given the past history of the continent, the best thing about NATO is that European countries decided to just let the US do all the spending and stopped funding their own militaries. And as a consequence haven't invaded each other until recently, a massive change in European practice for at least the previous millennium.
Europe's past history of war and military technology is what allowed it to advance faster up to the point of industrial revolution and then to colonize most of the world...
Europe needs conflict to thrive, but as an European I'd prefer this conflict to be external to Europe. An EU Army would at the same time make internal conflict exceedingly unlikely (no/impotent national armies, all resources dedicated to EU Army), and allow Europe to start re-involving itself productively in external conflicts.
A de-militarized Europe is a castrated Europe, doomed to lag behind and wither away.
> Europe needs conflict to thrive, but as an European I'd prefer this conflict to be external to Europe...allow Europe to start re-involving itself productively in external conflicts.
Got it: go fight people away from home for benefit and profit. The logic of empire or, if you prefer, the greatest good for the smallest number. This is precisely the approach being followed by Russia in Ukraine, and I would very much not like it if Europe returned to it too.
> This is precisely the approach being followed by Russia in Ukraine
I don't see anything wrong with Russia's goals per se... only in how they choose to pursue them: everybody was playing an economic and psychological game for the `minds & wallets` of Ukrainians, and Russia got mad because they were loosing and strolled in with tanks...
Russia is like that kid on the playground that always got mad when he lost at a game and went violent on everyone smashing the toys and swinging fists around...
The only thing this turn is that the unruly kid actually did get cheated on (wrt. the promises to limit NATO expansion after '89), so you can't just tell him to put down... you'd need to appease him with something to make up for it. But Europe has the (understandable) "never appease expansionist tyrants again" stance, so we're stuck in this bloody mess...
> Europe needs conflict to thrive, but as an European I'd prefer this conflict to be external to Europe.
Eh, I'm not sure you get the tech benefits of a war when it's a foreign war of choice.
I mean, WW2 coincided with computers, radar, rocketry, modern control theory, jet engines, and so on because in an existential war you throw everything you've got into winning it.
But you look at wars of choice, like Iraq? All that came out of it was moderate upgrades to prosthetic limbs and drones. The major innovations of the period, like smartphones and cloud services, were unrelated to the wars.
Post-cold-war, progress in things like IT infrastructure have been driven much more by the private sector than by military needs.
Look at rocketry for example. The moment the impetus of a serious threat is gone, the US decided to put all their space money into a useless boondoggle that was more about spreading the pork around into the right congressional districts than seriously advancing rocketry or space exploration.
Europe would hugely benefit from an united, concise and strong foreign policy, more so if backed by a strong military. Plus, the added GDP boost from military expenditure.
The EU couldn't sustain the level of proportional military spending that the USA does, maybe with the exception of Germany but they still spend around half as much as a share of gdp as the US does, so that would be an enormous shift. Fwiw, the existence of the EU basically presupposes the availability of the American army to provide security
An EU Army cannot be in the cards no matter what politicians say because anyone suggesting it might not quite understand so much 'why people fight'.
Some kind of Military EU coordination of forces, yes, but 'EU Army' - no. Almost nobody is going to fight for the EU flag. Also, nations want to maintain some kind of control over things like 'Intervention in Libya'.
But - we already have defence, it's called NATO, and it includes Norway, the UK and the USA.
Even with an 'EU Army of Sorts' - there is no clear leadership. Germany has the political and economic power, but little in the way of forces. France is probably the most prepared but are still small. Absent the UK which would probably be a helpful leader ... there's not much there.
In the end, NATO is well designed for that, it includes the US which is important for now.
It will take a decade at least for EU to sort itself out in that area and it may never happen. It also does not need to happen.
EU will fail sooner or later if they don't do EU army. Yes, the moral around European integration has fallen, and so the long slow failure of the EU could already be "locked in".
As for clear leadership, it must be the EU parliament. You cannot put a military under inter-governmental control. Which is good, as inter-governmentalism is bad in general.
The EU does not 'need' an Army. They have constituent national Armies which are just fine for self defence. Even without the US, Europe could probably not be held by Russians. Probably the greatest challenge is not invading each other but hopefully that era is over.
"As for clear leadership, it must be the EU parliament."
This is a misunderstanding of how leadership works.
'Parliament' cannot provide real military leadership.
The EU Parliament above all, is an effete bureaucracy incapable of 'doing' most things.
Yes - of course the political body must be responsible and direct the military objectives etc., there is no doubt there, but that is not nearly enough.
There needs to be a very well organised and experienced body military personnel who can basically form the basis of leadership, and it needs to be effective.
The US has that, the UK and France have that at least at some scale.
If the EU said 'we're going to have an Army and pool all of our budget' and then every soldier, officer and seaman were under this 'single integrated unit' - instead of national Armies - and - if it was well managed and coordinated, then sure, that would be a path.
But it won't happen for so many reasons.
And especially, it doesn't' need to.
Most EU citizens do not want a Federal State let alone 'more integration', most efforts for rather integration are driven by EU elite, and young ideologues who also don't really understand the nature of what is going on.
What is possibly in the cards, is an EU-like NATO, i.e. a more comprehensive EU defence organization.
But as long as NATO exists and is functional, wise Europeans may prefer to have the USA 'on board' because they are 3x more powerful when the US is involved, at least for now. And European nations right now are 'taking up the slack' and investing more heavily, Poland, Germany, Sweden etc. are really stepping up.
The defensive roles of the army are (broadly) to protect the sovereignty of the government, and to protect the borders. Though most European borders are accepted by the governments controlling both sides of them, the sovereignty of the governments is far from assured. Every generation, heck every decade, sees new challenges, new techniques to subvert and undermine, and new foreign political change campaigns. The army protects against that. Broadly.
If you're thinking about an EU army being used to defend non-US nations (e.g. Ukraine) then I beg you to consider that the purpose of the army is to defend the nation. An army that puts its nation at risk by going out and protecting others is actually harming the nation. Even if the US likes to do it, but the US can afford to do it because it has two nice big oceans buffering it from aggression.
Europe may need an army, but many in Europe prefer US leadership. Some of us don't really want to give into german dominance in that area as well as the EU. If it weren't for the US and UK pushing for sanctions against russia, certain countries would still happily trade with putin while he's invading european sovereign states.
Germany dominance is the worst. EU parliament control and not some intergovernmental bullshit is the only way to make this happen, and a good reform either way.
I know. Just today germany announced it will continue buying russian gas. They don't mind putin bombing ukraine or dirty oligarch money. Instead they will sanction Poland or other EU countries as soon as they are out of "line". A sad state of affairs in europe, and I don't see how reform can happen while the EU is also under its control.
There are EU nukes in France, which aren't under NATO command and control, and which the current and most likely future French President (who is really big on more autonomy and power and centralisation for the EU), Macron, has already said publicly he's willing to share the power and responsibility of the French nuclear deterrent with the EU.
NATO countries exchange soldiers, so that attack on one country is attack on the other country too. So, yes, you are right. And they will want American soldiers still in, so that attack on Latvia is attack on American soldiers.
An "EU army" seems silly. People aren't willing to fight and die for the EU, not in large numbers. For better or worse, European identity is receding. It peaked in the 90s.
European countries should spend more on their respective militaries though (I notice this sounds suspiciously like things Trump said).
Well, it depends who you are at war with. If Russia was rolling tanks through (more of) eastern Europe WW2 style then just out of self preservation other EU countries would want to commit forces to defend against that.
Helping France keep control in Africa somewhere I can see there being less enthusiasm.
Also, I'm not so sure European identity is receding anymore, although that narrative is of benefit to other large powers.
To me this reads like an argument centered on an idealised national soldier.
People join the military for multitude of reasons, including just to have a job that isn't working a till. No one is joining the French Foreign Legion to die for France, no one joins a mercenary company to die for stock holders. It's a job, yes for some it's a pure calling but often more than not, it's a place to work and pick up new skills.
There is no sovereignty without some ability to defend oneself on ones own. And personally, I think a major problem with the EU is too much intergovernmentalism, and not enough direct EU parliament power. Putting a military under their control can help that.
"We don't need a Military" is the same happy go lucky thinking as "we'll just close all the nukes, do more renewables, and worry about storage later". It's just blatantly irresponsible, and undermines genuinely good things (less war, more renewables) into mere virtue signalling.
Because for army issues we have NATO already and keep in mind that positions in EU parliament are chosen and voted for by politicians only, not by people.
So in the end this army would be used 90% to stop protests against EU in countries, losing their sovereignty in the process
"positions in EU parliament are chosen and voted for by politicians only"
100% wrong.
Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage, and with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's.
I think you're conflating Russia, where protest is literally a crime, and Europe, where protest is a vital component of functioning representative democracy.
In fact, there's a protest going on right now in my city over mental health care.
Lets be honest, the US is much more proactive at defending.
Look at Germany, how reluctant was to even start doing sanctions or distribute arms. The eastern countries see this, and they just don't trust Germany will have their back. Same with France or Spain or Italy.
Also, the Bosnia war/genocide, and the late intervention is a clear failure of European policy. The US had to step in to make it stop. Same during the Kosova ethnic cleansing.
The Eastern Block members know their only single reliable partner is the US and not the other large EU members who are always late to do anything.
That's a disingenuous argument: yes 'defeated' countries like Germany mainly are US 'influenced'[I would not use the term satellite: It's not exactly a situation like Russia & Transnistria technically speaking] but the rest of the continent does not have this kind of relationship but a more 'grateful one'.The EU became a bureaucratic nightmare as soon as it started shifting from an economical union and added more attributions to it.NATO exists, even more importantly than that: sovereign nations exist(by the way this is not a legitimate argument for saying "This is how Putin is getting away with it". Europe has shown repeatedly that it can quickly mobilize against a real common enemy).Centralizing power is the mistake we keep repeating in Europe for thousands of years and it never works, because obviously power corrupts and some will be greedy and overstep.
An EU army is the worst idea i've heard and the biggest counter-argument of being pro-EU.You talk like we don't have armies: we do, and strengthening them is the priority instead of creating more super-national entities which will have no effect pragmatically speaking, and a lot of overhead in terms of wasted money.It will open loopholes where people who hold more power at an EU-level will abuse the army for doing their bidding.As a matter of fact, EU can demand nation-states to do economic & regulatory measures between countries as long as nation states continue with their membership,but it does not have any power over sovereign states in most matters, especially military & security-wise.
Nobody wrote “we don’t need a military”, so I don’t know why it’s in quotes. That last paragraph is really strange behavior.
Anyway, every country in the EU has a military, and many are in a defensive pact called NATO. Two NATO countries in Europe are nuclear armed. Russia would have no hope of touching us. This seems fine to me.
The EU was intended to evolve towards being a country. I don't know if that's a good idea, but an EU army is not scope creep. The central goal of the EU was to not have more wars in Europe, so it's well-aligned with the founding goal.
My own opinion is that the EU should handle economic, military, and foreign policy issues. It should have centralized funding for common goods like research and environmental issues, but not to the exclusion of local funding. It should have a minimum bar for local democratic governance, but it shouldn't be very high. It should stay away from social issues, which are best handled locally.
Scope of the EU is a valid area for debate. The above is my opinion. You're welcome to argue your own, but perhaps with logic, rather than as "scope creep."
I think all 3 Baltic countries get wiped out overnight if Russia decides to press the issue.
Disclaimer: I was born in one of those countries. No, I wouldn't fly back home to go to war. My country is run by crooks like any other, and I am not about to go die like some dumbass. Assuming that it escalates that far.
Also population would play a big role here. The combined population of all three Baltic countries is around 5-6 million. In Ukraine it is 40+ million. Over the last 20 years, a large number of outskirt cities have been left deserted because people went on to find better life elsewhere.
Border cities in particular aren't protected because nobody cares to live there.
I think I am being pretty fair in my assessment, though.
Like it took a night for the Russians to wipe out Ukraine (which has been lacking modern weapons)? The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown how weak the Russian army is in reality. They have no chance against NATO whatsoever. Poland and Baltics are also arming themselves to teeth now.
>>>The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown how weak the Russian army is in reality.
For context: Germany invaded Poland (population ~31 million) with 60+ divisions, and that invasion required almost a month to succeed, with the Soviets jumping in partway through to quicken the end.
Russia has invaded Ukraine (population ~41 million) with ~13 divisions, less favorable weather, and vastly more urbanized terrain to fight through. While they have made some absolutely embarrassing mistakes, they are fielding the largest army seen in a generation, and still conducting offensive operations.
Not even the US has put 13 divisions into a theater since....Vietnam? Korea? Desert Storm was ~9 US divisions + allies. The big difference is we can show up with ~9 divisions that will be well-supplied and well-motivated anywhere in the world (and with endless air support to make up in bombs what we might lack in manpower), while Russia has a terribly motivated and already-hungry army even in their own backyard, and surprisingly not enough ordnance to make up for it.
I certainly agree that you don't want to declare it over at this point but is there any counterpart in the German example to the logistical failures we've seen so far? The Russian army seems like they didn't just start with less but are losing a significant amount of equipment and are struggling to use what they have in the field effectively in most of the battlefield. Nothing we've seen so far looks like they're going to be able to pick up the pace, especially since the attacks on civilians they've made seem likely to have increased rather than reduced the number of Ukranians who are willing to fight.
>>>is there any counterpart in the German example to the logistical failures we've seen so far?
One early vid featured a Ukrainian civilian driving up to a stopped Russian APC. The Russian crew said they were out of gas. Your vehicle has a 300km+ fuel range and you ran outta gas 50km from the Russian border? WTF? Did you leave your Assembly Area with a 1/4 tank of fuel?! No I don't think the Germans ever launched an invasion with such poor preparation.
>>>struggling to use what they have in the field effectively in most of the battlefield
We've been discussing some examples at work (with an Iraq-veteran Staff Sergeant and a recent infantry company commander): videos of just absolutely terrible security habits from the Russians. I don't care if they are unmotivated conscripts: you've gotta realize by now that you are in "Indian country". You need to keep your head on a swivel and watching your surroundings if you simply want to NOT DIE. There were parked tanks getting knocked out by ATGMs at fairly close range.....doesn't make sense when the T-72B3 has a thermal imager, and it's winter, so body heat should stand out at a reasonable distance. The crew should be scanning the treelines periodically with the thermal.
There's some aspects of the war where I'm willing to give the Russians the benefit of the doubt because, as I said, nobody has done this in 30+ years, maybe even 50+. But there are FAR too many flaws where we are sitting shocked and thinking "You guys suck so bad at your JOB, that I'm embarrassed for you."
Well, by all accounts (and I'd love to read others that diverge from this) this was actually Russia's exact strategy. Move to Kyiv quickly, destroy the existing government, install a new puppet government, and announce it to the world quickly before the west could react. Russia doesn't have the manpower deployed to actually occupy Ukraine. 200,000 soldiers is not enough when the Ukrainian state is actively resisting. This is why they tried some absolutely suicidal paratrooper missions and they are having all of these apparent logistical issues (again if there are other sources I'd like to learn more please share).
I think if I were to summarize the "Russia is failing" narrative it's that Russia expectations of a quick, easy victory were completely unmet, and now even if Russia does want to occupy Ukraine it's not going to be the quick and easy decapitation strike that they thought it would.
Keeping in mind that Russia of course isn’t going to come out with a 1-pager on their strategy, there are a lot of sources on this. Understandably if you are hung up on the 24 hours thing I mean there isn’t a source for that but suffice to say the sooner the better was their goal.
Thank you, that's interesting to know. I had the impression that the Russian plan was to just get there and just never leave until Ukraine kind of surrenders or whatever.
Have the Russians proven they are weak? Certainly the war in the northeast has proven incompetent, but the war in the south seems like a far more solid military operation. It's also the more important operation, Odessa for example is a major logistical point for foreign military aid.
Yes. They have shown they are not well organized, have poor leadership, have defective planning, are terrible at logistics, have poor discipline in the ranks.
In fairness to the Russian military they are probably pretty unmotivated. A lot of them seem to have no idea why they were there having been told they were taking part in exercises. Also had Putin let on they were suppose to kill their peaceful neighbours for his self aggrandisement they probably would not have been enthusiastic.
"Certainly the war in the northeast has proven incompetent,"
Eh. I don't understand others military analysis. Russia is doing the right thing to just sit a convoy north of Kyiv. Ukraine doesn't have air power anyway. If they rolled into Kyiv it would be a urban combat meat grinder. They are better off waiting until the forces from the south and east meet south of Kyiv. Then they can surround Kyiv and shell it to rubble [what they learned in berlin]. Wait for white flags, then roll it. Ukraine needs to wipe out that northern convoy NOW.
They arent tactically waiting in that convoy, they got stuck and are being picked off little by little. You must realize how fucked you are when some random farmers are towing away $25mil worth TOR SAM systems away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD8z_kGe7rs pretty regularly now. This is the third one documented on video.
The Russians are incompetent beyond belief. I thought the farmers were lucky when they confiscated the first tank, but now it's happening all the time. Have you ever seen Iraqi farmers towing away American tanks?
Incompetent or can't be arsed? If you were conscripted into the Russian military what would you do? Personally I'd be happy to go for a tea break while some farmer towed the vehicle.
Yes. They are going to switch to vacuum explosives. They wont risk their tanks getting to close to Kyiv. They will just level Kyiv from a distance using dummy explosives. That is why everything is parked north. They are trying to bring up more TOS carriers from the south and east.
Hello from Kyiv, Ukraine - I need to be completely open minded, and unbiased, to what is happening here (for my own life, and those around me).
In reality, this is an almost total disaster for Russia so far. No matter what, Russia will not recover from the last 12 days in the next fifty years. International support for Ukraine will only grow stronger. The scale of verified Russian losses was NEVER predicted by anyone prior to this invasion. Prior to invasion, the reports were almost entirely about how fast Ukraine would fall.
Now, everything is about "Russia is yet to send it's best, it's early days, etc" - from the same "experts" and talking heads.
With regards to what you have said, of course never underestimate your enemy, and yes it may sadly be on the early days, but you could do this to get one single data point of what is happening:
1)research and find the most likely estimate of Russian troop deaths so far.
2)using that number, estimate the number of injured Russian troops (military experts can help you here, wars are somewhat predicable with death/injured ratios).
3)add those two numbers together.
What number do you come up with, and show your workings please.
A friend of mine has a 100+ dev team in Ukraine. He said about 30 have evacuated while the rest are staying to fight. Currently, he said the main problem is getting money in the hands of his people. They're all still paid and there's lots of funds available but getting actual currency in their hands is the hard part. He's able to stay in touch over Slack which
implies inet is working at least. Can you confirm? Also, what is the single most effective thing regular, but well connected (both politically and logistically), people in the US can do to help the situation?
Hi, I would be happy to tell you what is happening here in Kyiv.
For context, I have some hard currency, but I'm not spending it as yet. Electronic means of payment are fully functional - spend at the supermarkets, or pharmacies, without issue (other than supply issues at supermarkets of course). I haven't yet tried an international bank transfer into Ukraine, but I suspect it would be OK. I use an EU issued bank card, it works no problem (I also have a UA bank card as backup)
At the moment, therefore, the best thing to do: get money into the hands of regular Ukrainians. Personally, I have been raising funds from abroad and using the money to either give directly to Ukrainians (via bank transfers), or purchasing food etc and delivering it (in my local area) to the most vulnerable. At the moment, if people run out of money, they will run out of food.
Keeping people fed, keeps people sane. It's the most effective thing for Ukrainians that are remaining in Ukraine.
I would say the second most effective thing, is asking your politicians to do more - that may be providing lethal aid, humanitarian aid, or money, to Ukraine.
Further - logistics are incredibly compromised now, in every possible way. For the moment, money is the most effective solution. The situation is fluid - what Ukraine needed yesterday, is possibly not what they will need tomorrow. Money can be used immediately to help purchase what needed, with respect to what is actually available.
thank you, i'm going to copy/paste this to my colleague to see if it can help with him and his team.
Edit
> purchasing food etc and delivering it (in my local area) to the most vulnerable.
is there more information here? a way to do this over the inet that can be verified as legit and not a scam? If so, i can see this being very useful. I've been seeing people rent AirBnbs in Ukraine all of social media to get money in people's hands. I'm wary of fraud though, it's a situation ripe for fraudsters to take advantage.
The problem is, I see we both have our contact details empty on HN.
If you can suggest a way for me to contact you, I will reach out. I don't want to be compromised (which for me, is a bigger threat than normal right now).
Unlike a sports game with voluntary competitors, you should judge a military operation early, preferably even before the aggressor plans it. Sounds like Art of War 101.
China is providing some kinds of assistance, for example they are substituting their own (and India's) banking system for the SWIFT cut-off. So far, no military assistance, but that is not really needed; the RF has a huge military of which only a tiny fraction has been committed to the Ukraine action.
Did you perhaps grew up under Russian occupation, like I did, and not learn in school about Molotov–Ribbentrop Pacts? We were only taught the part after 1941 where Russia gloriously liberates Europe.
Yeah, I did, I grew up in Romania, which was also heavily and negatively affected by the the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (we lost everything East of the river Prut, Northern Bukovina and the county of Herța in June 1940, as a result of a Soviet ultimatum). Nevertheless, we did learn that USSR got into the war in 1941, i.e. when the Germans together with some of their allies (including us, Romanians) attacked them.
I did personally know a person that was close to me (he passed away about a decade ago) who had been a soldier on that front, he was in Odessa, in Crimea and all the way East to the Don river. He considered that the war started when his commander in chief at the time, marshal Antonescu, had ordered him and his fellow Romanian soldiers to pass the Prut and attack the Soviets, in June 1941. As it happens marshal Antonescu is considered a war criminal, and he was indeed a war criminal if you look at what he did to the Jewish population from Romania. That didn't count for people like that close person of mine I had told you about, who regarded him as a hero because marshal Antonescu was one of the the only persons who really wanted "to defeat the Bolsheviks" (I'm quoting my close acquaintance on this). That's why history around these parts of the world is really, really complicated, is not black and white all the time.
Ukraine didn't have modern weapons in 2014, but they do now.
Regardless, I don't think anyone has ever thought the post-Soviet Russian military could take on NATO in conventional warfare, but that doesn't matter because they have nukes.
> Ukraine didn't have modern weapons in 2014, but they do now.
And the Ukrainians don't even have a full complement of modern weapons. IIRC, they're mainly getting sent infantry heavy-weapons at the very last minute. Even the US was pretty stingy with things like Javelins until very recently, out of fear of "provoking" the Putin.
Since the Baltics are in NATO, I doubt they'll have as many issues with getting more/better weapons. Hopefully they'll also take some lessons from Ukraine (e.g. really, really beef up their reserve forces and military training for their civilian population).
Also, since they're actually in NATO, they can hopefully count on better support from their allies than what the Ukrainians have gotten.
HAD been lacking :). the most popular pet name in Ukraine right now is Bayraktar. But of course, as others mentioned, it will take only a few blown up 1$bln warships before things turn nuclear.
Most likely Russians will have a demo nuclear 'test' in neutral waters sometimes this year. There aren't any 'cooler heads' to prevail in this situation - just bloodlust and enablement
Once the nuclear taboo is crossed it could happen near-instantly. I imagine Russia would prefer to be bordered by nuclear wastelands as a DMZ rather than EU states, which create a existential cultural threat just by existing.
At that point you'd have to ask yourselves: who would risk nuclear escalation to retaliate for Latvia or Estonia? not the US. Would the UK bomb Russia with London on the line? probably not.
Just about everyone has more to lose than Russia at this point, which is an incredibly dangerous situation to be in.
You'd have to ask yourself: once a country becomes so deranged that it's willing to nuke non-aggressive neighbors to remove a "threat", is it really safe to just back down and potentially show weakness to that nation? What if they decide that further strategic aims can be accomplished with additional nuclear strikes?
I'm not saying I know the answer. But this is what strategists on the US/NATO side would be thinking about, and Russia sure knows they would be thinking about it. It would be madness to gamble on this strategy working out in the long run.
The P5 issues a joint statement on Jan 3rd, 2022 that they won't use nuclear weapons. I am not sure if this is an annual announcement for P5 or just well wishes for 2022 by the nuclear armed permanent members of UNSC. (possibly /s)
Obviously Russia would not start a nuclear war. It will simply take steps that either need to be conventionally opposed or dare US/NATO to go nuclear. Sanctions are hoped to collapse the economy of Russia and put the fear into the Chinese and other fence sitters. It's like running the clock down in a game. US probes for incremental steps (the famous "salami slicing") to ramp up counter force. Nothing should happen until we have Russia's promised counter-sanction response this Tuesday. After that next move is getting planes into Ukraine and possibly NFZ. What follows will be a non-nuclear hypersonic attack on NATO airfields used. And so on. Until someone lobs a nuke.
Oh no, that wouldn't be their objective. Which would be rather 1) military (obliterate resistance) and 2) political (show the resolve to use whatever means they deem necessary).
>Obviously Russia would not start a nuclear war. It will simply take steps that either need to be conventionally opposed or dare US/NATO to go nuclear.
I think the major conclusion from the Ukraine war is that the Russian army is not in a particularly strong condition, and certainly would not fare well against superior NATO forces (particularly the air forces.) And this is assuming they are not further degraded by a long, bloody occupation in Ukraine. Nuclear first-use is a move from weakness, not strength.
I have no idea about their condition. That's state level knowledge and requires military training, & I'm just a dog (with an interest and some talent in CS ;) on the internet and pretty much assume most if not all info prepared for me by the media (of all sides) is dog food. At least that's what it tastes like to me :)
Is it safe to back down and allow Russia to take Ukraine? A similar thing seems to be happening now on a smaller scale. We have a rough idea that they have larger ambitions. I don't think the west would back down if Poland were attacked, but again I have to ask... who specifically would retaliate on the behalf of Estonia and Latvia? I guess it would be a true test of NATO membership, but based on their reluctance to shut down Ukrainian airspace I don't see it happening.
> who specifically would retaliate on the behalf of Estonia and Latvia?
All of NATO
NATO have been quite clear that the line is attacking a NATO member. Russia is pushing that line by invading a country they believed was about to join NATO, but they have not yet attacked a NATO country
If all of NATO wasn't brought to bear to defend Estonia or Latvia then NATO is worthless. I understand your point though, risk civilization over very small nations with low populations? I think the answer still has to be yes.
They are not going to hit a city of course but a piece of the military infrastructure should NATO forces get involved. (And the target will not be in one of the Baltic states, I am sure.)
I'm not so sure NATO membership matters as much as people think, at present it seems like a convenient excuse to not intervene.
If the US retaliated with a bomb on Russian soil, would the expectation not be full-out nuclear war? Would it be smart for the US to enter that because Russia bombed Latvia?
Attacking a NATO member in a significant manner would trigger nuclear war. That's the actual meaning of the alliance, the treaties make retaliation compulsory, if the action is a clear attack by a nation-state. Refusing to carry it out would immediately result in effective disbandment of the alliance, with massive effects on the economy of Europe and the US.
This logic doesn't really track... you think the US would directly invoke nuclear war for the sake of an agreement that includes baltic states because if it doesn't... it could hurt the economy? I have no doubt that "hurt the economy" would be preferred to "destroy parts of the country"
NATO doesn't have multiple tracks - a member is a member. The US and their allies understood very well what that meant when they accepted those new members. NATO is about retaliation after external (and generally accepted to mean Russian, in practice) attack, or it isn't at all.
This is not a case of Turkey whining about a few kurds blowing up a few police stations, this is the raison d'etre for the whole thing. Renouncing NATO duties would be the worst loss of dignity the US ever experienced, and would jeopardize its richest partner market, with uncalcolable losses.
How is it the US "invoking nuclear war" if Russia nukes a US ally first? No, Russia's the one starting that war if they do that. Yes, the US would retaliate.
Yes they will. Don't have a single doubt about that. If they don't then their treaties aren't worth more than toilet paper for Putin to use. Make no mistake, NATO will protect its member countries.
What makes you so confident? Treaties have been broken for lesser reasons throughout history. It seems unlikely a country would be willing to enter a nuclear conflict for an ally with a GDP 500 times smaller.
it does matter, that's why it's so hard to get in. One step across a NATO border and the Russians will have started WW3. Don't have any doubt about that.
I think Russia could even get away with "peace keeping" a "Russian separatist group" in a Nato country like Latvia.
Which is what makes this war so strange. Russia could've easily stolen Donbas - and NO ONE in the world would've cared. They could've taken away one state at a time, and NO ONE would have cared. There was no reason to rush.
But if Russia nuked a NATO population center, or even just invaded to this degree a NATO country - that's MAD.
But, what this war has exposed is how bad the russian army is trained, and how not so great their equipment is. While a prolonged war would be hard for any country, they struggled from the get go.
I hope this doesn't embolden the US and Europe to be more aggressive. I really hope that cooler heads eventually prevail.
WRT to the really really far fetched ( I hope ), that Russia would launch any nuclear strike. The missile defense systems that NATO and the US have were built exactly to counteract Russian missiles in a situation like this. This will even accelerate the development of hypersonic interceptors ( afaik, already in final stages) .
It would mean total annihilation of russia, as their in flight missies would be intercepted, and it would guarantee a total attack by the us. ( we as a nation tend to over react... and not go tit for tat ).
I hope this never happens. The reason why countries need leadership changes often. And why stable leaders are needed everywhere :-/
If nobody launches a nuclear retaliation, then Russia knows it can nuke with impunity. What are the rules they are playing with? Literally just hope they don't invade or nuke London first.
Well, they probably can’t nuke Western Europe with impunity.
But it’s not clear what NATO membership’s really worth for Eastern Europe. I’m from EE and I don’t understand why the US or the UK would risk their countries or even WE getting nuked for EE.
I have the feeling that EE was accepted into NATO just to piss off the Russians and put some space between them and WE. Just like with Ukraine before it went sideways.
Because we know that we aren't far behind if such a madman is allowed to exist. It's better to go out with a boom than let a dictator win. --Love, an american
I don't think that's the plan. Also, no one is going to use tactical nukes against a city. The last thing Putin wants is to look like a mere terrorist. (And no, the Russian forces aren't using terrorist tactics in Ukraine.) So, the first one will probably be used against a military installation (a weapons depot, a radar station, a war ship, etc.), most likely in Poland.
>At that point you'd have to ask yourselves: who would risk nuclear escalation to retaliate for Latvia or Estonia? not the US.
That is the point behind asking for US soldiers to be permanently based. They are a sign of commitment. An "engagement ring" if you will. Without the US soldiers there it becomes much easier to ignore an attack.
> who would risk nuclear escalation to retaliate for Latvia or Estonia?
That's the very point of the existence of NATO. If NATO doesn't retaliate, it could as well not exist. Fortunately the Western reaction to Putin's invasion helped to unite NATO and everybody knows that if we give in, there is no reason why Putin should stop at any defined point.
"Who would risk nuclear escalation as millions of people are wiped off the face of the Earth?" - I think if this question is being asked, it's only a matter of times before nukes fly beyond these select boarding countries as escalation would almost certainly continue. Putin is already declaring the sanctions as an act of war while NATO/EU countries begin to rearm.
"who would risk nuclear escalation to retaliate for Latvia or Estonia? not the US."
If a President as unpredictable as Trump happens to be in office, I wouldn't be so sure.
That's not to mention the drastically increased risk of accidents once even a one-sided nuclear war has begun.
Think of how close the world came to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.[1] Once nukes start flying the risk grows much higher, even if there are still (presumably rational, cautious, and non-hawkish) adults in control.
> One could argue a crazy irrational leader is a better defense against the start of conflict than a rational leader
One could argue anything, but I don't think there is a good argument for that position. In fact, I think it's painfully obvious that such a leader makes it less likely that efforts at avoiding conflict will be successful.
I would be shocked (and likely dead shortly after) if NATO launched all out nuclear retaliation for the sake of the baltic states. It's a very convenient threat until you're faced with the reality of pushing the button.
i don't believe it would go from zero to nuclear instantly. However, the thought is in a NATO vs Russia fight either side will resort to nuclear weapons before surrender. The thinking is it would be hard to stop a fight from escalating to an eventual nuclear war.
They're all in the EU, so it would invoke the EU defense pact as well. As we can see right now, our stuff seems to be decent enough to scrap those ancient soviet rust buckets.
Also don't forget that France has the Nuclear Reset Button available. I count on them to convince the Russians not to deploy nukes.
We need an EU army nevertheless. And to deploy this army we'll need some proper governing entity for the EU.
This is a large scale ground operation with errornous objectives at the beginning. With a fortified city you probably don't have many ways except to shell your way in. I doubt the other major powers can fare better.
They can’t even keep their supply lines moving on open highway. It’s pathetic. They have units that are totally of course and on their own.
Not saying they can’t improve but their best case is starting to look like a many years struggle where they bankrupt their country and lose hundreds of thousands of people and end up worse than when this started.
From what I see on Liveuamap they are proceeding steadily. Ukrainians for sure might hit them here and there but that's not going to stop them. The Russians do not really have the man power to support a full scale war so that was what I said in the post that their initial objectives are errornous. They underestimated the resources needed.
Despite claims from the US military industrial complex looking for more money, China, NK, and Iran can not do much outside their own borders. Russia is doing a poor job and it is much stronger than the other 3. Only the US maintains the ability to invade countries around the world. UK would be #2.
The UK (and France) were pretty lame in the Libya war, if I'm not mistaken they had to resort to getting help from the Americans when it came to re-fueling their planes mid-air. I'm too lazy to search for links for that, to be honest.
Also seem to remember some scandal with some RAF pilots getting very shitty food at an airbase in Cyprus during the Iraq (or Afghan?) war. That one is more fuzzy for me, though, and maybe it's not even that important, as in shitty food in the military might be a fact of life.
Later edit: I did search for that Cyprus thing, turns out it was more recent, from 2014, since the West was bombing ISIS [1]:
> Raids against Islamic State are being conducted from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus "with broken jets and tired and fed-up people", BBC Newsnight has been told.
and
> In a letter, a serviceman said the base was being neglected, morale was poor and ground crews had taken to eating humanitarian rations meant for Iraqis.
Having to take food from "humanitarian rations meant for Iraqis." doesn't sound ideal to me.
China is interested in weak Russia so that they can take its territory. They only support Russian aggression against Ukraine to benefit from the Russian isolation economically, wound Russian army, economy, and slowly digest it. Even when Soviet Union existed, they were on bad terms with Chinese Communist Party. Even Chinese hate Russian nazis.
Edit: Out of ~90 something joint non-binding agreements between China and Russia, only 4 were actually acted upon by Chinese government.
Digestion of the economy already started, among other things Russia has joined Union Pay, Chinese payment processor.
Based on the Russian military tactics that were employed during the first couple days of the war. You don't run and gun into a country where you're expecting much resistance. There's also the logistical self-owns by the Russians where, by many accounts, they only had enough gas and food for at most a week but it's been reported only 3 days worth.
I saw it on a major German site, and you can find many links pointing to it. Just the first link from Google (I searched for "Russia prepared (and accidentally published) a press release"):
Incidentally, the contents of that press release is what really shocked me much more than the invasion itself. It showed their twisted state of mind and that it wasn't about Ukraine, that they see themselves in some righteous crusade against the evil West. EDIT: The link I found is not the original, but others have posted other links. What I saw was a link from Der Spiegel (www.spiegel.de) when this was fresh news and it was just an absurd statement all around. The Twitter link that was posted shows it best.
That article was when it all changed for me. It showed to me that this was not the end from Putin's PoV, but just the beginning of some kind of holy struggle. That article really brought it home to me that we needed to up our defense spending ASAP. Because the Russian leadership had gone insane. Some goals in Ukraine I could have logically understood as Russian interest - but the whole "we against the West" thing was just madness.
I mean, the West was pretty happy financing and equipping Russia and China, helping both to modernize for decades. The West also kept pretty quiet any time Russia did some "special operation". Even the invasion of Georgia did not have any great consequences and was soon forgotten. It appeared to me that the West was quite okay with Russia gaining back some power - to take care of issues like militant Islam in the region. I did not see any sign that a weak Russia was in the Western interest. If there were individuals with a different opinion, who cares, the West has a huge amount of different voices unlike the authoritarian centralized China and Russia. If one looked at what happened it was a huge empowering of both China and Russia by the West, not a weakening. George W. Bush even recommended Ukraine to not go independent (Kiev Chicken speech), the USSR falling apart was all the USSR itself. Did the West like having to scramble to ensure the safety of nuclear tech in the years of Russian chaos? Surely not!
How can China and Russia possibly claim/think that the West is out to suppress them? Modernization in both countries would have been impossible or taken a century without all the very active help from the West. So seeing yourself in some victim role is just ridiculous.
I have some connections to Russia, having visited quite a few times and even done a Russian(!) language course (to fresh up, I already spoke a bit) in Odessa for a few months. I also know people who have businesses in Russia and help foreign businesses to invest there. So I saw and see first hand a bit of the great help Russia got in all areas of business and tech.
How anyone (Russian leadership) can ignore all of that and think themselves into a corner where they think they have to take military action to thwart the evil West? It's just so stupid! Which means there is little chance for diplomacy - the whole thing was not created by reason, so it's hard to use reason to get out of it.
That's because you only see part of the picture, because you're a Westerner.
You don't see how, under the guise of "anti-corruption fight", most of the local businessmen (part of them also politicians) would get sent to jail and their businesses acquired on the cheap. That would be ok, of course, if the place of said corrupt local businessmen would be taken by other, non-corrupt, local businessmen, i.e. non-corrupt Russians taking the businesses of corrupt Russians and making them better.
Unfortunately that's not what happens, the place of those corrupt businessmen is taken by Western companies and multi-nationals that are not corrupt on paper because they do not posses personhood (at least not when it comes to doing bad stuff), but which are even more evil because bigger (look at Nestle, headquartered on the shores of the idyllic Lake Leman, no-one is bombing that place any time soon).
Now, you could say: "better have evil Western corporations take the place of corrupt Russian businessmen in Russia!" but the reality is that not everyone thinks like that and that's what this ideological conflict is mostly about.
What does that have to do with the West? That is a Russian problem! Since when do Western governments govern Russia? At no point were laws in Russia made and enforced by anyone but the Russian government. And I did not know the oligarchs were Westerners? Yes there was a lot of stealing and shady practices. Which is how you got the oligarchs. Which are Russian.
Thank you for making it clear, exactly what I wrote. Absurdity!
> fighting against the Westernisation of Ukraine
What business is it of Russia to dictate what other countries do? Insanity!
In your first comment you spoke about Russia, now that I responded you moved on to Ukraine and it makes no sense either.
Last time I checked, when I was in Ukraine, they want to be westernized.
We can go back to your previous comment, if Russia does not want it, you can do whatever within your borders. Nobody complained, as I mentioned, the West let Russia do whatever with little to no repercussions. Russia is not a victim, it is an aggressor, without any logical reason.
> Last time I checked, when I was in Ukraine, they want to be westernized.
Doesn't matter what they want it the guy with bigger weapons close to them has different opinions, that's how international relations work, that's how wars start, that's why we're in here. It's nothing "irrational" about it, as in we've been doing this for millennia.
On a more general point, I can see your point, you're most probably an idealist [1], I for myself I'm a realist, I personally think that realism is closer to how things actually work when it comes to international relations.
Thank you for coming clear about Russian aggression Which is why we need to up our defense spending, as I said. In your last comment you drop all pretenses. "We can do whatever we want, no arguments necessary".
I'm not sure what you are proud of though, you forced many neutrals or even friends - like me - into an antagonistic position.
> On a more general point, I can see your point, you're most probably an idealist [1], I for myself I'm a realist, I personally think that realism is closer to how things actually work when it comes to international relations.
You start with an attempt of arguments, laudable, but when you find they are easily defeated you jump to in the context meaningless generalities that don't even fit the previous comments in any way.
.
However, your comments do show one thing. There is little room for optimism that sanity and arguments are going to win anything here. I heard even on a German city's market square a German woman selling sausages argue about poor, poor Putin and how the West mistreated him so that he had no choice now but to fight back.
Or just read the comments under a LinkedIn post of former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is a friend of Putin. There were quite a few comments there urging Schröder to continue to support Putin, and a lot of insane stuff in support of Putin and against the West. No idea if it was from real Germans, but there is no reason to suspect "bots", there really are plenty of people supporting Putin.
> Dear Mr. Schröder, I think you being a close friend of Putin you understand that sometimes a man has got to do what a man got to do. I believe in putin and his insight on the security of Europe as a whole.
Etc etc... not all comments are like this, but many (many are in German) - not least of which are the comments by the Ex-Chancellor himself.
I’m Romanian myself, not Russian, sitting at the middle (ideologically and geographically) of all this madness. This being HN I was trying to “debug” the whole situation as an arm-chair geostrategist, and that entailed, imo, making sense of what drives one side of the conflict, the Russians.
As I said, I don’t think they’re irrational, very, very few international conflicts are irrational on the face of it, nobody goes to war because “they felt like it” or because it “was written in the stars”, that would be trully irrational. I do think though that part of the reason Russia started this war is because they want to fight a war against some aspects of Westernization. They most certainly like Western cars and Western-designed iPhones but it looks like they don’t like certain Western ideologies, like the type of democracy that the West now professes. Again, I don’t see anything irrational in all this.
The irrational part is mixing Puylo, who might be rationally against "the West" for he likes to rule and true democracy does not allow that, and everyone else, who actually needs working courts and laws, but are for the war based on the pretenses Puylo put out. Now those are highly irrational, and they are quite possibly the majority there.
But Russia went to war because Putin did it on a whim. Likely the last wish of a dying man. They could have gone along just fine without attacking Ukraine. It is a completely irrational move on their part.
Nice attempt at false equivocation and outright propaganda. We won't fall for it. If you like Russia so much, stay in Russia and don't attack countries that don't want to be under your control.
You can see my comments from further down to see that I’m not Russian and, as it happens, I don’t live in Russia. I do live though in country bordering Ukraine, I’ve just parked my car 5 minutes ago behind a car with an Ukraine plate (refugees, most probably), right at this moment me, my SO and a couple who are very close friends seriously discuss on WhatsApp what would be the best strategy in case of the worst (everyone bar me is for leaving the country, I still hope it won’t get to that), all this to remind you that we’re on HN, a programmers’ website, not a propaganda one, where we try to make sense of the world around us, no matter if it’s a nuclear power that neighbors you or nasty computer bugs that you dream about at night.
Plenty of that, what news sources do you respect enough for me to link to?
The “special military operation” isnt over and even Russia is attempting a limited ceasefire to help humanitarian efforts, for the third time, which means its not over due to Ukrainians resisting with some success
That was the general idea held by some people who were following the conflict online, I knew I was one of them, turns out I (and the people thinking like me) was/were wrong.
I first thought this would play out like Czechoslovakia 1968, with the Soviet/Warsaw Pact paratroopers taking one of the big airports close to the capital, part of the local Army turning sides and the regime collapsing. Under that scenario everything would effectively have been over in 3 days, give or take.
As further proof that that was the Russians' initial tactic is that they only started bombing civilian assets about 5 days in, when it had become clear to them that the initial plan had failed.
Their tactics. Unless their command is retarded which I don’t think they are. But their tactics imply a super fast surrender of Ukraine and the resignation/arrest/death of Ukrainian leadership.
The assertion that Russia expected Ukraine to fall in 1-3 days seems like propaganda. In order for Ukraine to stand a chance, it needs allies and reinforcement from the West.
No rational actor throws its weight behind an entity doomed to failure. So, we need a narrative that Ukraine is not doomed to failure despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The most optimistic thing we can say is that the people have fought valiantly and Russia did not sweep across the nation at historically unprecedented speed. By claiming that Putin's inner circle expected to win the war in 1-3 days, we can claim that Ukraine is actually winning. And if Ukraine is winning, then everybody who can sanction Russia in any way should do it right now to accelerate Ukraine's now inevitable victory.
In some sense, it is a necessary narrative. If Ukraine doesn't get global support it will fall. Recasting them as the inevitable victor, therefore can be seen as an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And it might work (hopefully!)
Society doesn't demand triple-confirmation proof to retell stories that comport with our ideology. This case has some weak concrete evidence in its favor, but that's not the _point_. This is an active war, which means that most of the public information coming from authoritative sources is closely managed to suit the authority's goals.
The supermajority of power in the West wants Putin's conquest to fail. So the narratives we hear will be angled in whatever way to maximize the possibility of that outcome.
It is absolutely propaganda. People forget it took the US 3 weeks just to take Baghdad. The idea that Russia thought it would take 3 days to take Kyiv is preposterous.
Baghdad had a warlord dictator for a leader, and a military that had been in a war with Iran and Kuwait. The Ukraine had a former comedian as a president; and their military had been unable to do anything about Russia's invasion of the Crimea. The scenario where a "shock and awe" invasion along 4 fronts causes the president to flee for his life as Russia waltzes into Kyiv largely unopposed to puts in a new government was certainly in the realm of possibilities.
Yet all evidence suggests Russia expected the Ukrainian army to surrender quickly. They even prepared a congratulatory release for 3 days after the invasion.
Well, it was very embarrassing to take a victory lap with the war getting bogged down, and revealed motivations for the war that contradicted Putin’s statements, and aligned with the “blitzkrieg” analysis of Russia’s early failures.
So, true, it’s not proof, but Occam’s Razor comes into play here.
The three day war idea is the only rational basis for the invasion:
1. Decapitate the government and military
2. Broadcast a message of surrender
3. Install a puppet government and occupation control of cities
That's the only way 200k soldiers can control a nation of 40 million who are united against invaders and united behind a democratically elected government.
Even if half of the first objective can be attained in a few weeks, it will not lead to the following necessary objectives being met. Putin has no viable plan.
Which, if you are making an analogy to Iraq, is somewhat similar: The US had no viable plan to stop patrols being ambushed using the same tactics on the same roads week after week.
> People forget it took the US 3 weeks just to take Baghdad.
The Russians were getting high on their own supply and believed their own propaganda that "brotherly" Ukrainians and the ethnic Russians would surrender immediately.
They didn't think they would win in a few days, they thought there would be nothing but token opposition.
No, it's because defense analysts widely expected Russia to use their capabilities much more effectively. In the leadup there were stories about things like training an effective insurgency, which is because a Russian campaign operated to a similar effectiveness of a US military (in hindsight, not accurate) would have absolutely destroyed Ukraine. Russia's logistics struggles and incompetent air force have discredited their conventional forces.
To name a few areas. Comms have been a disaster, with lots of coordination over unencrypted shortwave. Likely as a result, air support has been spotty, and EWar has been completely ignored. Air missions have been with small numbers of planes at low altitude to evade active air defense and drop dumb bombs, which means unexpected losses to stingers instead of higher-altitude flights outranging them. 2 weeks in and Ukraine C2 is largely intact, with even some operational air defense and possibly limited Tochka-U strikes. Ground logistics have been uncoordinated with heavy losses to unconventional attacks, done with unexpected effectiveness by Ukraine, and overall morale is far higher than anyone would have expected.
Obviously, information operations play a huge role. That also wasn't predetermined, in large part it's an upset by Ukraine. Who could have predicted that a Zoom call with Zelensky would convince Europe to cut Russia off from Swift when it was impossible to convincingly precommit to it?
There are also signs that Russia at least hoped to win within 1-3 days, like the day 1 VDV assault on Hostomel that ended up failing, and the domestic portrayal of a "special military operation" leaving the population unprepared for the sorts of casualties and bloody warfare that ended up happening.
They absolutely thought they could surround and take down the government in Kyiv right away, probably in less than a week and they are finding out otherwise.
NATO members don't have any obligation to defend or even really aid an attacked member. The article 5 is ridiculously vague. I think sacrificing the member state to avoid nuclear war is what would happen. It won't be any different than with Ukraine.
I never considered this before, but it looks like GP is right. The specific phrasing doesn't say "parties need to go to war when one is attacked". As a Romanian, it is kinda worrying that it's not straightforward.
Don't spread propaganda. If a Russian boot steps across a NATO member's border NATO will attack, there's not a single doubt, especially with what is going on in Ukraine because obviously Putin has lost his mind and is trying to recreate the USSR.
If that happened, Europe and NATO would retake and partition Kaliningrad. Russia cannot sustain that level of military force so close to the rest of the European powers.
> I think all 3 Baltic countries get wiped out overnight if Russia decides to press the issue.
When I first heard that Russia had launched an attack on Ukraine, I thought it would be over in a few days and that Russia would steamroll them completely.
But I couldn't have been more wrong, and if Russia attacks a NATO state I don't see how they can stand a chance.
The real question here is, how far are Russian soldiers willing to go to protect their pride? At what point do you wake up and realize that you're killing people for no reason other than to appease a tyrant?
"Yesterday the conscripts, who were forced to sign a contract or signed for them, were withdrawn from the war zone in #Ukraine. But from a company of a hundred men only four were left alive."
> 1. Nobody actually believes the numbers of Russians killed coming out of Kyiv, these are for morale purposes.
That was true at first but has increasingly been changing as NATO sources have been reporting numbers closer to the Ukranian reports. That's not saying it's 100% reliable but it suggests the numbers are closer to what Ukraine is reporting rather than what Russia is reporting.
> 2. Thousands of US soldiers were killed in the Iraqi invasion & occupation.
This is true, and it turned public opinion against both wars. Now consider what the impact is of having that happen in a week — if the U.S. figures are right, much less the Ukranian, they are rapidly closing on the _total_ number of casualties from their decade-long invasion of Afghanistan in just the current month and all signs point to a long, bitter occupation anywhere they do capture.
> 1. Nobody actually believes the numbers of Russians killed coming out of Kyiv, these are for morale purposes.
All the open source intel analysis I've seen suggests otherwise. Individual battle claims are greatly exaggerated but the overall casualty counts of ~10,000 seems accurate. Hospitals in crimean cities are reportedly overflowing with thousands of wounded soldiers. Vehicles and equipment losses are undeniably staggering. Aircraft losses seem to be confirmed as well, with multiple copters and planes being lost, per day. The convoy north of kyiv is almost certain to draw heavy losses without food, fuel, or shelter from the cold.
There is some difference between losing thousands of soldiers in ten years, and in ten days. Though admittedly life has always been cheap-ish in Russia so maybe that won’t matter.
During the invasion? No. During the occupation and was over several years. Russians have lost thousands in one WEEK. The shock value there is a lot higher.
The market for defense services over the past 70 years has consolidated similarly to what’s happened in other markets. If you look at defense spending in NATO member countries as a percentage of GDP it has steadily declined since WW2.
What’s basically happened is the US is now AWS, providing cloud defense services via NATO membership, and is paid back via purchases of military tech, favorable trade, and cemented US dollar and cultural dominance.
The US military’s economies of scale mean adding another country to the alliance is a trivial cost. When you already have enough nukes to cause human extinction, it’s not like you need to build more.
You can of course attempt to self-host your own military.
However, self-hosting is cost-prohibitive for a small country, so I would argue it actually makes sense for all parties to outsource to the US, and is a good deal for everyone involved.
While it’s cute that a tiny country might pretend to have a military, if you’re Latvia with less than 2 million people, you have to know there’s no amount of spending you could do that would protect against invasion from a 70X bigger country like Russia.
Even though the US often pays for much of it, you're effectively giving up a fair portion of your sovereignty. It makes your military forces somewhat subservient to the US.
So if the US wants you to do something maybe not in the best interest for your nation, you're still going to have a really difficult time saying no. And if you try to say no anyway, the US already has a solid base to help support an opposition.
Plus, as we've seen both in Ukraine and the Middle East, seeming to accept US support can make you a target for anti-US factions.
> you're effectively giving up a fair portion of your sovereignty.
Yup, for example the 2020 US - Poland agreement includes:
- (Art3.4) Access to any private and public land and facilities on request
- (Art9.1) Waves authority/right to need to countersign movement order under Article III, Paragraph 2(b) of NATO SOFA
- (Art13.1) Free movement within, and in and out of, Poland of any aircraft, vessels or vehicles. These can not be inspected without US consent when in Poland or entering/leaving Poland.
- (Art14.1) Poland waves it's criminal jurisdiction over U.S. forces in Poland.
Russia's official demands are similarly tame, mostly Ukrainian neutrality. In practice, neither Poland nor Ukraine could easily pick an anti US/Russian leader.
Russian ruling class is very oldschool and only considers USA equal enemy (though their performance in Ukraine shows any larger NATO army would destroy them alone). So the deterrence is probably better with specifically US troops.
The reason for this is that it makes it far more difficult for NATO to not carry out it's defensive obligations when you get invaded, and US forces are automatically involved in the fight.
US presence on the DMZ if why it would immediately be involved in a restarted Korean war, and the lack thereof is why it will think long and hard before getting involved in a China-Taiwan conflict.
What use is a mutual defense pact when only one of the parties is capable of defending themselves let alone anyone else? Americans are tired of fighting everyone else's wars. We don't even get respect for it, just comments about how we don't have socialized medicine and are backwards brutes. It's pointless.
I don't know that that's true. I'd argue that the level of military involvement is roughly proportional to the level of military investment; i.e. the US contributes most of the military power, and also instigates most of the military activity.
I would like to add here that Baltics (along with others) have served their fair share as a buffer against Russian expansion into west for good part of the 20th century by being occupied by Soviets and incorporated into USSR. Who knows how far to the west the Iron Curtain would divide Europe if not for these countries. And they paid with tens of thousands deported to prison camps [1] and decades long crippling of societies and economy under soviets.
So I think there is also a little bit of moral obligation of West (incl. US) to support them today.
I think the point is that anticipation of the US being committed to defend an invasion if there are troops there would deter an invasion in the first place.
Setting it up as permanent forces subsequent administrations to keep them there so that Russia isn't just waiting for a idiotic US leader to rotate them out.
Not even close. For me, America is a child of the enlightenment. Russia... is not.
For a throrough review of the intellectual influence that enlightenment thinkers had on America, check out C. Bradley Thompson's America's Revolutionary Mind.
This is a great question that id like to discover the truth of.
My guess is because Russia is not, and never has been a democratic country, and perhaps there are many nuanced conflicts regarding that difference that im not educated enough to understand or find.
First of all, this isn't a question about invasion. OP asked why Russia and US can't be allies, and the GP said one of the reasons is because Russia is not a democracy. US has shown time and time again that democracy only matters when it suits them. US is an ally of Saudi and a lot of monarchies in Middle East; Saudi, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait. US also overthrew a democratically elected govt. in Iran for a "friendlier" Shah. You also have Operation Candor.
So to sum it up, my point is, when it comes forming alliances, US is willing to overlook democracy. I don't know why you're bringing up invasion.
Also, as an aside, if a country is not democratic, that doesn't give US right to invade it and you don't get to justify it.
Your point is unclear. You named just a few non-democratic US allies. There are hundreds of countries on the planet and pretty much all democratic ones are US allies. So it is clear that being democratic is a strong major factor. And exceptions just show that there are other factors though seemingly less important, and that the democracy is not a 100% requirement.
> if a country is not democratic, that doesn't give US right to invade it and you don't get to justify it
You made up something here, that nobody disputes, attributed to an unnamed set of opponents, and denied it. This is messed up. You should not be doing that in a reasonable discussion.
That was literally my point. GP said one reason Russia and US might not be allies is because of democracy, when clearly that hasn't stopped US from being allies before.
copy pasting relevant snippet from my sibling comment:
>US has shown time and time again that democracy only matters when it suits them. US is an ally of Saudi and a lot of monarchies in Middle East; Saudi, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait. US also overthrew a democratically elected govt. in Iran for a "friendlier" Shah. You also have Operation Candor.
> I wish someone could tell me why Russia and the U.S. are not allies. Like, don't they largely share a similar cultural and religious heritage?
No, they do not. Culturally Russia has always ping ponged back and forth between seeing itself as European and not European. Currently Russia is on the "we're distinct from Europe and have our own unique and proud history" side of that equation. If you want more on this (extremely complicated) subject, read into the various Tsars that attempted to "modernize" and Europeanize Russia, such as Peter the Great. The backlash after his death towards his European preferences says a lot.
Religiously Russia is an Orthodox country, and it split off from Europe's Catholicism nearly a 1000 years ago. This split was both religious and political, aligning roughly (very roughly) with the divisions of the Roman empire into East and West. The Eastern (Orthodox) branch was originally centered in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), which even today we'd identify as a distinctly Eastern city. That alone should tell you why Russia sees itself as distinct from the rest of Europe.
Meanwhile the rest of Europe is either Catholic or Protestant, which itself split off from Catholicism half a millennium after Orthodoxy did. They're just not that close religiously.
> Seems like Russia and all countries that share similar cultures would be allies against China, with her 1.5 billion people . . . ???
Because international diplomacy and conflict isn't really as simple as pointing at borders and population counts. Yes, there has been some conflict between Russia and China, but by and large their population centers are a long, long way away from each other. There's a reason why Russia has fought basically three wars with China and dozens with Sweden alone; geography.
Meanwhile there are historical and personal reasons for Russia to turn West and specifically to Ukraine. Russia has a very, very long history in attempting to seize and hold Ukraine, as it's alternated back and forth between being a Russian owned territory and not. Take a look at the Kievan Rus, the ancestor state to both Russia and Ukraine, and coincidentally where Russia converted to Orthodox Christianity.
from a religious point of view, are you suggesting that Eastern Orthodox Christianity is similar to the hodgepodge of various Christian sects in the States?
There has been a concerted campaign by the American right over the past number of years to portray Russia as a conservative utopia Christian ethnostate, where they worship God, guns, and country, and being gay is illegal. This view has lead some in my family to proclaim they'd rather be Russian than a Democrat, because they feel they have more in common with foreigners living across the world under a dictatorship in another country than their own family in a different political party.
Doesn't the US have a large population of Roman and Eastern Catholics?
Catholic and Orthodox are two sides of the same coin, this is why I bring it up. I'm also aware that the US has a lot of various Orthodox sects as well, including Russian.
> Doesn't the US have a large population of Roman and Eastern Catholics?
Eastern Catholics are Roman (but not Latin-Rite) Catholics. And, yes, the US has a lot of Catholics.
> Catholic and Orthodox are two sides of the same coin
From the perspective of some Protestants, maybe, though from the Orthodox perspective one might see the two sides of the Catholic/Protestant schism as much closer than the Catholic side of that schism is to the Orthodox side of the East/West schism.
Russians, I have gotten along well with. However, the Russian elites see themselves as different and above their European cohorts (and Americans by extension). They have a long history of subjugating their people whether it was oligarchs, communists, or aristocrats. I don't think liberal democratic ideas spread there like they did in the rest of the West and never became sewn in with the national identity. It seems like the Russians have a sort of nihilism about all of it, at least the ones I've spoken with on such things over a beer or 6. I mean look at the USA, a country founded on democratic principals and there was still a strong minority (30%?) rooting for Trump to steal the election and possibly set up a one party system for republicans and white supremacists.
As an American, you should be against this. We've already got a perfectly good defensive treaty with them that would compel us to act. Tripwire troops are only necessary if you don't believe the other party would honor the treaty, which is a perfectly reasonable stance for Latvia to have but I'd hope my fellow Americans wouldn't be so grim about that.
Permanently stationing troops there is only a cost burden to the American tax payer. It does advance American imperialism to have Latvia surrender some of their sovereignty to us, but that isn't exactly a noble goal. And certainly it doesn't materially improve the lives of the average American citizen.
> Americans are suddenly much more popular in Europe again
If you're concerned about hearts and minds, more bases is certainly not a good thing. American military personnel tend to be wildly unpopular in the surrounding areas, actively building resentment.
1. Europe will rely on Russian natgas for quite sometime. We can't force Poutine to withdraw for this very reason as long as China continue to support Russia. And China stated this morning that they intend to do so, and accuse the West to be responsible for this war: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-gl...
2. The biggest countries of Europe will realize that the most eastern countries can't decide how the EU defend itself (and without a consistent EU policy, there can't be stability). At some point, France, Germany and others will weight in and possibly negotiate with Russian to ensure that no more armed conflict arise (we may have deny Ukraine's membership to EU and NATO, if necessary). The US and the EU interests aren't aligned, as the US continues to work against multipolarity in the international balance of power.
3. The only entity that is gaining now is China, and the worst outcome of this conflict is Russia to become a close ally to China. Everybody would loses. Note that in January, China entered a 25-year parnership with Iran to provide them with weapons in exchange for oil & gas and China is forcing the West to remove sanctions on Iran and China in exchange for a nuclear deal https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20220119-china-plays.... Why wouldn't they do the same with Russia? Also, China is using the Ukraine war to remind everyone that Taiwan is theirs and that they expect to control the South China Sea. The EU also say that only China can be a mediator in this conflict https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3169407/ru.... That's worrisome.
4. Western countries are slowly realizing that we should have considered Russian concerns about its security more seriously (even if they are exaggerated and exploited). Note that 68% of French people surveys believe NATO is partly responsible for the war in Ukraine (slide 9: https://harris-interactive.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/202...).
Latvia is already part of NATO, so this is not surprising nor changes anything. It is more probable that Latvia is voicing what other NATO countries already decided.
How Russia will spin it: yet another example of US imperialism where they force another country to accept their troops so that NATO can get closer to our borders and threaten us.
Just as the US was feeling threatened in the 60s with the Soviets trying to put missiles on their doorstep in Cuba, Russia also feels threatened by NATO and the EU alliances inching closer towards their country. Just because many people choose not to listen, doesn't mean that Russia hasn't been talking about this exact kind of thing for the last 20 years or so.
US has never moved nuclear missiles closer to Russia in Europe after the end of the cold war. Unlike Russia who is today talking about putting nuclear weapons in Belarus.
You got this exactly backwards. Countries don't move, but NATO membership does. NATO has been expanding eastwards and Russia has been consistently & explicitly clear that is unacceptable.
It's impressive how much of an utter disaster this has been for Russia.
In the space of a week and a half Putin has enlarged and strengthened NATO, persuaded a number of minimally militarised formerly neutral countries that they need to protect themselves from him, expanded the EU, massively enhanced the reputation of Ukraine, done huge damage to his own economy, and destroyed the reputation of Russia's armed forces.
His next performance review is going to be interesting.
Well, his next performance review will be self made and fortified by yes men approval. In that universe he has weakened NATO, weakened the dollar, improved the Russian economy and bravely won the war against Nazis even in a limbo or a withdrawal of troops situation.
Russian support hasn't changed much, the ones who detested him detest him more but the army of zombies he has built with the propaganda playbook is hard to sway. They'll turn in their own or even themselves if they start having doubts about Putin.
I could see Russians becoming extremely upset with themselves for having doubts in Putin and yet continue fully support their leader.
There's a concept that I don't quite remember the name of, but basically, if some American troops are stationed somewhere permanently, that means that if you invade that place, you are attacking America. The troops have some value outside this, but they are also a sacrifice to induce a response.
Do you mean tripwire force?
The idea behind them, using your example, is that when the invasion happens, it will kill a number of American troops, whose death will act as a tripwire to triggering full size war.
Its one of the methods for deterring invasions.
Some background: Latvia has a large Russian ethnic population (~30%), and is fiercely patriotic (quite similar to Ukraine). So a 'Ukrainian' scenario could well take place in Latvia given some false flag operations.
Will Latvia pay for it? It’s a cost to US taxpayers to put and maintain soldiers, bases, equipment on foreign soil. If countries would put 2% of their GDP into NATO or some other military defense fund, then that might be fairer than US taxpayers shouldering the costs.
The deciding factor should be, is it in the US interest to become more deeply entangled in European affairs when we can barely manage where we are right now?
The Russian army might be able to overrun Latvia relatively easily, except perhaps for urban warfare around Rīga, but what then?
The tricky part, like in Ukraine, would be holding the conquered territory.
Anything west of Rīga, expect _very_ stubborn resistance. Expect pensioners to try and block the Russian military with their walkers if they'd think it would help. Expect little girls sent out to poison soldiers. Expect suicide bombers.
Don't forget it took until 1956(!) for active resistance to the USSR occupation of Latvia to cease. That was back then, suppressed by all the might of a world power headed by a top three war criminal of all times, mostly unaided by any outside parties. Some people stayed hidden in the woods until the fall of the USSR.
For a war of conquest against Latvia, either Putin orders mass deportations to Siberia again or genocide, or he better forget about it. The alternative of course bombing the country to pieces without conquest.
Putin has unequivocally shown that conventional diplomacy and Western institutions and values are a force for good overall. They provided the right response at the right time to a war of naked aggression.
It will be interesting to see how the Rogan and timcast crowd reacts, and how many remain stranded on the wrong side of history.
> It will be interesting to see how the Rogan and timcast crowd reacts
I don't know about them, but as a right winger, I've been extremely disappointed by the right recently. I used to think that the right's collusion with Russia was mostly a smear, but since the invasion many have shown to be truly pro-Russia.
looking a the current suffering of Ukraine and considering my mental not so good state:
I'm just flabbergasted that so many people simply don't care about wellbeing of other humans. I don't know how anyone can enjoy things while people are suffering few hundreds km away.
And yes I also think this way about iraq, yemen, syria and numerous african countries
A bit OT but Boris Johnson said : "We have to consider how we can all move away as fast as possible from dependence, reliance, on Russian hydrocarbons, Russian oil and gas. "
Which I understand as : governments don't know what to do to get cheap oil from any producer (us, opec) so they'll remove a bit of the imports from Russia and explain to us that if the price of fuel is higher, it's all because they have to leave Putin.
(in other words, they're going to screw us big time)
Governments do know what they needed to do: mostly, they needed the EU to have begun reducing its dependence on Russian natural gas years ago, whilst instead they increased it. (The UK isn't particularly dependendent on fossil fuels from Russia directly but buys from the same global markets as the countries which are.) This is not particularly popular to talk about, especially given who was pushing for them to do that at the time and what the European reaction was...
Yep ... us "Muricans" generally spend more than we earn and are not very good at choosing what exactly we spend all that money on. To be a bit more serious, we've made a lot of promises to other countries that, unless we cancel treaties, we should stand by (I actually believe in keeping your word). On the other side of that coin, just because you've got to have a huge military doesn't mean you're allowed to invade arbitrary countries (Iraq, Afghanistan). It's theoretically possible to be a super-power without being imperial but think about the type of people that enter politics.
Because there's very few "NATO troops", most of the time NATO serves as unified command and coordination structure, but there are very few "NATO" troops - just missions sent by different countries.
This would be an agreement between Latvia and USA that might at most use NATO structures to organize.
An example of those very few would be NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force, main base located in Geilenkirchen, which is permanent organisation with multinational personnel operating IIRC ~13 Boeing E-3A sentry aircraft.
Most other cases involve complete national units that are on permanent or temporary basis assigned abroad to another base, and some of them are also put under aegis of NATO operation, for example "Baltic Air Policing" mission - but this example involves a squadron from a NATO member's air force being rotationally assigned to bases in Baltics in order to provide Air Defense.
