Item — HN Reader

Is it time? Maybe. Will they do it? Probably not. The European countries constantly talk and never act. It took the second Russian invasion of Ukraine for them to even barely start to do anything and even now, they are still trying to get the US to continue to be the backbone of their defense strategy. Even as the US takes actions that (in their minds) are ruining that idea, instead of acting, they just complain and condemn.

Even if tomorrow they decided to actual work together and invest in their own capabilities it would be decades before they would be free of the US defense sector and they know it and it's why they are so resistant to the idea. I think you would need to see more aggression by the Russians combined with substantially more shenanigans by the US (more than just bombastic announcements for the sake of grabbing media attention) for that to change because you are talking about trillion dollar investment, every year, for decades to walk a different path.

3 comments

In Europe we do have some non US weapon systems thankfully. Maybe not as good as the US kit but quite functional on the whole. We've been a bit surprised as long time allies of the US for them to get a president who seems more fond of Russia than the democratic world. I didn't see that one coming.

You do but when it comes to certain critical areas that require very large investments in R&D to get going (space launch, 5th/6th gen fighters, nuclear deterrents, etc.) there is a significant lack of home grown capacity/capability. That's more what I was referring to in the above, you guys have plenty of comparable stuff in many areas.

Let me tell you, you folks weren't the only ones caught off guard by the current American political leadership. I think Europe is still betting this is more theater than anything and things will move back towards baseline in the long run, which I think is a fair bet, but I do wish they would hedge that bet a bit more than they are currently.

I guess you need gear which is adequate for the enemies you face which in Europe is basically Russia. It's sort of ok - the UK and France have nukes and we seem to be getting by without the 5th gen fighters. We could probably do with a local substitute for Patriot missiles.

I think the EU should effectively form a military alliance with Ukraine who are the main force against Russia at the moment and crank things up to actually win.

Is this what "never act" looks like? https://www.thedefensenews.com/news-details/Germanys-Rheinme...

I find it funny that everyone complains that Europeans currently just talk and never act.. Every time Europeans acted, it ended in either a world war, of half of the war colonized.. So not sure if you really want Europeans to act..

I'm not sure how we went from the "act" being "invest in their own defense" to "start ww3" but I am quite confident no one is complaining they are not doing that, lol.

Humans being the same everywhere, the ideal condition of "we can defend ourselves, yet have no expansionist tendencies" doesn't tend to keep the words after the comma for very long.

This is also why anarchies are not very stable.

The international order, with each nation being kinda like an individual person, has few enough actors that the distinctions between "anarchy", "democracy", and "dictatorship" are blurry.