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[US Foreign Policy] Talk about the Foreign Policy of the United States

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Posts

  • XaquinXaquin Right behind you!Registered User regular
    Krieghund wrote: »
    PLA wrote: »
    Donald says that Europe increasing its military spending is "very insulting", and that Europe should instead pay for its share of NATO.

    ...What?

    He still doesn't know what NATO is

  • VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    PLA wrote: »
    Donald says that Europe increasing its military spending is "very insulting", and that Europe should instead pay for its share of NATO.

    Is this real? Did he really say this?

    Oh god, he did https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/09/politics/emmanuel-macron-donald-trump-military-nato/index.html
    "President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly," Trump tweeted minutes after landing in France.

    It's always great to get 100% undeniable confirmation that the President doesn't understand a fucking thing he's talking about.

    Wait, no, not great. Terrifying. Terrifying is the word I'm looking for.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Krieghund wrote: »
    PLA wrote: »
    Donald says that Europe increasing its military spending is "very insulting", and that Europe should instead pay for its share of NATO.

    ...What?

    He didn't quite say that. Rather:


    It's the usual. He literally does not understand how NATO works and what the % of GDP payments are and thinks it's a protection racket where european countries pay the US.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Marcon said the EU needs its own military to rely upon since Trump is backing out of missile treaties that were designed to protect Europe.
    Trump says this is Marcon saying the EU wants to build its own military against the US, which is rude. Then does his usual NATO misunderstanding garbage.

    Its all dumb.

    Enc on
  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Yeah he has had this explained over and over again but it too stupid to realise how NATO works. Literally, he is too stupid.

  • NyysjanNyysjan FinlandRegistered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    Marcon said the EU needs its own military to rely upon since Trump is backing out of missile treaties that were designed to protect Europe.
    Trump says this is Marcon saying the EU wants to build its own military against the US, which is rude. Then does his usual NATO misunderstanding garbage.

    Its all dumb.
    And the sad thing is, he is right.
    Nato is, if not dead, atleast severely wounded, so as much as i dislike the idea, some form of defensive EU organisation may be in order.

  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Somehow once again the actual story is even stupider then the paraphrasing I heard.

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    Dongs Galore on
  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    Like, what Macron actually said was
    "We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,"


    which, y'know, it's a fair cop, maybe they do, but Trump isn't just getting pissy that he wanted to increase European defense spending, he's getting pissy because Macron said he wants to increase European defense spending against us

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Krieghund wrote: »
    PLA wrote: »
    Donald says that Europe increasing its military spending is "very insulting", and that Europe should instead pay for its share of NATO.

    ...What?

    HE WANTS MONEY

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Like, what Macron actually said was
    "We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,"


    which, y'know, it's a fair cop, maybe they do, but Trump isn't just getting pissy that he wanted to increase European defense spending, he's getting pissy because Macron said he wants to increase European defense spending against us

    What an incredibly unexpected result that no one could have predicted ever

  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    Like, what Macron actually said was
    "We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,"


    which, y'know, it's a fair cop, maybe they do, but Trump isn't just getting pissy that he wanted to increase European defense spending, he's getting pissy because Macron said he wants to increase European defense spending against us

    Which is a sentiment that didn't even exist 2 years ago. It's a real head scratcher. If only there were some sort of Treaty to ally ourselves with other Nations in the North Atlantic to prevent this kind of antagonism.

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    e: also Macron did name the United States as one of the powers the European Army should protect against, which, yeah, we could plausibly take that as an insult, albeit not one you respond to over twitter

    The thing is, it's really not in the US's interests for the EU to form it's own unified military since it removes one of the most important resources the US has had to offer for decades: security. And Like I said a year ago, there really is nothing stopping the EU from building a venerable modern military that can readily ensure the safety of it's membership without having to be too expensive if they aren't especially concerned with intercontinental force projection.

  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    Gaddez wrote: »
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    e: also Macron did name the United States as one of the powers the European Army should protect against, which, yeah, we could plausibly take that as an insult, albeit not one you respond to over twitter

    The thing is, it's really not in the US's interests for the EU to form it's own unified military since it removes one of the most important resources the US has had to offer for decades: security. And Like I said a year ago, there really is nothing stopping the EU from building a venerable modern military that can readily ensure the safety of it's membership without having to be too expensive if they aren't especially concerned with intercontinental force projection.

    I mean, the UK was. But after March...

  • NyysjanNyysjan FinlandRegistered User regular
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    e: also Macron did name the United States as one of the powers the European Army should protect against, which, yeah, we could plausibly take that as an insult, albeit not one you respond to over twitter

    Or you could take that as a realistic fact that in a world where NATO no longer holds, US is not necessarily the ally of EU, and is as much a potential enemy as Russia and/or China (probably even more so than China).

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Nyysjan wrote: »
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    e: also Macron did name the United States as one of the powers the European Army should protect against, which, yeah, we could plausibly take that as an insult, albeit not one you respond to over twitter

    Or you could take that as a realistic fact that in a world where NATO no longer holds, US is not necessarily the ally of EU, and is as much a potential enemy as Russia and/or China (probably even more so than China).

    Like I said, it's a fair cop, but it's also totally false to just characterize it as
    PLA wrote: »
    Donald says that Europe increasing its military spending is "very insulting"
    Because that's not what Trump said was insulting. At all.

    e:or this:
    Enc wrote: »
    Trump says this is Marcon saying the EU wants to build its own military against the US, which is rude.
    because that literally is what Macron said

    Dongs Galore on
  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    I still think Trump is confusing NATO commitments with UN dues.

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    Gaddez wrote: »
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    e: also Macron did name the United States as one of the powers the European Army should protect against, which, yeah, we could plausibly take that as an insult, albeit not one you respond to over twitter

    The thing is, it's really not in the US's interests for the EU to form it's own unified military since it removes one of the most important resources the US has had to offer for decades: security. And Like I said a year ago, there really is nothing stopping the EU from building a venerable modern military that can readily ensure the safety of it's membership without having to be too expensive if they aren't especially concerned with intercontinental force projection.

    Well, a unified EU military would be a huge undertaking with a lot of interoperability issues to resolve, and membership in this unified command would be an even bigger commitment than NATO. The NATO collective defense obligation can be ignored by its members if they so choose, for example, if Portugal decides they don't want to send their boys to die for Latvia, they can just choose to break the alliance and stay home. If the Portuguese military has been reduced to the 1st Portuguese Division of the Iberian Corps of the European Defense Force, then they don't really have that option.

  • NyysjanNyysjan FinlandRegistered User regular
    Gaddez wrote: »
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    e: also Macron did name the United States as one of the powers the European Army should protect against, which, yeah, we could plausibly take that as an insult, albeit not one you respond to over twitter

    The thing is, it's really not in the US's interests for the EU to form it's own unified military since it removes one of the most important resources the US has had to offer for decades: security. And Like I said a year ago, there really is nothing stopping the EU from building a venerable modern military that can readily ensure the safety of it's membership without having to be too expensive if they aren't especially concerned with intercontinental force projection.

    Well, a unified EU military would be a huge undertaking with a lot of interoperability issues to resolve, and membership in this unified command would be an even bigger commitment than NATO. The NATO collective defense obligation can be ignored by its members if they so choose, for example, if Portugal decides they don't want to send their boys to die for Latvia, they can just choose to break the alliance and stay home. If the Portuguese military has been reduced to the 1st Portuguese Division of the Iberian Corps of the European Defense Force, then they don't really have that option.
    Biggest contributors would already be NATO compliant, so working from that framework should not be too huge an issue.
    And i doubt any EU defense force would simply surrender the command of the nations army to the EU, your argument boils down to "if we do the worst possible thing, it will be bad".

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Nyysjan wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    e: also Macron did name the United States as one of the powers the European Army should protect against, which, yeah, we could plausibly take that as an insult, albeit not one you respond to over twitter

    The thing is, it's really not in the US's interests for the EU to form it's own unified military since it removes one of the most important resources the US has had to offer for decades: security. And Like I said a year ago, there really is nothing stopping the EU from building a venerable modern military that can readily ensure the safety of it's membership without having to be too expensive if they aren't especially concerned with intercontinental force projection.

    Well, a unified EU military would be a huge undertaking with a lot of interoperability issues to resolve, and membership in this unified command would be an even bigger commitment than NATO. The NATO collective defense obligation can be ignored by its members if they so choose, for example, if Portugal decides they don't want to send their boys to die for Latvia, they can just choose to break the alliance and stay home. If the Portuguese military has been reduced to the 1st Portuguese Division of the Iberian Corps of the European Defense Force, then they don't really have that option.
    Biggest contributors would already be NATO compliant, so working from that framework should not be too huge an issue.
    And i doubt any EU defense force would simply surrender the command of the nations army to the EU, your argument boils down to "if we do the worst possible thing, it will be bad".

    If they're just going to adapt the NATO framework onto a Europe-only force, they're not really improving on NATO in any meaningful way. They'll still struggle with the free-rider problems and commitment issues NATO has. Also, they're ditching the UK, Norway and Canada (leaving aside the US), which is leaving out some major assets.

    e: I'm wasn't saying that a unified command was bad, I'm saying this is something they would struggle to overcome in order to get everyone to buy into such a command. In answer to the assertion that there really is nothing stopping them from doing so. A fully unified EU command would be the best possible thing in terms of having an effective European force.

    Dongs Galore on
  • Al_watAl_wat Registered User regular
    Honestly there is NO POSSIBLE scenario where Trump praises NATO. Its a "globalist" bogeyman for him to talk shit about. Actual real world events don't matter. Increased spending from NATO members doesn't matter.

    All that matters to Trump is "NATO BAD!!!!"

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    Al_wat wrote: »
    Honestly there is NO POSSIBLE scenario where Trump praises NATO. Its a "globalist" bogeyman for him to talk shit about. Actual real world events don't matter. Increased spending from NATO members doesn't matter.

    All that matters to Trump is "NATO BAD!!!!"
    unless he's actually talking to NATO members face to face...
    https://qz.com/1326657/nato-summit-donald-trumps-defense-spending-threats-turn-to-praise/

  • NyysjanNyysjan FinlandRegistered User regular
    Nyysjan wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    It probably is more in our interest that European collective defense and unified commands be primarily organized through NATO, for example, Multinational Corps Northeast/Southeast and the Rapid Reaction Corps, rather than through a European Union organization...

    e: also Macron did name the United States as one of the powers the European Army should protect against, which, yeah, we could plausibly take that as an insult, albeit not one you respond to over twitter

    The thing is, it's really not in the US's interests for the EU to form it's own unified military since it removes one of the most important resources the US has had to offer for decades: security. And Like I said a year ago, there really is nothing stopping the EU from building a venerable modern military that can readily ensure the safety of it's membership without having to be too expensive if they aren't especially concerned with intercontinental force projection.

    Well, a unified EU military would be a huge undertaking with a lot of interoperability issues to resolve, and membership in this unified command would be an even bigger commitment than NATO. The NATO collective defense obligation can be ignored by its members if they so choose, for example, if Portugal decides they don't want to send their boys to die for Latvia, they can just choose to break the alliance and stay home. If the Portuguese military has been reduced to the 1st Portuguese Division of the Iberian Corps of the European Defense Force, then they don't really have that option.
    Biggest contributors would already be NATO compliant, so working from that framework should not be too huge an issue.
    And i doubt any EU defense force would simply surrender the command of the nations army to the EU, your argument boils down to "if we do the worst possible thing, it will be bad".

    If they're just going to adapt the NATO framework onto a Europe-only force, they're not really improving on NATO in any meaningful way. They'll still struggle with the free-rider problems and commitment issues NATO has. Also, they're ditching the UK, Norway and Canada (leaving aside the US), which is leaving out some major assets.

    e: I'm wasn't saying that a unified command was bad, I'm saying this is something they would struggle to overcome in order to get everyone to buy into such a command. In answer to the assertion that there really is nothing stopping them from doing so. A fully unified EU command would be the best possible thing in terms of having an effective European force.
    Working from, not working under.
    Assumption here is that they take existing functional infrastructures, and build and improve on them.
    And the main problem with NATO at the moment is USA, so NATO with no USAbut most of EU is an improvement.
    Yes, fully unified command would be best (for given hazy values of "best"), and on that note, it might also be best to stop with this whole EU thing and go full blown European Empire, but neither is going to happen, and i don't think they should (i am for further integration of EU, i am not for abolishment of independent nations within EU).

  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    The idea of an EU unified army is nice and all, but the logistics, budget and political will needed to make it happen seem unrealistic, specially with guys like Orban and Salvini that will go against it. Speaking off, they openly ignore EU court rulings now, so how the EU is going to make them cooperate?

    So, "realistically", is the Germany/France army joining up and everybody else having to follow. Good luck with that.

    TryCatcher on
  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    There already is a Franco-German brigade under the Eurocorps, which is technically not subject to the authority of their parent nations but rather an EU official. France, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg contribute to the Eurocorps, and other nations previously has.

    It's not very large and has got a bit smaller over time. Was deployed in Afghanistan and elsewhere mind, and if all member nation troops earmarked for possible Eurocorps deployment were moved under its control it'd be much better, something like 50K troops?

    I don't think a European Army is really that possible currently, Europe is not really that unified, each country has its own military and such, language, equipment and training barriers... The smart thing to do would be to make the Eurocorps a HQ formation which is dedicated to making a joint deployment of EU militaries, supporting each other, more viable. Which is... exactly what it does now! So it's not like this is new stuff. Macron is not so popular and wants to make statements vs Trump because he sees a boost in popularity whenever he does so, is one thing, and furthermore any expansion of the Eurocorps will see an expansion of French influence. So it's mostly a bit of rhetoric, pushing French influence and trying to buoy up support at home, and honestly anything Trump says plays in response plays into Macron's hand.

    And anyway while NATO is definitely shaky right now, it might not be in the future, and indeed even if the US pulled out (doubtful) it'd still be worth having NATO for everyone else, because 1) the EU =/= non-US members of NATO, so an EU force would leave other nations left out for no point, and 2) NATO is already there, might as well adjust it and carry on rather than trying to pull together a new diplomatic arrangement.

    NATO is a big advantage for the US though, as it basically brings them huge security and influence benefits. I definitely think that many nations need to take their membership and commitment more seriously, even the UK (which meets the spending minimum and has a pretty effective military in many ways) really should be spending more to make its membership genuinely worthwhile. Part of the problem we're seeing now is that NATO provides so much security but is hugely reliant on the US and therefore is hugely vulnerable to US domestic politics. Much as it'd be nice to just ignore what Trump gets up to you really can't, because ultimate Trump is in control of a lot more of our security in non-US NATO nations than we would like.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Trump's tantrum is because he* didn't particularly want the NATO nations to re-arm as such, he just wanted them to give the US money and imperial deference.

    *I say "he", but Trump himself probably couldn't give less of a shit. I mean the Grimas whispering in his ear.

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Off the top of my ass, these are capabilities Europe would lose and have to reacquire if you take the US/UK/Canada/Norway out of the alliance:

    Long-range precision strike capability: the US and UK are the only operators of Tomahawk. The Anglo-French SCALP/Storm Shadow ALCM is much shorter ranged and cannot fill Tomahawk's entire mission set.
    Strategic bombers: Without Tomahawk, Europe's long-distance striking power is sharply curtailed because the US was the only partner with strategic bombers.
    Strategic Airlift: Besides the US, the only European powers with any significant airlift are France and the UK. France's airlift is barely adequate for its operations in Africa.
    Missile Defense: Unless they want to keep buying Patriot, they need to develop their own.
    5th-Generation Aircraft: Unless we keep selling the F-35 to Italy, they need to develop their own.
    Forward Presence forces: There are currently four NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroups in the Baltic states and Poland. Canada, the US, and the UK contribute three of them. Three-quarters of their forward-presence must therefore be replaced by other European forces.
    High-Readiness Forces: If a crisis occurred in the Baltics, European NATO could mobilize four brigades within the month. One of those four is British. Therefore at least one-quarter of their high-readiness force must be replaced by other European units.

    Now let's count how many of those capabilities Russia has:
    Long-range precision strike: Kalibr is an SLCM roughly equivalent to Tomahawk
    Strategic Bombers: the Tu-22 and Tu-160 aren't as good as ours, but they're better than Europe's fleet of nothing.
    Strategic Airflift: Heavily degraded since 1991, but they still have about 100 Il-76 and three dozen or so Antonovs, which is significantly better in terms of capacity than European Air Transport Command's fleet
    Missile Defense: S-400 may or may not be better at this than Patriot, but it does extend Russian A2/AD capability into Poland and the Baltic, which is a problem when Europe hasn't got many...
    5th-Generation Aircraft: Russia has none, so Italy at least puts Europe ahead here.
    Forward Presence/High Readiness Forces: By virtue of being physically proximate to the Baltics, the Russian Western Military District outnumbers NATO forward presence forces by about two-to-one. If we strip out the American and British Forward Presence brigades, the force ratio becomes three-to-one. The Russians can also deploy the Central and Southern districts to the Baltics faster than Germany and France can mobilize.

    tl;dr: Europe without the UK and US would not be capable of striking targets in Russia, nor of moving forces fast enough to stop Russia from reaching the Vistula. For Europe to independently develop these capabilities, it would need a decade+ of intensive military spending.*

    *this time/cost analysis brought to you by my ass

    Dongs Galore on
  • NyysjanNyysjan FinlandRegistered User regular
    European Army? Unlikely to a point of being almost impossible.
    European Defense treaty? Much more possible.

  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Trump *told* Europe to re-arm because they couldn't rely on the USA anymore. They took him at his word and now he's angry. I guess he was expecting them to act like the handwringing wusses that the right-wing media tells him they are.

    Europe has historically been militaristic and expansionist, much more so than Russia or China. Heck, the USA exists precisely because Europe was full of warmongers and colonialists. There's nothing stopping them from going back to that (except the EU and related treaties.)

    CelestialBadger on
  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    Nyysjan wrote: »
    European Army? Unlikely to a point of being almost impossible.
    European Defense treaty? Much more possible.

    They already have one: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:12012M042

  • Desktop HippieDesktop Hippie Registered User regular
    I haven’t seen this reported in any English language press yet, but here is a BBC journalist showing a clipping from Le Monde, the French news publication.

    It says that Trump met with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and began the meeting by blaming them for the war in Yugoslavia. Apparently, it took several minutes for the leaders to realize that Trump didn’t understand that the Balkans are not the Baltics.

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    look, Latvia is an integral part of Greater Serbia and it is about damn time the U.S. recognized that

  • Desktop HippieDesktop Hippie Registered User regular
    Trump is also skipping a memorial service for fallen WWI soldiers at a cemetery today during his trip to France, because of “inclement weather.” He’s sending Pompeo instead.

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    Trump is also skipping a memorial service for fallen WWI soldiers at a cemetery today during his trip to France, because of “inclement weather.” He’s sending Pompeo instead.

    It's 53 degrees with light rain.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Off the top of my ass, these are capabilities Europe would lose and have to reacquire if you take the US/UK/Canada/Norway out of the alliance:

    Long-range precision strike capability: the US and UK are the only operators of Tomahawk. The Anglo-French SCALP/Storm Shadow ALCM is much shorter ranged and cannot fill Tomahawk's entire mission set.
    Strategic bombers: Without Tomahawk, Europe's long-distance striking power is sharply curtailed because the US was the only partner with strategic bombers.
    Strategic Airlift: Besides the US, the only European powers with any significant airlift are France and the UK. France's airlift is barely adequate for its operations in Africa.
    Missile Defense: Unless they want to keep buying Patriot, they need to develop their own.
    5th-Generation Aircraft: Unless we keep selling the F-35 to Italy, they need to develop their own.
    Forward Presence forces: There are currently four NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroups in the Baltic states and Poland. Canada, the US, and the UK contribute three of them. Three-quarters of their forward-presence must therefore be replaced by other European forces.
    High-Readiness Forces: If a crisis occurred in the Baltics, European NATO could mobilize four brigades within the month. One of those four is British. Therefore at least one-quarter of their high-readiness force must be replaced by other European units.

    Now let's count how many of those capabilities Russia has:
    Long-range precision strike: Kalibr is an SLCM roughly equivalent to Tomahawk
    Strategic Bombers: the Tu-22 and Tu-160 aren't as good as ours, but they're better than Europe's fleet of nothing.
    Strategic Airflift: Heavily degraded since 1991, but they still have about 100 Il-76 and three dozen or so Antonovs, which is significantly better in terms of capacity than European Air Transport Command's fleet
    Missile Defense: S-400 may or may not be better at this than Patriot, but it does extend Russian A2/AD capability into Poland and the Baltic, which is a problem when Europe hasn't got many...
    5th-Generation Aircraft: Russia has none, so Italy at least puts Europe ahead here.
    Forward Presence/High Readiness Forces: By virtue of being physically proximate to the Baltics, the Russian Western Military District outnumbers NATO forward presence forces by about two-to-one. If we strip out the American and British Forward Presence brigades, the force ratio becomes three-to-one. The Russians can also deploy the Central and Southern districts to the Baltics faster than Germany and France can mobilize.

    tl;dr: Europe without the UK and US would not be capable of striking targets in Russia, nor of moving forces fast enough to stop Russia from reaching the Vistula. For Europe to independently develop these capabilities, it would need a decade+ of intensive military spending.*

    *this time/cost analysis brought to you by my ass

    Uhhhhhhh, I am puzzled why you think any of this is a dealbreaker. Like... oh no a decade+? How long do you think military reorganizations take, typically? I mean, the UK's carriers are going to have taken, all told, some 20 years to build from planning to effective deployment. The current Chinese military reform program has taken over 10+ years. This... this is the timescale that military organizers plan on. The fact that it'll take 10+ years isn't something that should be heartening to Americans; it should be worrying, because it means that if they feel it even might be necessary in 10 years, they'll start taking those steps now and those steps can't easily be reversed.

    Also, oh no, EU defense force interoperability! However will they possibly overcome that hurdle? Oh right, probably the same way NATO does. Oh no, inability for strategic bombers to penetrate deep into Russian territory? However will they possibly overcome that hurdle? Oh right, probably the same way that every other nation in the world does. (Also, when was the last time the US actually used its strategic bombers in a meaningful way, other than just throwing them into the mix cuz they have them like in Iraq?) Oh no, how will the Europeans ever possibly develop their own 5th generation fighter? I dunno, maybe draw on their experiences with the Eurofighter and Airbus and the world's second largest economy, which is 10+ times the size of Russia's. Oh no, Poland might not contribute much... uhhh... well, Germany has 6 times the GDP Poland has, and once Germany arms, Poland's gonna have two choices: join the Germans or fight the Germans, cuz... well, you know, German-Polish history and all. Like how does this play out otherwise? Germany and France form their own joint military force, and Poland goes, oh messr, herr, no thanks, we're gonna stick with the Americans? :rotate:


    hippofant on
  • Desktop HippieDesktop Hippie Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Trump is also skipping a memorial service for fallen WWI soldiers at a cemetery today during his trip to France, because of “inclement weather.” He’s sending Pompeo instead.

    It's 53 degrees with light rain.

    Yes, but it’s wet.

    *edit* Actually I should source this. A few news outlets are covering it, but here’s Newsweek.

    Desktop Hippie on
  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    just picture a 70 year old toddler whining and fussing with his raincoat.

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    hippofant wrote: »
    Off the top of my ass, these are capabilities Europe would lose and have to reacquire if you take the US/UK/Canada/Norway out of the alliance:

    Long-range precision strike capability: the US and UK are the only operators of Tomahawk. The Anglo-French SCALP/Storm Shadow ALCM is much shorter ranged and cannot fill Tomahawk's entire mission set.
    Strategic bombers: Without Tomahawk, Europe's long-distance striking power is sharply curtailed because the US was the only partner with strategic bombers.
    Strategic Airlift: Besides the US, the only European powers with any significant airlift are France and the UK. France's airlift is barely adequate for its operations in Africa.
    Missile Defense: Unless they want to keep buying Patriot, they need to develop their own.
    5th-Generation Aircraft: Unless we keep selling the F-35 to Italy, they need to develop their own.
    Forward Presence forces: There are currently four NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroups in the Baltic states and Poland. Canada, the US, and the UK contribute three of them. Three-quarters of their forward-presence must therefore be replaced by other European forces.
    High-Readiness Forces: If a crisis occurred in the Baltics, European NATO could mobilize four brigades within the month. One of those four is British. Therefore at least one-quarter of their high-readiness force must be replaced by other European units.

    Now let's count how many of those capabilities Russia has:
    Long-range precision strike: Kalibr is an SLCM roughly equivalent to Tomahawk
    Strategic Bombers: the Tu-22 and Tu-160 aren't as good as ours, but they're better than Europe's fleet of nothing.
    Strategic Airflift: Heavily degraded since 1991, but they still have about 100 Il-76 and three dozen or so Antonovs, which is significantly better in terms of capacity than European Air Transport Command's fleet
    Missile Defense: S-400 may or may not be better at this than Patriot, but it does extend Russian A2/AD capability into Poland and the Baltic, which is a problem when Europe hasn't got many...
    5th-Generation Aircraft: Russia has none, so Italy at least puts Europe ahead here.
    Forward Presence/High Readiness Forces: By virtue of being physically proximate to the Baltics, the Russian Western Military District outnumbers NATO forward presence forces by about two-to-one. If we strip out the American and British Forward Presence brigades, the force ratio becomes three-to-one. The Russians can also deploy the Central and Southern districts to the Baltics faster than Germany and France can mobilize.

    tl;dr: Europe without the UK and US would not be capable of striking targets in Russia, nor of moving forces fast enough to stop Russia from reaching the Vistula. For Europe to independently develop these capabilities, it would need a decade+ of intensive military spending.*

    *this time/cost analysis brought to you by my ass

    Uhhhhhhh, I am puzzled why you think any of this is a dealbreaker. Like... oh no a decade+? How long do you think military reorganizations take, typically? I mean, the UK's carriers are going to have taken, all told, some 20 years to build from planning to effective deployment. The current Chinese military reform program has taken over 10+ years. This... this is the timescale that military organizers plan on. The fact that it'll take 10+ years isn't something that should be heartening to Americans; it should be worrying, because it means that if they feel it even might be necessary in 10 years, they'll start taking those steps now and those steps can't easily be reversed.

    Also, oh no, EU defense force interoperability! However will they possibly overcome that hurdle? Oh right, probably the same way NATO does. Oh no, inability for strategic bombers to penetrate deep into Russian territory? However will they possibly overcome that hurdle? Oh right, probably the same way that every other nation in the world does. (Also, when was the last time the US actually used its strategic bombers in a meaningful way, other than just throwing them into the mix cuz they have them like in Iraq?) Oh no, Poland might not contribute much... uhhh... well, Germany has 6 times the GDP Poland has, and once Germany arms, Poland's gonna have two choices: join the Germans or fight the Germans, cuz... well, you know, German-Polish history and all. Like how does this play out otherwise? Germany and France form their own joint military force, and Poland goes, oh messr, herr, no thanks, we're gonna stick with the Americans? :rotate:

    I didn't say it was a dealbreaker, did I? I'm outlining the challenges Europe would face in decoupling from NATO as some have suggested they may be easily able to do/may desire to do.

    In order to make this massive military investment (esp for 5th-gen aircraft) they need the collective political will to spend money on defense on a scale several times greater than they would if they just met the NATO 2% target. If the UK isn't involved, the costs go even higher, given British partnership on past defense projects like Eurofighter, Storm Shadow et cetera. This raises the obvious question: if they're prepared to do that, why are they having trouble just meeting their NATO targets? Is it really more desirable to spend that much more for a fully independent Continental European defense establishment?

    When I said "a decade+" I was being generous and assuming they can just keep buying F-35 and Patriot and maybe Tomahawk to cover two of those gaps. Doing so independently would take much longer. The others, besides strat bombers - which could be mitigated by Tomahawk - are more a matter of additional procurement rather than new development.

    I don't know where the whole part about Poland fighting Germany comes in? That... wasn't what I was talking about, like, at all. Although if Germany started making its neighbors antsy, the Visegrad Group is always an option for containment.
    Oh no, inability for strategic bombers to penetrate deep into Russian territory? However will they possibly overcome that hurdle? Oh right, probably the same way that every other nation in the world does.
    Right now most nations facing challenges from a nation with strategic bombers cover that capability gap by being allied with the United States...
    (Also, when was the last time the US actually used its strategic bombers in a meaningful way, other than just throwing them into the mix cuz they have them like in Iraq?)
    Projecting force in the South China Sea and on the Korean DMZ

    Dongs Galore on
  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    look, Latvia is an integral part of Greater Serbia and it is about damn time the U.S. recognized that

    Is there anywhere that isn't part of Greater Serbia according to at least one drunken pundit in Belgrade, I ask?

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    I haven’t seen this reported in any English language press yet, but here is a BBC journalist showing a clipping from Le Monde, the French news publication.

    It says that Trump met with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and began the meeting by blaming them for the war in Yugoslavia. Apparently, it took several minutes for the leaders to realize that Trump didn’t understand that the Balkans are not the Baltics.


    Oh my god this is incredible. You can't even explain your way around this, he's just stupid.

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