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And Russia can't invade Ukraine without breaking a few other agreements, yet here we are. The US has made it clear that European security is a European problem

by vkou 2y ago

And Russia can't invade Ukraine without breaking a few other agreements, yet here we are. The US has made it clear that European security is a European problem.

croes 2y ago
I think to take Russia as an example is a bad idea especially when the development takes years. Too much time for opponents to react without the benefits of the agreement breaking
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  It clearly doesn't work if Germany is universally opposed. But if, say, France and the UK and major non-US NATO/EU conventional powers like Poland are supportive of the move and see it as sharing the burden of regional security, then I think the calculus changes.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Poland has the same problem as Germany if not worse, as their domestic space industry is further behind Germany's and Poland directly borders Russia and Belarus, so there is no buffer. Most non-nuclear European states cannot go nuclear today as they lack the ability to concurrently rush second strike and nuclear triad capacity without being pulled into a conventional war. The only major non-nuclear European states I can think of that have this capacity are Turkiye (unsurprising due to competition with Russia, Iran, KSA, and Israel) and Spain (significant MIC that has experience and exports in the Mediterranean - and often competed with the French because of Spanish MIC's co-sell deals with Turkiye). Reality is, most European countries are 5-10 years behind Asian and Middle Eastern regional powers in rearming - all of whom began in the 2010-14 period due to crises such as South/East China Sea, Himalayas, Syria, Myanmar, Donbass-Crimea, and Libya. European leaders recognize this, and hence why there has been a flurry of Asia and EMEA defense deals over the past 6 months to help raise capital to begin rebuilding manufacturing capacity, but European HN/Redditors do not realize this (though I've tried bringing up). The fact that the largest shareholder and launch partner for Europe's replacement for Starlink in Ukraine - Eutelsat Group and Eutelsat OneWeb - is an Indian government aligned conglomerate (Bharti Airtel) starkly shows this issue. European states that aren't UK, France, Turkiye, and maybe Spain will have to rebuild their conventional capabilities in aerospace, space, naval, and land defense tech first before they can even consider a nuclear option.
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      Poland and Germany can just have Ariane make their rockets. Why would they need a local domestic aero-space industry? That seems hardly relevant considering that other European countries realistically can only acquire nuclear weapons if they have political support from France/UK. In those cases French/British companies would be more than willing to sell whatever equipment they need as well (that’s how Britain got Trident after all..)
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        > Poland and Germany can just have Ariane make their rockets. Why would they need a local domestic aero-space industry? Because then you don't actually have autonomy. If Germany or Poland are dependent on ArianeGroup, then they are dependent on France, who will have a final say on deployment and utilization of it's technology in an offensive manner, and Germany, Poland, and France often don't see eye to eye. > those cases French/British companies would be more than willing to sell whatever equipment they need as well And those sales come with stipulations and shutdown options from the French and British government (the Germans do the same with their own weapons programs such as Eurofighter). In general, a country like Germany or Poland just cannot fully build a nuclear weapons program that could be deterrent, and the money either would spend on such a program just doesn't make sense when there is much lower hanging fruit in conventional warfare.
        wqaatwt 2y ago
        So Britain doesn’t have autonomy either considering their missiles were made by Lockhead Martin? However my point is that Germany or Poland developing nuclear weapons without direct support of Britain/France is not even worth discussing. It would be infeasible due to a variety of political/military/economic/other reasons. I don’t think that it’s something even would be considering even semi seriously at this point. Realistically some More centralized EU based nuclear weapon sharing program might be feasible but it’s very far away at this point.

by vkou 2y ago

And Russia can't invade Ukraine without breaking a few other agreements, yet here we are. The US has made it clear that European security is a European problem.

croes 2y ago

I think to take Russia as an example is a bad idea especially when the development takes years. Too much time for opponents to react without the benefits of the agreement breaking

dragonwriter 2y ago
It clearly doesn't work if Germany is universally opposed. But if, say, France and the UK and major non-US NATO/EU conventional powers like Poland are supportive of the move and see it as sharing the burden of regional security, then I think the calculus changes.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Poland has the same problem as Germany if not worse, as their domestic space industry is further behind Germany's and Poland directly borders Russia and Belarus, so there is no buffer. Most non-nuclear European states cannot go nuclear today as they lack the ability to concurrently rush second strike and nuclear triad capacity without being pulled into a conventional war. The only major non-nuclear European states I can think of that have this capacity are Turkiye (unsurprising due to competition with Russia, Iran, KSA, and Israel) and Spain (significant MIC that has experience and exports in the Mediterranean - and often competed with the French because of Spanish MIC's co-sell deals with Turkiye). Reality is, most European countries are 5-10 years behind Asian and Middle Eastern regional powers in rearming - all of whom began in the 2010-14 period due to crises such as South/East China Sea, Himalayas, Syria, Myanmar, Donbass-Crimea, and Libya. European leaders recognize this, and hence why there has been a flurry of Asia and EMEA defense deals over the past 6 months to help raise capital to begin rebuilding manufacturing capacity, but European HN/Redditors do not realize this (though I've tried bringing up). The fact that the largest shareholder and launch partner for Europe's replacement for Starlink in Ukraine - Eutelsat Group and Eutelsat OneWeb - is an Indian government aligned conglomerate (Bharti Airtel) starkly shows this issue. European states that aren't UK, France, Turkiye, and maybe Spain will have to rebuild their conventional capabilities in aerospace, space, naval, and land defense tech first before they can even consider a nuclear option.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    Poland and Germany can just have Ariane make their rockets. Why would they need a local domestic aero-space industry? That seems hardly relevant considering that other European countries realistically can only acquire nuclear weapons if they have political support from France/UK. In those cases French/British companies would be more than willing to sell whatever equipment they need as well (that’s how Britain got Trident after all..)
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > Poland and Germany can just have Ariane make their rockets. Why would they need a local domestic aero-space industry? Because then you don't actually have autonomy. If Germany or Poland are dependent on ArianeGroup, then they are dependent on France, who will have a final say on deployment and utilization of it's technology in an offensive manner, and Germany, Poland, and France often don't see eye to eye. > those cases French/British companies would be more than willing to sell whatever equipment they need as well And those sales come with stipulations and shutdown options from the French and British government (the Germans do the same with their own weapons programs such as Eurofighter). In general, a country like Germany or Poland just cannot fully build a nuclear weapons program that could be deterrent, and the money either would spend on such a program just doesn't make sense when there is much lower hanging fruit in conventional warfare.
      - wqaatwt 2y ago
        So Britain doesn’t have autonomy either considering their missiles were made by Lockhead Martin? However my point is that Germany or Poland developing nuclear weapons without direct support of Britain/France is not even worth discussing. It would be infeasible due to a variety of political/military/economic/other reasons. I don’t think that it’s something even would be considering even semi seriously at this point. Realistically some More centralized EU based nuclear weapon sharing program might be feasible but it’s very far away at this point.