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What if America turned off Britain's weapons?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gherkinnn 2y agoIt appears the Charles de Gaulle was right about insisting on the strategic autonomy of France.
- timewizard 2y agoHe 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.
- SllX 2y agoIt’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.
- anonporridge 2y agoI don't get how this isn't obvious. If you can't defend your territory without relying on another country, you are not truly sovereign. The larger union might be sovereign, but you aren't, and your protection is only as strong as the larger union.
- sepositus 2y agoI don't think the issue is whether or not it's obvious. It boils down to weighing the risks. It seems to me that the weight has favored dependence on another superpower for the past several decades. I'm sure everyone involved understood that the consequence of that decision was quasi-sovereignty. I'm not in Europe, so I'm not sure what the UK government has been saying this whole time, but it probably sounds really bad to admit that publicly. So, I'm sure they perform lingual acrobatics to try to reassure the public that they are truly independent when it comes to military security. Perhaps it's a naive take, but I'm just armchairing this from the perspective of playing a 4x grand strategy game and the sort of decisions you have to make in these contexts.
- generalizations 2y agoAnything can be called 4D chess if we add enough layers to the logic. I agree that what you're describing makes sense; but I think it's probably more in line with the bureaucratic mindset to observe this is the result of decades of kicking cans down the road.
- sepositus 2y agoYes, unlike the "player" in a 4x game, there's too much discontinuity in administrations between decades. Makes it very easy to kick the can down the road.
- SllX 2y agoI don’t think you have to go quite that far. NATO was intended to provide cover against the other superpower bloc in Europe. That superpower isn’t really a superpower anymore, but the remnant that legally succeeded it still has a lot of nukes. Arguably in a world of superpowers, only superpowers have total sovereignty under your definition, hence why I said it was a sliding scale. 95% of any individual nation or most configurations of alliances you could technically (though maybe not plausibly) come up with would still get crushed by the French military in a mano a mano military conflict. They can defend themselves, but what if they have to defend themselves alone vs the United States, Russia, the PRC, or a medley of European great powers? NATO keeps them from having to go it alone, and NATO plus the EU takes a couple of those possibilities off the table, at least for a while, but in Charles de Gaulle’s time, France still had a colonial empire they were trying to keep together (and they still have a fair number of overseas territories outside of metropolitan France) and the plausibility of NATO keeping it together was all up in the air. Throughout the duration of the Cold War, I don’t think you can make a winning argument that on balance the US was ever a bad ally, but as an old European leader, he was definitely right to be skeptical about the tradeoffs, and right to think that if France has more power, then it wouldn’t need to cede sovereignty or at least much sovereignty to all these newfangled international institutions popping up across Europe.
- deadbabe 2y agoAt 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.
- Yeul 2y agoEurope 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.
- nostromo 2y agoGermany can barely construct an airport today and now you think they’re going to develop hundreds of nuclear warheads from the ground up? They don’t even have nuclear power anymore - they shuttered the last of their nuclear power plants. The entire supply chain will need to be developed and tested without running afoul of the test ban treaty. Besides, nuclear weapons are almost worthless without submarines to carry them. They’d only be useful against an unsophisticated adversary.
- drumhead 2y agoI dont think you realise what German industry is capable of if it chooses to.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- stragies 2y agoHow much of the European capabilities do you think would remain after Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Broadcom, Google, etc drop poisoned updates on to them at the next update/connection, scramble all the data, trigger endless bootloops? Disable Azure, AWS and iCloud for European IPs. Some messing with DNS and Cloudflare, along with using the flying stingrays (Starlink Satellites) to mess with mobile communication. Also pile up all Teslas at important traffic intersections into huge lithium battery fires. Basically, it would send Europe back into the stone age, I fear. In under a week.
- timewizard 2y ago> 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?
- nharada 2y agoI believe the idea is that your submarines aren't vulnerable to a first strike, since any competent government will figure out where your land based silos are. EDIT: Oh I see you're saying in general they shouldn't have nukes. I mean, I don't like that anyone has them but I get why they do
- klipt 2y ago> Maybe one less nuclear power isn't a bad thing? Let Russia de arm first. They are the ones using their nukes as cover to steal land from other countries.
- physicsguy 2y agoThere's only one country that's given up nuclear weapons, and that was due to racism. Even if Britain was no longer given the missiles, can you really see the country not developing an alternative delivery mechanism?
- darksaints 2y agoUkraine gave up their nuclear weapons, and the last 12 years are a testament to how bad of a mistake that was.
- dikkechill 2y agoWith 'only one country', I assume you refer to South Africa. Are you aware that the ANC itself approved of nuclear disarmament? If you look at the Budapest Memorandum, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine also voluntarily gave up their nuclear arsenals by becoming a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in exchange for security guarantees.
- 2y ago
- yyyk 2y agoExtremely 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.
- dijit 2y ago> 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.
- devit 2y agoBackdoors introduced by competent people require authentication, so that random people or "the enemy" can't use them.
- yyyk 2y agoCompetent spies and hackers try to get in nevertheless, and can succeed. Risk is not insignificant if these exist.
- gruez 2y ago>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. https://archive.is/Qz2lI https://archive.is/Qz2lI
- mrweasel 2y agoIf 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.
- drumhead 2y agoThe 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.
- rayiner 2y agoU.S. defense contractors taking a hit? It’s like a 1990s liberal dream.
- yyyk 2y ago>cuts to the defence budget by Trump These weren't cuts, but an overall redirection of budgets inside the Pentagon. Over the long term, US defence companies have a very profitable future ahead (and a fair amount of European rearmament will involve buying stuff from US due to obvious industrial capacity issues).
- ok_dad 2y agoCould 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?
- bobthepanda 2y agoAt the very least iPhone is GLONASS and Galileo capable, I would imagine Android devices have been as well
- ok_dad 2y agoI care more about airplanes, ships, trucks, and things of that nature. People will be able to get along fine with no GPS, a large ship transiting the Panama Canal will NOT be fine without GPS.
- barbazoo 2y agoThey can't turn it off completely without hurting themselves, the US needs high precision GPS around the world, so I doubt they'd do that.
- rich_sasha 2y agoGPS has two modes of operation, one low precision and one high precision one, which can optionally be encrypted. It would still be usable for military, but not for others. The low-precision mode might still be available publicly.
- KennyBlanken 2y agoYou're confusing selective availability, which is on the civilian side, with bands. There are four civilian bands, with a fifth in the works for critical uses. There are two military bands, and they are encrypted. The military bands (two) have always been encrypted and being on different bands, cannot be received at all by civilian receivers, though I imagine it's mostly a firmware change with some minor hardware changes. Don't talk about things you wildly do not understand or know anything about.
- sepositus 2y ago> 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.
- drumhead 2y agoWe 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.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- wat10000 2y agoA lot of Americans see Europe as degenerate, immoral, holier-than-thou, and leeching off of US largesse. They'll probably cheer anything that sticks it to Europe and looks like it would save money for the US. There's a lot of overlap with Trump supporters in this group. (To be clear, I'm not one of them, that's just a sentiment I hear from certain quarters.)
- drumhead 2y agoYes, that does seem to be the impression we're getting in Europe. The western alliance is dead, but the only people mourning it are in Europe.
- drumhead 2y agoWe'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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- glimshe 2y agoHas 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.
- amazingman 2y agoWhat you're advocating entails nuclear proliferation, thus increasing existential risk. This should give you pause and cause you to reflect upon how you arrived at your conclusions.
- LeChuck 2y agoIt very much looks like Europe and US are not allies anymore. I don’t believe there’s a strategy here. I believe that Trump and his electorate are simply much more closely aligned, ideologically speaking, to Russia than to the EU.
- nextweek2 2y ago
- cynicalsecurity 2y ago> 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?
- thisislife2 2y agoAll 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.
- kristiandupont 2y ago>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?!
- thisislife2 2y ago
- rurp 2y ago> 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.
- cykros 2y agoTurning 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.
- howard941 2y agoThe 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.
- r00fus 2y agoIt 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.
- soneil 2y agoInteresting 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.
- librasteve 2y agoI 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.