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We've entered the era of the nightmare scenario. Under the current US regime, use of Trident cant be guarenteed. We would never have used them independantly before, but with the US abandoning the western alliance and Europe facing Russia alone, that possiblity is more real now than ever before. We either need to develop our own launch capability or cooperate with the French and use theirs.
Whatever happens, we need to break free of the USA for defence procurement.
Has Europe been in the Western Alliance in the past 2 decades? The US has been shouldering the costs of this alliance while all Europe does is criticize the US while giving empty promises for military investments. This weakness opened the door for Putin to invade Ukraine, something he would never done if Europe had done what it promised. Trump was literally laughed at in Germany when he complained of its reliance on Russian natural gas combined with its weak military investments.
The US has been giving this feedback for over a decade. While I don't necessarily support the President's posture, it took these extreme measures for Europe to start listening. Europe and US are natural allies, but it must be an actual alliance.
If that happened the stock value for every single US weapons manufacturer would drop like a stone.
I think SAAB is already reevaluating the choice of a US engine in the Gripen fighter jet, as the US is talking about blocking their sale to Columbia. The next version won't have a US engine.
> I think SAAB is already reevaluating the choice of a US engine in the Gripen fighter jet
The Gripen engine is US-designed, but licensed and (AIUI) built by Volvo:
The stock prices of US defence companies have been falling for the last few weeks because of the cuts to the defence budget by Trump. Conversely the values of European defence companies have been shooting up. Primarily because of the re-armament. That wont be of much consolation to the US defence companies though, they're very likely to be excluded from the process. More fuel for the recession it seems.
That outcome would be in full alignment with the Russian geopolitical vision.
They're already dropping.
> he believes it to be “extremely unlikely” that Trump would cut off UK access to Trident missiles since it would be a “strategic betrayal on a grand scale that would damage him and America”.
Has he been paying attention to the past couple months?! Strategic betrayals that damage America have been one of the few consistent themes. Every single country in the world is foolish to rely on the US for their security going forward. This is an incredibly grim development that will leave every single country less safe and prosperous but it's simply the reality.
It's not just weapons of war either, pretty much all serious threats are now higher. The US killing disease prevention and research efforts in order to cut the budget by 0.0001% will make pandemics more likely to hit every country. The lack of even a token effort to safely regulate AI increases the risk everywhere. The list goes on...
Countries should start addressing the new risks now, or face much steeper costs down the line. Hoping you can wait out the next four years and things will just bounce back is beyond reckless. It's much easier to break things than to build them up and the amount of breakage after the next four years is going to be enormous. Even if a sane regime takes power in four years, which is a massive 'if', there won't be a way to reset much of this damage and after so many lines have been crossed there's a high likelihood they will be crossed again or worse.
Turning off weapons we're providing to others would be devastating for the domestic defense industry, right up there with the shot to our own foot that kicking Russia off the SWIFT system was. Trump may be okay with aggravating our allies, but killing faith in our defense industry is an unforced error I don't see him likely to make.
Now, if the UK were to turn against us militarily (yet again), it'd be a different story. But in lieu of that, the reputation of American industry is likely to be the incentive that keeps them functioning.
Could the USA still turn on Selective Availability for GPS? I am not up to date with the newest satellites, but to me this is more of a threat than anything else. I know there are alternative systems, can most GPS devices use GLONASS or Galileo signals as well?
At the very least iPhone is GLONASS and Galileo capable, I would imagine Android devices have been as well
From Wikipedia:
> United States President Bill Clinton signed a bill ordering that Selective Availability be disabled on May 1, 2000; and, in 2007, the US government announced that the next generation of GPS satellites would not include the feature at all.
Also, SA just meant you couldnt resolve with an accuracy less than 100 meters. It didn't mean "turn off GPS in a part of a world".
Can SA even be toggled on/off by geo location? You wouldn't want to degrade service in the US.
It seems more and more that France will be the center of European power going forward. They have nukes, they export energy, they have UN SC veto. Hell they even have their own cultural independence.
Interesting observation that the "UK doesn't even own its Trident missiles". Legally, they do. They bought title to 58 missiles, in what's effectively a co-mingled inventory. They're not leased, they're not borrowed, and it's certainly not charity.
> To quote Drummond again, he also said today that he believes it to be “extremely unlikely” that Trump would cut off UK access to Trident missiles since it would be a “strategic betrayal on a grand scale that would damage him and America”.
I'm gonna take a stab and say there hasn't been an immediate, sharp increase in public desire to completely destroy relations with Europe. Certainly, the Ukraine war is very polarizing, especially in the U.S., but I don't know how far I would read into it to determine overall European sentiments.
I'm specifically thinking outside the confines of Trump, who is a wildcard, and pointing more toward public sentiment.
We havent seen or heard any great public outcry about what Trump is doing, we havent seen any reaction to his betrayal of Ukraine. The impression we get is that the US public just dont care. Domestic issues, primarily economic are whats most important to them. If the US cut off access to Trident for the UK I doubt there would be much of a reaction from the US public.
The more nukes hanging over the fireplace in the first act increases the likelihood of their use in later acts. More nukes are on the way, it's inevitable.
At the end of the day, countries have no choice. Compared to the United States military spending, they have spent trivial amounts on their own defenses, and now their economies cannot support spending at the levels required for them to catch up, without serious cuts to citizens quality of life.
Much of the world is now at the mercy of the United States, they must bend the knee.
It's not quite that simple, even if they had spent more, the US made itself the centrepoint of post-WWII institutions because of the Cold War. As I heard put quite succinctly, on one European podcast this week, even if you have 20 European nations spending more, their current military strategy has always been based around integrating into a combined NATO led force, dominated by US command and control structures. Those 20 European nations therefore would need a total strategic rethink of everything. Purchasing decisions would be totally different - like the British storm shadow missiles gifted to Ukraine that rely on GPS - apparently now will not work.
"Compared to the United States military spending, they have spent trivial amounts on their own defenses"
Strictly said, the US does not spend that much on its defense either. Most of the expenses go into projecting power afar.
Strategic goals of, say, Poland, are different. They won't be fighting China over Taiwan, and so they don't need aircraft carriers or a chain of bases around the world.
They might invest in an atomic bomb of their own, though.
"Much of the world is now at the mercy of the United States"
In what sense? If the US starts another hot war in, say, the Middle East, I suspect that the outcomes won't be much better than they were in Iraq.
"they must bend the knee"
This only works if the giant has some consistent goals. The current US administration seems to flail around instead of pursuing some particular intelligible path.
Instead of bending knees, a dozen countries will start developing their own nukes. Non-proliferation might not be dead, but it is certainly critically ill.
Europe doesn't want to run an empire nor go to war with China. Defending the borders is enough.
And a few hundred nukes targeting US cities just in case.
If they couldnt make the Taliban bend the knee or the NVA bend the knee, I dont think they'll be able to do it to Europe, do you?
>Much of the world is now at the mercy of the United States
Yeah, and the world is going to react. This situation might benefit the US economically in the short run but it sure won't in the long run.
> and now their economies cannot support spending at the levels required for them to catch up, without serious cuts to citizens quality of life.
There's a long history of crippling economies to fund armies and buy weapons.
Frankly, that's how US military spending has worked as well. The country would be much wealthier if it hadn't squandered so much on military spending. We just overlook that effect because the country looks so wealthy overall.
Amazing to see one simpleton destroy the US defense export industry in a couple of weeks.
LOL, maybe Europe could sign on to China's Belt & Road initiative instead? I mean the terms are probably going to be worse than if they decided to dump the US earlier, but now that may be more attractive than antagonizing Russia & China ... and being ignored by their previous benefactor, the US.
Haha. And Trump's winning over Canada with his tariffs. And Canada has no choice to become the 51st state. Yall live in dreamland and are the ones is some coosh comfort zone where you image we have all the cards and are guaranteed to come out on top.
If you don't think there are buttons that can paralyze/impact the US more than those forced to bend the knee you aren't looking. That the only one pushing this game is US doesn't mean we have the inherently stronger hand. And at some point if we keep pushing others will start stabbing our soft underbelly and we are absolutely fucked.
BS. They can "print" all the money they want. What they really need is: industrial capacity, raw materials and enough ppl. willing and able to turn that into tanks.
> he also said today that he believes it to be “extremely unlikely” that Trump would cut off UK access to Trident missiles since it would be a “strategic betrayal on a grand scale that would damage him and America”.
Brits unironically assume Trump and his followers care of their reputation?
Didn't JD Vance dismissively call UK 'a random country' like a few days ago?
I am sceptical of Elwood’s claims that the UK trident cache will outlast Trumps presidency. Since next generation subs and missions are in the design phase, I would hope that UK government decides to dial down dependence on US for delivery tech.
I am also concerned about US ability to ground the F35B fleet since these need a software update after every mission that can only be deployed by US contractors. Hopefully Starmer will dust off plans for a Typhoon successor that has no US reliance - Japan, Italy, Germany could partner.
Basically anything that can run code or needs maintenance or parts is a vector for the US to control use.
All this worry mongering about Trump / MAGA is just political ignorance.
As the oldest democracy in the world, with a deliberate 2 party system that is essentially ideologically similar, the US political system is quite resilient. Yes, a "deep state" or a "military-industrial complex" does have enormous influence over the country - but there's nothing truly insidious about it when you realise that it is a part of the US political system. It is somewhat undemocratic, but it still acts as one of the checks and balances of US political system to ensure the US remains a superpower (i.e. it only comes into picture on superpower politics). It is composed of the core of the US capitalistic system, whose leaders also have a lot of political influence. Both the US political parties understand that you need this "deep state / MIL complex" to continue to be a superpower, and so a US President is only ever allowed to freely exercise his democratic powers domestically (i.e. in America) and for routine foreign diplomacy. For anything else related to superpower politics, the President of the US does not have a free hand in any manner of speaking - it's a 100+ year old idea and institute that has ensured the US becomes the eminent (and now sole) superpower in the world.
And Trump is going to be a President only for a few years. (Again, note, by design - term limits in the US political systems ensure authoritarianism cannot flourish).
Moreover, many might not remember that once the US developed nuclear weapons during WW 2, with the help of British and other European scientists, it immediately expelled British scientists from its research labs and worked to deny this technology to the British. The British had to do their own research to create nuclear weapons. (But they still chose to be dependent on the US because they understand the value of alliances - it's always better to fight a war alongside someone, than alone). The delivery systems for nuclear weapons are much easier to create, especially when you have wealth and help from others (alliances). Even if by some rare and extraordinary fluke, the US explodes from within, the British can easily catchup.
Brits who were just told their boys dying for the US when the US asked means nothing don't agree with you. Those watching America throw away an entire country don't agree with you. "Ah the good old American's up to their old tricks" isn't gonna cover this one.
> And Trump is going to be a President only for a few years.
Except people are going silent, cowed into submission by threats of violence: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/us/politics/trump-democra...
They're "scared shitless": https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-congress-politic...
And this has been going on for a while: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/mitt-ro...
Trump's already tried to overthrow one election and he's already talking about trying to get a third term.
He may even try to confect an excuse to stop midterm elections. I wouldn't put it past him.
>All this worry mongering about Trump / MAGA is just political ignorance
You are saying this as if it hasn't had very real consequences already?!
It appears the Charles de Gaulle was right about insisting on the strategic autonomy of France.
It’s just sovereignty 101. Sovereignty really is a sliding scale and your country will slide down that scale if you don’t properly maintain it.
He was right about a lot of things. It's too bad the allied powers never really liked him and constantly tangled with him during and after the war.
Extremely unlikely. Any backdoor could be in theory found by an enemy - that's an horrible idea. As for outright prevent spare parts - these aren't systems in, well, active use. Effects would be tiny over long term.
>As for outright prevent spare parts - these aren't systems in, well, active use. Effects would be tiny over long term.
Experts disagree with you, at least over the "long term".
>Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet secretary, Robert Armstrong, told her that “in the inconceivable case of a future US government deciding to cut off supplies of components”, there would be “no sudden effect”, though over “two or three years” the deterrent’s effectiveness would “begin to fall off”. In 2006 Commodore Tim Hare, a former nuclear-policy chief at the Ministry of Defence, told the Commons Defence Committee: “If, over a very long period, we became deeply estranged from the Americans and they decide to rat on their agreements, we would be in…great difficulty.” But the risk was “very low”.
>Sir Lawrence reckons that were that to happen there would not be a “cliff-edge” loss of effectiveness, “but over time we would be scrambling to keep it going”. The biggest problems would be replacing the Kings Bay missile storage and running out of critical spare parts.
> Any backdoor could be in theory found by an enemy
In theory.
In reality, it took Snowden leaks for some of the smartest and most motivated people working in technology to discover they had been backdoored by a third-party.
The US launch codes were 00000000. The same people that did that aren't worrying about the risk of backdoors.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-...
My understanding of the article is that it was about shutting down the program that keeps the nuclear navy afloat, not about a backdoor with a switch to turn off the arsenal
Backdoors introduced by competent people require authentication, so that random people or "the enemy" can't use them.
I suspect that US has kill switches in place to ensure that their tech cant be used against them. Should they come up against F-35s they sold to another nation, it would make sense to have a mechanism, unknown to the purchaser, that would render it usesless against the US.
> Could there be a scenario in which the US refused to give Britain the missiles it requires for Trident?
Yes. Can you explain why Britain needs nuclear missiles that can be launched from below the surface of the sea?
Maybe one less nuclear power isn't a bad thing?