4 ms·

Europe has cutting edge domestic military tech in almost all relevant categories but don't build enough of it to matter because until recently their people and

Europe has cutting edge domestic military tech in almost all relevant categories but don't build enough of it to matter because until recently their people and governments haven't taken defense seriously. Europe doing so now is good for America because it reduces the risk of Americans once again dying in yet another European war.

mixermachine 2y ago
Is selling less product good for US defense companies?
tossandthrow 2y ago
Last time Nato's article 5 was invoked it lead to Europeans dying in US wars. We need to go back to WW2 for you comment to have any value. I think Americans can thank themselves and nobody else for their people dying in wars.
- messe 2y ago
  The only time Article 5 has been invoked.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
  >Last time Nato's article 5 was invoked it lead to Europeans dying in US wars. US service members represented about 68% of the coalition deaths in Afghanistan and about 93% in Iraq: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Coalition_military_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Coa... The expectation for a European war should be similar. Europe should supply about 80% of the effort, since they're the ones directly affected. Even now, the US has supplied almost half the aid to Ukraine: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/ https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s... So the US pulling out of Europe could be considered a necessary correction to reach parity with the Iraq/Afghanistan situation. >We need to go back to WW2 for you comment to have any value. The point of having a strong military is to deter your enemies, not fight them. The US has deterred the USSR/Russia in Europe for 80 years. What did that get us? HN comments about how we've supposedly "extorted" Europe. It's really striking the amount of anti-Americanism that comes out of Europe relative to other US allies. This has been going on for years and years before Trump. There seems to be something uniquely dysfunctional about the Atlantic relationship, relative to other ally relationships the US has. >I think Americans can thank themselves and nobody else for their people dying in wars. Of course Europe's contribution to Iraq and Afghanistan should be acknowledged. Here it is on the State Dept website: https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-official-blog/9-11-2001-out-of-the-devastation-an-outpouring-of-support/ https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-offici...
  - tossandthrow 2y ago
    > The point of having a strong military is to deter your enemies, not fight them. That breaks the premise for this thread which was people lost in war. > It's really striking the amount of anti-Americanism that comes out of Europe relative to other US allies. You broaden up the premise from lost casualties in war to the entire relationsship - I think that is multiple PhDs to figure out whether this is anti american or reasonable push back. I can further open this up an include obvious anti trust malpractice, cultural imperialism, etc., etc. that the US in constantly pushing on the EU (and the rest of the world). But please enlighten me on how the entire world in against the US, and how badly you are being treated - the country with the absolute biggest economic power and military power. Cry me a river.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
      >That breaks the premise for this thread which was people lost in war. lupusreal talked about the "risk of Americans once again dying in yet another European war" (emphasis mine). By making Europe part of its security umbrella, and deterring the USSR/Russia, the US shouldered that risk. It's simple. I don't want to shoulder risk for people who despise me. Every time Europeans downvote my comments in this thread, it makes me want to shoulder risk for them less and less. And I'm a registered Democrat. >You broaden up the premise from lost casualties in war to the entire relationsship - I think that is multiple PhDs to figure out whether this is anti american or reasonable push back. I'm trying to tell you, as a European, why Americans like me aren't enthusiastic about the alliance. What you do with that information is your business. I think some pushback on the issue of Greenland is perfectly justified. That represents actual aggressive behavior on the part of the US. And I think it's fair to complain about the US voting with Russia at the United Nations. We could at least abstain from voting, like China. What I don't like is the notion that the US has a special obligation to protect Ukraine. * Everywhere on the internet, you'll see the "fact" that the US promised to protect Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. That "fact" is false. All we promised was to seek UN Security Council action. Read the memorandum for yourself if you don't believe me: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P... * There are ongoing armed conflicts all over the world. The US can't police everywhere. And it's psychologically unsustainable to do volunteer police work when people despise you for it. Given our limited resources, we need to prioritize. We might as well de-prioritize the interests of relatively wealthy countries, such as Europe, since those countries should be better able to provide for themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict... >obvious anti trust malpractice You're saying that you don't like how antitrust is practiced in the US? Why is that any of your business? The US is a sovereign country. If you're going to complain about Elon Musk commenting on German elections, why is it your place to complain about how antitrust law works in the US? For many years, Europeans have had absolutely no inhibitions in expressing their contempt for US policies in guns, healthcare, etc. Yet somehow when Americans do the same, and comment on European policies regarding e.g. immigration, Europeans flip out. >cultural imperialism So Europeans, of their own free will, like American music and movies. This is supposed to represent the US oppressing Europe somehow? I think these two complaints of yours actually underscore my point about European anti-Americanism. I can't imagine a Japanese person complaining that they are oppressed due to the way antitrust is practiced in the US, or that they are oppressed because so many Japanese like to watch American movies. Out of all our "allies", it's only Europeans who are in the habit of complaining about stuff like this. >the country with the absolute biggest economic power and military power. I think life is generally pretty good for Americans, and we don't have a lot to complain about. But we do have limited resources, and we can't help everyone. And it's very annoying to read all of the anti-Americanism online, even for situations where we tried to do our best, and even when we're arguably one of the most benevolent superpowers in world history. At a certain point I just don't want to be involved anymore.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  The fewer wars America and Europe are involved with together, the better. Europe has the economic and industrial capacity to defend itself, and America certainly doesn't need Europe's help with whatever new retarded military adventurism our politicians are plotting. The reason America invoked Article 5 was to give an air of international legitimacy to the invasion of Afghanistan, and if doing something like that again isn't on the table then maybe American politicians will be slightly less likely to think that a new war will pay off politically. We're both better off if Europe can comfortably cut America loose. Europe building up their domestic defense capabilities is essential for this and will bring about a greater chance for long term peace.
- snickerbockers 2y ago
  >I think Americans can thank themselves and nobody else for their people dying in wars. Okay that's a fair point, but if we've learned our lesson from Iraq, Vietnam, etc then why would we want a war in Ukraine? Ukraine's not a NATO member and we have no obligations towards them. If Ukraine is so important to the Europeans that they want to risk escalating a regional border squabble into an apocalyptic nuclear confrontation with Russia, then they need to raise an army for it. I don't particularly like the way that trump has been overtly signaling his desire to end NATO, but the NATO treaty never obligated America to defend non-members and the people who seem to think it does are as perplexing as trump himself.
radicalbyte 2y ago
The latter is true only if America take a measured, stepped approach to pulling out of Europe. Something I, as a European, have been wanting to happen since 2003. It's insane that we let the US dictate our foreign and trade policy and they only reason we do is because of German fears of rearming. Doing so rashly? That vastly increases the chances because it encourages Russia to do something in the 3-5 year timeframe.
- CapricornNoble 2y ago
  >> Doing so rashly? That vastly increases the chances because it encourages Russia to do something in the 3-5 year timeframe. Can you sit down with a map and draw out exactly *WHAT* you think Russia will be capable of doing 5 years from now? Keep in mind that: 1. We watched the best-equipped and trained brigades in Ukraine bounce off well-prepared minefields and trenchworks in summer 2023. Just like in WW1, technology is in a state where defense is easier than offense. 2. Europe has years of prep time, and unmolested industrial capacity available, to build defenses that would make the "Surovikin Line" look like a speedbump. This is why people joke about "Schrodinger's Russia": where Russia is so weak that people make fun of it for its slow progress in conquering Ukraine, yet is also so powerful that it has 500+ million Europeans shaking in their boots at the idea that Russia is gonna blitzkrieg the whole continent or something.
  - radicalbyte 2y ago
    They can build up a force capable of annexing the strip of land between Belarus and Kaliningrad. They have a large number of experience troops and a massive number of conscripts, their drone capacity currently dwarfs Europe and is expanding. They also have hundreds of thousands of experienced operators. They also have one of the most capable psyop machines in the world and a massive network of spies / 5th Column in place. They are especially strong in Eastern Europe and Germany. So there's very much a risk that they try to hybrid style "grab" there then at a time when they have sown political chaos into Europe. We can reduce the risk of we have overwhelming force available at hand - like we currently do as allies of the US - which makes any such move literal suicide as we would obliterate them. Also - now this is my viewpoint - by committing to re-arming now and providing everything we have to help Ukraine kick Russia out of their country - a full rout of the Russians - we vastly reduce the risk of anything like that ever happening again and we set the conditions for the eventual liberation of Belarus and demilitarisation and neutralisation of Kaliningrad. Basically: we get sharp fangs now so we can push the best time-line. Also: there is an unlikely but not unthinkable scenario where American, under Emperor Trump (or Musk) switch to using gunboat diplomacy and bully Europe the way the British (and other European nations) bullied others in the past. And like America itself did to its neighbours in the Victorian times. So re-arming such that we have complete independence from the US reduces their leverage. In a good timeline having both a strong Europe and strong US on the same side puts us in a very good place wrt China / India etc in the future.
pjc50 2y ago
> risk of Americans once again dying in yet another European war. How's the proposed Canada / Greenland wars fit into this? As well as ongoing support for the forever proxy war in the middle east between the US and Iran.
grey-area 2y ago
World War II was not a European war, the clue is in the name.
- navigate8310 2y ago
  I don't think third world even wanted anything to do with it.
the_duke 2y ago
That's a very narrow view on the topic. There have been many cases over the last decades where European interest and opinions have been quite different from US foreign policy pushes, but European countries almost always yielded to US pressure, partly due to the close relationship, but more so due to the de-facto dependence. If Europe becomes more self-reliant and builds up more notable and integrated military capabilities, it will also mean that the we will persue different goals and prioritise our own strategic and economic interests, which sometimes might align with the US, but plenty of times will not. It will bring about a marked decline of how much sway the US has.

mixermachine 2y ago

Is selling less product good for US defense companies?

tossandthrow 2y ago

Last time Nato's article 5 was invoked it lead to Europeans dying in US wars. We need to go back to WW2 for you comment to have any value. I think Americans can thank themselves and nobody else for their people dying in wars.

messe 2y ago
The only time Article 5 has been invoked.
0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
>Last time Nato's article 5 was invoked it lead to Europeans dying in US wars. US service members represented about 68% of the coalition deaths in Afghanistan and about 93% in Iraq: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Coalition_military_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Coa... The expectation for a European war should be similar. Europe should supply about 80% of the effort, since they're the ones directly affected. Even now, the US has supplied almost half the aid to Ukraine: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/ https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s... So the US pulling out of Europe could be considered a necessary correction to reach parity with the Iraq/Afghanistan situation. >We need to go back to WW2 for you comment to have any value. The point of having a strong military is to deter your enemies, not fight them. The US has deterred the USSR/Russia in Europe for 80 years. What did that get us? HN comments about how we've supposedly "extorted" Europe. It's really striking the amount of anti-Americanism that comes out of Europe relative to other US allies. This has been going on for years and years before Trump. There seems to be something uniquely dysfunctional about the Atlantic relationship, relative to other ally relationships the US has. >I think Americans can thank themselves and nobody else for their people dying in wars. Of course Europe's contribution to Iraq and Afghanistan should be acknowledged. Here it is on the State Dept website: https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-official-blog/9-11-2001-out-of-the-devastation-an-outpouring-of-support/ https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-offici...
- tossandthrow 2y ago
  > The point of having a strong military is to deter your enemies, not fight them. That breaks the premise for this thread which was people lost in war. > It's really striking the amount of anti-Americanism that comes out of Europe relative to other US allies. You broaden up the premise from lost casualties in war to the entire relationsship - I think that is multiple PhDs to figure out whether this is anti american or reasonable push back. I can further open this up an include obvious anti trust malpractice, cultural imperialism, etc., etc. that the US in constantly pushing on the EU (and the rest of the world). But please enlighten me on how the entire world in against the US, and how badly you are being treated - the country with the absolute biggest economic power and military power. Cry me a river.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
    >That breaks the premise for this thread which was people lost in war. lupusreal talked about the "risk of Americans once again dying in yet another European war" (emphasis mine). By making Europe part of its security umbrella, and deterring the USSR/Russia, the US shouldered that risk. It's simple. I don't want to shoulder risk for people who despise me. Every time Europeans downvote my comments in this thread, it makes me want to shoulder risk for them less and less. And I'm a registered Democrat. >You broaden up the premise from lost casualties in war to the entire relationsship - I think that is multiple PhDs to figure out whether this is anti american or reasonable push back. I'm trying to tell you, as a European, why Americans like me aren't enthusiastic about the alliance. What you do with that information is your business. I think some pushback on the issue of Greenland is perfectly justified. That represents actual aggressive behavior on the part of the US. And I think it's fair to complain about the US voting with Russia at the United Nations. We could at least abstain from voting, like China. What I don't like is the notion that the US has a special obligation to protect Ukraine. * Everywhere on the internet, you'll see the "fact" that the US promised to protect Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. That "fact" is false. All we promised was to seek UN Security Council action. Read the memorandum for yourself if you don't believe me: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P... * There are ongoing armed conflicts all over the world. The US can't police everywhere. And it's psychologically unsustainable to do volunteer police work when people despise you for it. Given our limited resources, we need to prioritize. We might as well de-prioritize the interests of relatively wealthy countries, such as Europe, since those countries should be better able to provide for themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict... >obvious anti trust malpractice You're saying that you don't like how antitrust is practiced in the US? Why is that any of your business? The US is a sovereign country. If you're going to complain about Elon Musk commenting on German elections, why is it your place to complain about how antitrust law works in the US? For many years, Europeans have had absolutely no inhibitions in expressing their contempt for US policies in guns, healthcare, etc. Yet somehow when Americans do the same, and comment on European policies regarding e.g. immigration, Europeans flip out. >cultural imperialism So Europeans, of their own free will, like American music and movies. This is supposed to represent the US oppressing Europe somehow? I think these two complaints of yours actually underscore my point about European anti-Americanism. I can't imagine a Japanese person complaining that they are oppressed due to the way antitrust is practiced in the US, or that they are oppressed because so many Japanese like to watch American movies. Out of all our "allies", it's only Europeans who are in the habit of complaining about stuff like this. >the country with the absolute biggest economic power and military power. I think life is generally pretty good for Americans, and we don't have a lot to complain about. But we do have limited resources, and we can't help everyone. And it's very annoying to read all of the anti-Americanism online, even for situations where we tried to do our best, and even when we're arguably one of the most benevolent superpowers in world history. At a certain point I just don't want to be involved anymore.
lupusreal 2y ago
The fewer wars America and Europe are involved with together, the better. Europe has the economic and industrial capacity to defend itself, and America certainly doesn't need Europe's help with whatever new retarded military adventurism our politicians are plotting. The reason America invoked Article 5 was to give an air of international legitimacy to the invasion of Afghanistan, and if doing something like that again isn't on the table then maybe American politicians will be slightly less likely to think that a new war will pay off politically. We're both better off if Europe can comfortably cut America loose. Europe building up their domestic defense capabilities is essential for this and will bring about a greater chance for long term peace.
snickerbockers 2y ago
>I think Americans can thank themselves and nobody else for their people dying in wars. Okay that's a fair point, but if we've learned our lesson from Iraq, Vietnam, etc then why would we want a war in Ukraine? Ukraine's not a NATO member and we have no obligations towards them. If Ukraine is so important to the Europeans that they want to risk escalating a regional border squabble into an apocalyptic nuclear confrontation with Russia, then they need to raise an army for it. I don't particularly like the way that trump has been overtly signaling his desire to end NATO, but the NATO treaty never obligated America to defend non-members and the people who seem to think it does are as perplexing as trump himself.

radicalbyte 2y ago

The latter is true only if America take a measured, stepped approach to pulling out of Europe. Something I, as a European, have been wanting to happen since 2003. It's insane that we let the US dictate our foreign and trade policy and they only reason we do is because of German fears of rearming. Doing so rashly? That vastly increases the chances because it encourages Russia to do something in the 3-5 year timeframe.

CapricornNoble 2y ago
>> Doing so rashly? That vastly increases the chances because it encourages Russia to do something in the 3-5 year timeframe. Can you sit down with a map and draw out exactly *WHAT* you think Russia will be capable of doing 5 years from now? Keep in mind that: 1. We watched the best-equipped and trained brigades in Ukraine bounce off well-prepared minefields and trenchworks in summer 2023. Just like in WW1, technology is in a state where defense is easier than offense. 2. Europe has years of prep time, and unmolested industrial capacity available, to build defenses that would make the "Surovikin Line" look like a speedbump. This is why people joke about "Schrodinger's Russia": where Russia is so weak that people make fun of it for its slow progress in conquering Ukraine, yet is also so powerful that it has 500+ million Europeans shaking in their boots at the idea that Russia is gonna blitzkrieg the whole continent or something.
- radicalbyte 2y ago
  They can build up a force capable of annexing the strip of land between Belarus and Kaliningrad. They have a large number of experience troops and a massive number of conscripts, their drone capacity currently dwarfs Europe and is expanding. They also have hundreds of thousands of experienced operators. They also have one of the most capable psyop machines in the world and a massive network of spies / 5th Column in place. They are especially strong in Eastern Europe and Germany. So there's very much a risk that they try to hybrid style "grab" there then at a time when they have sown political chaos into Europe. We can reduce the risk of we have overwhelming force available at hand - like we currently do as allies of the US - which makes any such move literal suicide as we would obliterate them. Also - now this is my viewpoint - by committing to re-arming now and providing everything we have to help Ukraine kick Russia out of their country - a full rout of the Russians - we vastly reduce the risk of anything like that ever happening again and we set the conditions for the eventual liberation of Belarus and demilitarisation and neutralisation of Kaliningrad. Basically: we get sharp fangs now so we can push the best time-line. Also: there is an unlikely but not unthinkable scenario where American, under Emperor Trump (or Musk) switch to using gunboat diplomacy and bully Europe the way the British (and other European nations) bullied others in the past. And like America itself did to its neighbours in the Victorian times. So re-arming such that we have complete independence from the US reduces their leverage. In a good timeline having both a strong Europe and strong US on the same side puts us in a very good place wrt China / India etc in the future.

pjc50 2y ago

> risk of Americans once again dying in yet another European war. How's the proposed Canada / Greenland wars fit into this? As well as ongoing support for the forever proxy war in the middle east between the US and Iran.

grey-area 2y ago

World War II was not a European war, the clue is in the name.

navigate8310 2y ago
I don't think third world even wanted anything to do with it.

the_duke 2y ago

That's a very narrow view on the topic. There have been many cases over the last decades where European interest and opinions have been quite different from US foreign policy pushes, but European countries almost always yielded to US pressure, partly due to the close relationship, but more so due to the de-facto dependence. If Europe becomes more self-reliant and builds up more notable and integrated military capabilities, it will also mean that the we will persue different goals and prioritise our own strategic and economic interests, which sometimes might align with the US, but plenty of times will not. It will bring about a marked decline of how much sway the US has.