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EU is armed to the teeth. All you had TODO is to pretend its corruption, throw a few parties in a rented Mückelsee villa and the disappearence of a billion in p

EU is armed to the teeth. All you had TODO is to pretend its corruption, throw a few parties in a rented Mückelsee villa and the disappearence of a billion in peace time is invisible for the russian sigint. That Berlin Airport was not that expensive. Have fun slamming into a wall of robots..

bluGill 2y ago
Compared to the US or Russia Europe is not well armed. In some areas they are, but in critical areas the EU is way behind: air defense is going to be critical for any potential war in the near future and the EU has nothing of their own.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  I hope this is a lesson Europe does not forget, and they start building immediately.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Are you saying Russia is better armed than Europe? You noticed that it could not win a war it started even without Europe joining?
  - codedokode 2y ago
    Interesting, I always had an impression that Europe is weak. Maybe this is an effect of us reading different media? As I know, many European countries do not even have mandatory military training for their citizens. Military production is also very low, despite having much more money than Russia, Europe is not capable of producing a comparable amount of weapon and equipment (see how they failed to deliver a promised amount of artillery shells). While Russia could save and restore Soviet-built military factories. Also, European weapon is more expensive to produce. Also, psychologically europeans are corrupted by their rich comfortable lifestyle and are not likely to move from their comfortable homes into the trenches. Also, migrants in Europe might choose not to protect their new home land in this event. Also, historically, if you look at WW2, most small European countries were occupied in weeks or even days without much resistance. Don't want to offend anyone but rather to remove a rose-colored glasses.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      The rose colored glasses are on the face of many people who look at how putting is spectacularly failing against a country that simply wants to be in europe and not the europe itself and think russia is well armed. "Have a lot of shitty equipment from last century" is not "better armed"
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Not OP, but the facts are that while Russia is rapidly exhausting its military hardware (which can be independently verified), Europe has relied perhaps too heavily on the US defense industry for military hardware and capabilities. This works fine when there is a good relationship with the US, but does not work when regime change occurs and the US takes an adversarial posture with its supposed allies. If your friend no longer offers to equip you for defense and war, you should be prepared to build your own. Otherwise, you've already lost. Russia isn't going to win, it's going to slow burn to failure (again, military hardware exhaustion, parts of their economy on the brink of failure, working age demographics crisis leading to ~21% central bank rates to attempt to quell inflation to no avail), but Europe improving its military capabilities would derisk against potential tail risk aggression and losses as Russia stumbles to a failure mode. Putin will die eventually, although it is unknown who and what replaces him; Europe must manage that risk. Europe is learning the hard way that you can't use economics to tame an aggressor (Nord Stream) nor can you rely on benevolent allies to be benevolent in perpetuity. This is objectively good, as it will force Europe to re-industrialize to an extent, and I argue manufacturing base and supply chains are of national security interest (gestures broadly at everything). Not your manufacturing base and supply chain? Not your freedom.
    - ashoeafoot 2y ago
      if a friend turns on you like that, that friend is finished as a arms trader
      - codedokode 2y ago
        That friend might have levers to make you continue buying (remember how Turkey was pressured to buy Western air defence instead of Russian).
    - jajko 2y ago
      Cant say I disagree with any of this, EU members each messed up good here, for decades completely ignoring all voices from eastern part warning about exactly-fucking-this and how you cant trust russians even with nose between their eyes. The solution may be easy - leave green deal since nobody else cares about it anymore, and EU is hardly 5% of global population but it has potential to wreak havoc on millions of jobs here. Not sure it would be enough to cover all extra spending but it would certainly help. But that would require significant political change in all major players in EU, Leyden so far is pushing for it like there is no tomorrow and otherwise all is well and good. She seems untouchable. Germany prefers buying electricity from foreign coal rather than keep nuclear running for few more years. Also Germans will probably let half of Europe burn before they would make Wehrmacht the force to again reckon with. Each country had 3 years to massively ramp up budgets and build factories, start recruiting. Poland and baltics did the moves since they had plenty of russian atrocities happen not so long ago, but the rest? We dont deal with strictly rational society here.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Absolutely. Russia is better armed. They have a massive store of Soviet equipment they have been using up, along with their own production (they were long a world class supplier for equipment - there are a lot of Russian equipped armys around the world) Russians problems are about bad leadership. They have a lot of badly trained troops (their well trained troops do very well, but they are a small minority and running out). They have logistics issues. They have problems with leaders using well trained troops for things they are not trained for. They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans. They have problems with leaders there because they are political good not because they are great military commanders. Do not fool yourself though. Russia is a very well armed country. They have problems, but lack of arms is not their issue in Ukraine.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      Remember Russia is currently buying arms from countries willing to sell. Can't say you convinced me > They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans That for sure. This started at least when no one told putting he is terminally insane back in 2021.
      - codedokode 2y ago
        Probably he thought that the war would be won in several weeks and would end with a great triumph (based on earlier precedent of occupying Crimea without any resistance). Obviously if he knew it would end like it is, he wouldn't start the war.
        throwaway290 2y ago
        > Probably he thought that the war would be won in several weeks and would end with a great triumph he didn't think it, he said it. that's exactly the idiocy and ego > Obviously if he knew it would end like it is, he wouldn't start the war. putting could always end it. but yes, those things keeps him going, ego is more important than his own people and lives on both sides
- mrighele 2y ago
  "Nothing of their own" is a bit exaggerated. They have IRIS-T and SAMP/T, the latter being somewhat comparable to the Patriot. Beside American made aircrafts there are also locally produced ones. I would be more worried by the lack of a proper equivalent of AWACS. In general though issue is not quality (at least compared to Russia) but quantity. Also if I was an European country I would be worried about the usability of any advanced weapon bought from our American friends: I wouldn't be surprised if, in case of confrontation between Europe and Russia, the guy in the Oval Office decided to block sales of spare parts in order to force war mongering Europeans to come to an agreement with peace-seeking Putin, or if his plutocratic friend decided to completely axe the project because "it sucks and drones are better"
  - bluGill 2y ago
    This is the first I've heard of them, and Ukraine isn't demanding them. Either that means they are somehow worse than nothing, or the EU cannot supply them even though they exist on paper (based on planned increases I'm guessing the later). Remember military equipment that you don't have when needed is no better than fiction.
    - throwaway494932 2y ago
      Both system have been sent to Ukraine and Ukraine would not mind having more of them, but as I said it is a matter of numbers (2 or 3 SAMP/T systems in Ukraine, out of about 15 totally produced). In the case of SAMP/T, the system is used just by Italy, France and Singapore, and as those countries are not as militarly active as the US, they don't have practical results to show to help with sales, which becomes a self-reinforcing (negative) trend. Both systems seem to have been successful in Ukraine up to now, and this may help with their sales.
    - mopsi 2y ago
      What about Rafale and Gripen, have you ever heard about those?
      - bluGill 2y ago

bluGill 2y ago

Compared to the US or Russia Europe is not well armed. In some areas they are, but in critical areas the EU is way behind: air defense is going to be critical for any potential war in the near future and the EU has nothing of their own.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
I hope this is a lesson Europe does not forget, and they start building immediately.
throwaway290 2y ago
Are you saying Russia is better armed than Europe? You noticed that it could not win a war it started even without Europe joining?
- codedokode 2y ago
  Interesting, I always had an impression that Europe is weak. Maybe this is an effect of us reading different media? As I know, many European countries do not even have mandatory military training for their citizens. Military production is also very low, despite having much more money than Russia, Europe is not capable of producing a comparable amount of weapon and equipment (see how they failed to deliver a promised amount of artillery shells). While Russia could save and restore Soviet-built military factories. Also, European weapon is more expensive to produce. Also, psychologically europeans are corrupted by their rich comfortable lifestyle and are not likely to move from their comfortable homes into the trenches. Also, migrants in Europe might choose not to protect their new home land in this event. Also, historically, if you look at WW2, most small European countries were occupied in weeks or even days without much resistance. Don't want to offend anyone but rather to remove a rose-colored glasses.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    The rose colored glasses are on the face of many people who look at how putting is spectacularly failing against a country that simply wants to be in europe and not the europe itself and think russia is well armed. "Have a lot of shitty equipment from last century" is not "better armed"
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Not OP, but the facts are that while Russia is rapidly exhausting its military hardware (which can be independently verified), Europe has relied perhaps too heavily on the US defense industry for military hardware and capabilities. This works fine when there is a good relationship with the US, but does not work when regime change occurs and the US takes an adversarial posture with its supposed allies. If your friend no longer offers to equip you for defense and war, you should be prepared to build your own. Otherwise, you've already lost. Russia isn't going to win, it's going to slow burn to failure (again, military hardware exhaustion, parts of their economy on the brink of failure, working age demographics crisis leading to ~21% central bank rates to attempt to quell inflation to no avail), but Europe improving its military capabilities would derisk against potential tail risk aggression and losses as Russia stumbles to a failure mode. Putin will die eventually, although it is unknown who and what replaces him; Europe must manage that risk. Europe is learning the hard way that you can't use economics to tame an aggressor (Nord Stream) nor can you rely on benevolent allies to be benevolent in perpetuity. This is objectively good, as it will force Europe to re-industrialize to an extent, and I argue manufacturing base and supply chains are of national security interest (gestures broadly at everything). Not your manufacturing base and supply chain? Not your freedom.
  - ashoeafoot 2y ago
    if a friend turns on you like that, that friend is finished as a arms trader
    - codedokode 2y ago
      That friend might have levers to make you continue buying (remember how Turkey was pressured to buy Western air defence instead of Russian).
  - jajko 2y ago
    Cant say I disagree with any of this, EU members each messed up good here, for decades completely ignoring all voices from eastern part warning about exactly-fucking-this and how you cant trust russians even with nose between their eyes. The solution may be easy - leave green deal since nobody else cares about it anymore, and EU is hardly 5% of global population but it has potential to wreak havoc on millions of jobs here. Not sure it would be enough to cover all extra spending but it would certainly help. But that would require significant political change in all major players in EU, Leyden so far is pushing for it like there is no tomorrow and otherwise all is well and good. She seems untouchable. Germany prefers buying electricity from foreign coal rather than keep nuclear running for few more years. Also Germans will probably let half of Europe burn before they would make Wehrmacht the force to again reckon with. Each country had 3 years to massively ramp up budgets and build factories, start recruiting. Poland and baltics did the moves since they had plenty of russian atrocities happen not so long ago, but the rest? We dont deal with strictly rational society here.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Absolutely. Russia is better armed. They have a massive store of Soviet equipment they have been using up, along with their own production (they were long a world class supplier for equipment - there are a lot of Russian equipped armys around the world) Russians problems are about bad leadership. They have a lot of badly trained troops (their well trained troops do very well, but they are a small minority and running out). They have logistics issues. They have problems with leaders using well trained troops for things they are not trained for. They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans. They have problems with leaders there because they are political good not because they are great military commanders. Do not fool yourself though. Russia is a very well armed country. They have problems, but lack of arms is not their issue in Ukraine.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Remember Russia is currently buying arms from countries willing to sell. Can't say you convinced me > They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans That for sure. This started at least when no one told putting he is terminally insane back in 2021.
    - codedokode 2y ago
      Probably he thought that the war would be won in several weeks and would end with a great triumph (based on earlier precedent of occupying Crimea without any resistance). Obviously if he knew it would end like it is, he wouldn't start the war.
      - throwaway290 2y ago
        > Probably he thought that the war would be won in several weeks and would end with a great triumph he didn't think it, he said it. that's exactly the idiocy and ego > Obviously if he knew it would end like it is, he wouldn't start the war. putting could always end it. but yes, those things keeps him going, ego is more important than his own people and lives on both sides
mrighele 2y ago
"Nothing of their own" is a bit exaggerated. They have IRIS-T and SAMP/T, the latter being somewhat comparable to the Patriot. Beside American made aircrafts there are also locally produced ones. I would be more worried by the lack of a proper equivalent of AWACS. In general though issue is not quality (at least compared to Russia) but quantity. Also if I was an European country I would be worried about the usability of any advanced weapon bought from our American friends: I wouldn't be surprised if, in case of confrontation between Europe and Russia, the guy in the Oval Office decided to block sales of spare parts in order to force war mongering Europeans to come to an agreement with peace-seeking Putin, or if his plutocratic friend decided to completely axe the project because "it sucks and drones are better"
- bluGill 2y ago
  This is the first I've heard of them, and Ukraine isn't demanding them. Either that means they are somehow worse than nothing, or the EU cannot supply them even though they exist on paper (based on planned increases I'm guessing the later). Remember military equipment that you don't have when needed is no better than fiction.
  - throwaway494932 2y ago
    Both system have been sent to Ukraine and Ukraine would not mind having more of them, but as I said it is a matter of numbers (2 or 3 SAMP/T systems in Ukraine, out of about 15 totally produced). In the case of SAMP/T, the system is used just by Italy, France and Singapore, and as those countries are not as militarly active as the US, they don't have practical results to show to help with sales, which becomes a self-reinforcing (negative) trend. Both systems seem to have been successful in Ukraine up to now, and this may help with their sales.
  - mopsi 2y ago
    What about Rafale and Gripen, have you ever heard about those?
    - bluGill 2y ago