Your reddit embeds didn't work my dude.No they hadn't. They temporarily stopped offensive, not defensive intel sharing. They won't let you put a bullseye on a T-80 BVM tank in a hull down position for F-16s, but will let you know where to destroy Shahed drones that are coming to Ukrainian cities.
The US military is not an unlimited resource, I would rather they deter this....
Type 004 aircraft carrier - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Then this.
Plus Europe minus the UK is too far away from Taiwan for it to matter to them geographically. Their navies (again minus the UK and possibly France) is too underequipped to deal with the PLAN.
Can Europe Fight for Taiwan? - War on the Rocks
Should a war erupt with China over Taiwan, many observers seem to think that Europe would be largely irrelevant as far as the actual fighting iswarontherocks.com
Ukraine
- Thread starter Silvanus
- Start date
The role the US has in NATO against Russia is :
- nuclear umbrella (yes, there are two other nuclear powers in NATO but both have small stockpiles amd one relies on US tech)
- air force (no other NATO army relies so heavily on air superiority in its doctrine and has the planes to back it up.)
- intelligence (no other NATO country has that huge a spy network, sattelites and intelligence sharing)
Only after that comes the army. The European armies are big enough and even better equipped with artillery and tanks. It is more an issue to get everyone to work together if whatever is not a common NATO mission (which thus must include the US ) and ground forces need to be backed up by air forces (which is hard to provide without the US). The NATO command structure has also a lot of US personnal embedded, making it a pita to work without.
The branches of the US military NATO would need the least against Russia is the US Navy and the US Marines. NATO has so many other navies and controlls nearly all the relevant ports. Europe alone could easily blockade Kaliningrad and St.Petersburg, Turkey could easily control the Bosporus and then then it is over for the Russian navy.
But the main NATO problem is that if the US stops providing reliable backing, what will the other nations do ? Whithout the US they can't counter Russian nukes and if the strongest country is allowed to renege on the allience, others (who are far away from the action or particularly scared by the nukes or currently have a Russian friendly gouvernment) might back out as well.
The US always made sure it retains the leadership position in NATO (and sabotaged common European defense initiatives). By withdrawing during a crisis the NATO therefore becomes leaderless. And i probably don't have to explain you how this is an issue.
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There's one real piece of positive evidence there: two unnamed defence officials telling CNN that the US is still sharing defensive intel.
Who? What's the actual quote (we get shown a summary from Anderson Cooper)? Does that mean all the same defensive intel (they don't say)?
Anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if the loss of intel didn't directly affect advance warning or defensive systems needed for that particular attack; we obviously don't know for certain. But the timing of the intensified bombardment was no coincidence. It was an effort to convince Ukrainians (and their non-American supporters) that Ukraine cannot stand without the US and things will be worse if they try.
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I think France could counter Russian nukes. Most of the best parts of Russia are in the West and France has hundreds of them.
The Europeans, including the UK, have two 6th generation fighter programs. The FCAS and Tempest/GCAP. They probably could have gotten a F-35 European figher if they wanted to. And they have enough EUrofighters to check whatever Su-30/Su-35/Su-34 4.5 Gen jets—Russians can throw at them even without F-35s. And I am sure European could, in theory, create the parts; they do have a R&D base to do so.
Intel is just a matter of investment; are you telling me there is no one in Europe who is Russian, Iranian, Arabic, or Algerian and is an EU citizen?
The problem with Europe is a lack of energy resources and other resources that the Russians, Chinese, and Americans have lots of, which I keep telling you guys (and I am sure competent policymakers in the EU know this). You guys should invade Russia in the future and create a European Iron Dome to at least invest in it.
A quote by Henry Kissinger
It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.
www.goodreads.com
I hate the pull of this quote, but it's true, and it's likely true of any democracy with an active foreign policy.
If the less than 300 nukes France has are enough, for what does the US maintain 5000 ? There are talks about expanding Frances nuclear arsenal to replace the US as Europes nuclear shield but we are quite a bit away from that yet.
The Eurofighters are old. FCAS and GCAP are more than a decade from being relevant. Overall the various European air forces are just not really strong. They lack planes or training (in part because training in the EU is difficult in such an overcrowded airspace). It is very questionable whether Europe could enforce air supremacy in a conflict against a major power.
The UK is integrated with the 5 Eyes, far less with the other European agencies. Most of the other agencies are smaller, less powerful and more inward focussed. Many European parliaments also have a deep distrust towards overreaching intelligence agencies, often limiting their power. But most importantly Europe does not have all the spy sattelites and less control over the internet infrastructure.
Europe won't conquer Russia. Europe also has had little problems with getting missing ressources via trade instead of direct control. Colonialism is nowadays seen as a colossal failure even for the colonizers. Your ideas of geopolitics are one and a half centuries behind the times.
That said, it is more likely that Canada joins the EU than Russia does. I am pretty sure you are aware of various polls showing Canadians being in favor of it. Sure, they might reconsider once they realize all that entails and it is also questionably whether all the EU countries would agree but there are many states of "half in, half out" with the EU and "EU candidate", EEA, EFTA or whatever Switzerland got might actually be feasible. - If anything was even needed in the first place. With CETA the Canada-EU trade is already pretty frictionless.
As for energy, Europe still wants to go away from fossils. That is not relevant for long term planning and for short term the supply is secured.
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But for actual Ukraine news : It seems China is proposing to participate in peacekeeping. Do they have enough of the war (the whole sanction stuff is a headache and the war itself basically shut down belt and road) ? Is it part of a charm offensive towards the EU ?
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You don't want even a single nuclear device used against your country. Therefore, you only need a small number to function as a deterrent, but you need a much greater number if the intent is instead to immediately reduce a nation to a state where it cannot harm yours.
Also, the lack of a centralised European leadership. If the US was redivided into its constituent states, each of which may be allied to the others, but have even slightly different national objectives, and was responsible for its own military which was intended to operate independently, at least to an extent, it would massively reduce its military power.
For example, it may benefit the EU as a whole to have supercarriers, but in practice one nation alone will foot the bill, and also will need to provide the escort ships, logistical support, air wings etc, and that may not be in the interest of many individual nations.
That assumes that this doesn't result in a nuclear retaliation...which is the reason for Russia's nuclear arsenal, after all. Yes, you've argued that most of their devices probably aren't that functional, but even a partial initiation of a nuclear device in Paris or Berlin is going to be the biggest disaster in Western Europe since WW2.
And even assuming that, you'd likely just turn the "conquered" areas into the next Iraq/Afghanistan style forever war, with resource extraction not particularly viable.
The US has put an updated proposal to Ukraine, which would give the US control of all rare earth and energy assets until the US has made $100bn. And this would still provide zero security guarantees.
Meanwhile, Russia has demanded regime change in Ukraine as a requirement to negotiate with them.
European partners are increasingly looking like the only source of protection for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia has demanded regime change in Ukraine as a requirement to negotiate with them.
European partners are increasingly looking like the only source of protection for Ukraine.
300 nukes are plenty. Probably 30 will do (assuming they get to the target and go bang), because they would instantly render even a target the size of the USA or Russia a second- or third-rate power for generations.
It doesn't need genuinely massive casualties: Just smash the top 15-20 cities. It will kill a ton of the most skilled people in that country; directly wreck or render unhabitable the densest areas of infrastructure and development. Think all the information crucial to society operating that would be annihilated: government, corporate, financial. Years of recovery with all resources swamped by dealing with the immediate damage, then decades of rebuilding, likely mass emigration (especially amongst the most talented) to places with more opportunities.
In this view, 5000 nukes is absurd overkill: a very expensive statement of one-upmanship. The main reason for so many would probably concern about misfire or interdiction, so a calculation like five fired to get one through.
Per Khrushchev;
"I remember President Kennedy once stated that the United States had the nuclear missile capacity to wipe out the Soviet Union two times over, while the Soviet Union had enough atomic weapons to wipe out the United States only once... Once is quite enough. What good does it do to annihilate a country twice? We're not a bloodthirsty people."