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Because the multiple nuclear states in Europe and its standing army which would give the US itself a hell of a fight are otherwise easy prey for ... aliens?

foldr 8y ago
Russia's strategic nuclear capability dwarfs that of any country in the EU. The Russian armed forces aren't what they used to be, but without the backing of the US, Russia's conventional military threat to the EU is also serious.
- arethuza 8y ago
  They have a lot of nukes because nukes are cheap and Russia's economy is pretty small - a good bit less than Italy and less than half of the UK. They probably do pose a realistic threat to the Baltic states - but that's because they are very small and isolated.
  - foldr 8y ago
    They're not that cheap. Russia spends about 230 billion USD annually, and spends about 10 billion on nuclear weapons. That's more than any country other than the USA.
    - aphextron 8y ago
      >They're not that cheap. Russia spends about 230 billion USD annually, and spends about 10 billion on nuclear weapons. That's more than any country other than the USA. Where are you getting these numbers? I really doubt that Russia is spending 1/5th their GDP on the military. Wikipedia says it's $69 billion, which is more than order of magnitude below NATO [0], [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_Russian_Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_Russian... [1] https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2017_06/20170629_170629-pr2017-111-en.pdf https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2017_...
      - foldr 8y ago
        230 billion USD is, according to Wikipedia, Russia's annual spending (not just military spending). I can see how that figure could have been interpreted as referring to military spending in the context of my post, but that's not what my post actually said. The figure of $69 billion overall military spending seems consistent with the 10 billion figure I gave for Russian spending on nuclear weapons. I got that figure from here: http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/catastrophic-harm/a-diversion-of-public-resources/ http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/catastrophic-harm/a-diversion... The figures are a bit old and I accidentally used the older of the two. But unless they're way off, it's true that Russia is spending more on nuclear weapons than any country other than the US. It's also spending more than France and the UK combined (France and the UK being the only European countries with a strategic nuclear capability). Besides all that, the idea that nukes are somehow the cheap option for Russia is pretty nuts when you consider that Russia still maintains a fleet of ballistic missile submarines -- an expensive hobby by anyone's standards. You could pay for lots of conventional weapons with the money spent on that. They're even building shiny new ones: https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/russia-to-launch-its-deadliest-ballistic-missile-submarine-in-august/ https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/russia-to-launch-its-deadlie...
        arethuza 8y ago
        Russia is about as broke as the Soviets were - nukes are by far the cheapest way of them being considered a major power: http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/02/news/russia-defense-spending-plunge/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/02/news/russia-defense-spending... Calling them "Upper Volta with Missiles" was a bit harsh - they do spend a larger percentage of their GDP then most European countries but with such a small economy I'm not sure it makes much difference. After all - nobody feels particularly threatened by Canada.... (which has a larger GDP).
        foldr 8y ago
        >by far the cheapest way of them being considered a major power Cheap compared to what alternative? It's not clear what you mean by this. They're spending a fat chunk of their military budget on nukes, they're spending far more on nukes than they need to spend just to be a nuclear power (since they're maintaining all three delivery options), and they're spending more on nukes than any other country except the US. >they do spend a larger percentage of their GDP then most European countries but with such a small economy I'm not sure it makes much difference Just check the figures. Russia's military budget is a bit higher than the UK or France's. Russia generally ranks 4th or 5th in the world for military expenditure. >. After all - nobody feels particularly threatened by Canada... Because Canada doesn't have nukes or anything like the same military budget. You seem to be confusing GDP with the level of military threat posed. They're only loosely related.
zimablue 8y ago
Russia's nuclear capacity? How is that relevant? The UK alone has 215 nukes (just checked wiki), so yeah maybe Russia could kill all of us and we'd only kill 90% of them but past a certain threshold additional nuclear weapons are irrelevant. My last post as HN is supposed to be better than this kind of nationalistic -swinging but I think the idea that Europe is reliant on US for protection is pretty absurd. Multiple nuclear states, you can't just assume that all of our nukes are faulty (and nor would anyone else). Nor would they be unable to maintain them without the US if relationships soured so far. We lease them from US companies because we are (historically!) allies! Similar level of standing military as the US, which could be ramped up above given larger population and GDP. There's a fair statement: "US contributes unfairly much to NATO" And a completely mental statement: "Europe is dependent upon the US for protection"
- foldr 8y ago
  That's supposing that the weapons work as advertised. The UK is entirely reliant on Trident for its nuclear deterrent, and it is reliant on support from the USA to maintain Trident. If Trident turns out not to work very well (which is entirely possible), or if relations with the USA sour, or if ballistic missile submarines turn out to be easier to detect and/or more vulnerable than expected, then the UK could very well not have an effective nuclear deterrent. >you can't just assume that all of our nukes are faulty (and nor would anyone else) No, but you also can't assume that we have enough nuclear capability to successfully respond to Russian first strike. No-one really knows how well the relevant systems will work. France is the only other EU country with any significant nuclear capability.
  - zimablue 8y ago
    There are also Germany, Italy, other states which have nukes through NATO. If the US is serious about withdrawing from NATO then the nuclear capability of these states would end up being completely independent from the US, and EU has the tech and money to scale their nuclear capacity up to any necessary level. You're right they're not Germany's, my bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing They're the US' nukes but this is all predicated on NATO which was previously assumed. If US withdraws from NATO then they won't get to keep nukes in Germany, so they either lease them or withdraw them. I think the two important points are that 1. Europe has the capacity to build and sustain a massive nuclear arsenal 2. They already have enough to usher in the apocalypse for anyone who invaded them including Russia. 500 vs 3000 is kind of irrelevant when you could already kill millions upon millions. 3. Some of the seeming reliance of Europe on America for nukes is by choice and a consequence of the previously rock-solid alliance. In the event of the breakup of that alliance the independent capacity of Europe to summon the apocalypse would be a lot more obvious

foldr 8y ago

Russia's strategic nuclear capability dwarfs that of any country in the EU. The Russian armed forces aren't what they used to be, but without the backing of the US, Russia's conventional military threat to the EU is also serious.

arethuza 8y ago
They have a lot of nukes because nukes are cheap and Russia's economy is pretty small - a good bit less than Italy and less than half of the UK. They probably do pose a realistic threat to the Baltic states - but that's because they are very small and isolated.
- foldr 8y ago
  They're not that cheap. Russia spends about 230 billion USD annually, and spends about 10 billion on nuclear weapons. That's more than any country other than the USA.
  - aphextron 8y ago
    >They're not that cheap. Russia spends about 230 billion USD annually, and spends about 10 billion on nuclear weapons. That's more than any country other than the USA. Where are you getting these numbers? I really doubt that Russia is spending 1/5th their GDP on the military. Wikipedia says it's $69 billion, which is more than order of magnitude below NATO [0], [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_Russian_Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_Russian... [1] https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2017_06/20170629_170629-pr2017-111-en.pdf https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2017_...
    - foldr 8y ago
      230 billion USD is, according to Wikipedia, Russia's annual spending (not just military spending). I can see how that figure could have been interpreted as referring to military spending in the context of my post, but that's not what my post actually said. The figure of $69 billion overall military spending seems consistent with the 10 billion figure I gave for Russian spending on nuclear weapons. I got that figure from here: http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/catastrophic-harm/a-diversion-of-public-resources/ http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/catastrophic-harm/a-diversion... The figures are a bit old and I accidentally used the older of the two. But unless they're way off, it's true that Russia is spending more on nuclear weapons than any country other than the US. It's also spending more than France and the UK combined (France and the UK being the only European countries with a strategic nuclear capability). Besides all that, the idea that nukes are somehow the cheap option for Russia is pretty nuts when you consider that Russia still maintains a fleet of ballistic missile submarines -- an expensive hobby by anyone's standards. You could pay for lots of conventional weapons with the money spent on that. They're even building shiny new ones: https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/russia-to-launch-its-deadliest-ballistic-missile-submarine-in-august/ https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/russia-to-launch-its-deadlie...
      - arethuza 8y ago
        Russia is about as broke as the Soviets were - nukes are by far the cheapest way of them being considered a major power: http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/02/news/russia-defense-spending-plunge/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/02/news/russia-defense-spending... Calling them "Upper Volta with Missiles" was a bit harsh - they do spend a larger percentage of their GDP then most European countries but with such a small economy I'm not sure it makes much difference. After all - nobody feels particularly threatened by Canada.... (which has a larger GDP).
        foldr 8y ago
        >by far the cheapest way of them being considered a major power Cheap compared to what alternative? It's not clear what you mean by this. They're spending a fat chunk of their military budget on nukes, they're spending far more on nukes than they need to spend just to be a nuclear power (since they're maintaining all three delivery options), and they're spending more on nukes than any other country except the US. >they do spend a larger percentage of their GDP then most European countries but with such a small economy I'm not sure it makes much difference Just check the figures. Russia's military budget is a bit higher than the UK or France's. Russia generally ranks 4th or 5th in the world for military expenditure. >. After all - nobody feels particularly threatened by Canada... Because Canada doesn't have nukes or anything like the same military budget. You seem to be confusing GDP with the level of military threat posed. They're only loosely related.

zimablue 8y ago

Russia's nuclear capacity? How is that relevant? The UK alone has 215 nukes (just checked wiki), so yeah maybe Russia could kill all of us and we'd only kill 90% of them but past a certain threshold additional nuclear weapons are irrelevant. My last post as HN is supposed to be better than this kind of nationalistic -swinging but I think the idea that Europe is reliant on US for protection is pretty absurd. Multiple nuclear states, you can't just assume that all of our nukes are faulty (and nor would anyone else). Nor would they be unable to maintain them without the US if relationships soured so far. We lease them from US companies because we are (historically!) allies! Similar level of standing military as the US, which could be ramped up above given larger population and GDP. There's a fair statement: "US contributes unfairly much to NATO" And a completely mental statement: "Europe is dependent upon the US for protection"

foldr 8y ago
That's supposing that the weapons work as advertised. The UK is entirely reliant on Trident for its nuclear deterrent, and it is reliant on support from the USA to maintain Trident. If Trident turns out not to work very well (which is entirely possible), or if relations with the USA sour, or if ballistic missile submarines turn out to be easier to detect and/or more vulnerable than expected, then the UK could very well not have an effective nuclear deterrent. >you can't just assume that all of our nukes are faulty (and nor would anyone else) No, but you also can't assume that we have enough nuclear capability to successfully respond to Russian first strike. No-one really knows how well the relevant systems will work. France is the only other EU country with any significant nuclear capability.
- zimablue 8y ago
  There are also Germany, Italy, other states which have nukes through NATO. If the US is serious about withdrawing from NATO then the nuclear capability of these states would end up being completely independent from the US, and EU has the tech and money to scale their nuclear capacity up to any necessary level. You're right they're not Germany's, my bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing They're the US' nukes but this is all predicated on NATO which was previously assumed. If US withdraws from NATO then they won't get to keep nukes in Germany, so they either lease them or withdraw them. I think the two important points are that 1. Europe has the capacity to build and sustain a massive nuclear arsenal 2. They already have enough to usher in the apocalypse for anyone who invaded them including Russia. 500 vs 3000 is kind of irrelevant when you could already kill millions upon millions. 3. Some of the seeming reliance of Europe on America for nukes is by choice and a consequence of the previously rock-solid alliance. In the event of the breakup of that alliance the independent capacity of Europe to summon the apocalypse would be a lot more obvious