I assume Trump will isolate USA, and probably pull out of NATO, so, how strong is NATO vs for instance russia without USA? There are a few Nuclear weaponed nations even without USA in NATO. But in general, surely France, Germany, UK and others are pretty poweful military nations, no? Scandinavia, where i am based, have stepped up their game, as well as the Baltic states. Poland is no picknic either.
So what are yor assessments of the strenght of NATO without the US of A?
Oh btw, china has now taken over the role as the great russian bear, although they would be the great chinese panda. But NATO is a North Atlantic alliance, so we really dont have a bamboo stick in this particular conflict.
Definitely not Germany; see e.g. here. It has a sizeable arms industry, but its own armed forces are not at all in a good state.
As for France and the UK, they’re nuclear weapons states and have some power projection capabilities, but nowhere even remotely near the United States. By way of comparison, the US spends more money on defence than the next nine countries combined.
I don’t think NATO without the US is as mismatched against Russia as you might think. Sure, Russia has far more strategic nuclear weapons than NATO without the US, but as we have seen in Ukraine, Russia doesn’t have the greatest army on the planet by a long shot, and I really don’t think Russia is seeking another world war since that would be suicidal.
I believe Russia will continue to try to incrementally rebuild the Russian Empire and any non-NATO formerly Russian country near them should be very concerned. Whether NATO without the US would be willing to try and stop Russian expansion is the big question. Only time will tell.
Someone said in jest, some time, that russia used to have the second strongest Army in the world, now they have the second strongest army in Ukraine. Fun “fact”
There was a news item on Russia raiding Moscow nightclubs to round up draft dodgers. Other stories have said that Russian army recruiters resort to nasty tactics to snare recruits and make quota. One story told of a person who had an expemtion. He was told to come into the recruiting station to get his exemption papers renewed - when he showed up, he was immediately sent to boot camp. Another article was on “deathonomics”. Apparently signing bonuses, war pay supplements and especially death payments to recruits’ families are creating a mini-boom in some remote towns, where many of the recruits come from.
The point being, Russia is struggling to find enough people just for a war in Ukraine… not to mention tanks, aircraft, etc. Apparently they’ve given up trying to enforce control of the Black Sea, too dangerous for their navy. I would have trouble imagining them thinking they could sustain 2 or 3 fronts against Euro-NATO forces. Even Byelorussia has steered clear of participating. The US and NATO have limited what Ukraine can do with the weapons they’ve been given. It’s hard to imagine what happens if the gloves come off completely.
The thing with nuclear weapons is you don’t actually need a strategic arsenal as bloated and large as the US or Russia currently have or the US and USSR had during the Cold War. Both the UK and France each have strategic arsenals more than sufficiently large enough to end Russia as a functioning country.
As for conventional forces, Poland in particular has taken the Russian threat very seriously since the invasion of Ukraine. They are doubling the size of their army:
Prompted in part by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Homeland Defence Act was unanimously passed by the Polish parliament on March 17, 2022 and signed into law by President Duda the following day. In accordance with the act, Poland intends to roughly double the size of the armed forces to 300,000 personnel, and to spend at least 3% of GDP on defence budget in 2023.[14] This includes increasing the size of the tank fleet by adding approximately 1,000 new tanks and adding 600 new howitzers to Poland’s ground forces.[15] Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said that it is Poland’s goal to build the most powerful ground forces of all the North Atlantic Treaty Organization members in Europe.
And those equipment orders with South Korea are the largest export orders South Korea has ever made and includes both technology transfer to Poland and the building of local production facilities in Poland to build the majority of them, which makes it a win-win for Poland and South Korea. Poland gets both the technology transfer and local production that would be much harder if not impossible to get from other suppliers like Germany, and South Korea both gets a huge sale and opens the market to other European countries to buy South Korean military hardware with both local production and logistical support.
Warsaw and Seoul close to deal on producing K2 tanks in Poland, Duda says | Reuters
Also, consider the kinds of headaches the 40 HIMARS launchers have been giving Russia in Ukraine. Poland is buying 486 of them to augment the 20 it already has.
Does Europe wish to go projecting anywhere overseas? Britain went to the Falklands alone and Europeans went to Iraq and Afghanistan with a bit of cajoling from the US. So there are savings to be had in carriers and troop carriers for a start.
France has a history of military interventions in its former colonies in Africa when there’s domestic trouble there; but this is typically against militia-type adversaries rather than a technologically advanced force.
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This thread is inherently speculation, and so IMHO is the proper forum, not FQ.
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It’s worth remembering that part of the reason why most of NATO has weak militaries is because they’ve gotten used to the US having a strong military. If we pull back from NATO, they have the capacity to increase their militaries.
So the capacity is there, but not necessarily used. Im mostly wondering about the shape of NATO today, without usa
The strength of Russia is the flip side of this question and also has to be considered. Most of the sites that list the military strength of the world powers still have Russia in second place, followed by China and then some combination of India, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, and the UK. My guess is that China and India are actually stronger than Russia, which would put Russia in the ranks of middle sized nations like South Korea, Turkey, and the UK. That means that Russia would still have at least two near peers in NATO (the UK and Turkey), and several others just a notch below that. Add in having to defend so many directions (potential fronts in the Arctic, the Russian far east, the Baltics, the Caucasuses, along with the main front presumably on the Polish / Ukrainian border in the worst case or on the actual current front line in the best case), and I don’t see how Russia could last more than a year. Assuming we don’t consider nukes.
I suspect that Russia has an almost unique military asset that can’t be replicated in western countries. A demonstrated ability for its society and government to tolerate huge casualties and keep fighting. This a a capability that no western nations have been able to demonstrate (and fortunately haven’t had to) for a very long time. As America’s wars have shown, a viable strategic tactic is simply not give up. Eventually the other side gets tired and stops. Russia, and I suspect China, can do that better than anyone else. So yes, Europe has a relatively strong military even without the US, but Russia has some key assets that need to be considered. Ukraine is a good example. Now that the US is going to throw them under the bus for no reason, Russia is going to win by losing.
Sure, but Russia’s population has been shrinking, even before the invasion of Ukraine.
So there is a limit.
Obviously the USA is the 800lb gorilla of NATO.
But I think the Europeans are nothing to sneeze at. They are advanced industrial nations. They design and build their own main battle tanks and jet fighters, warships, and other weapons systems. They also buy our stuff too, but they can make their own.
If the function of NATO is to protect Europe from the Soviet Union or now Russia, then I am confident they will be still be able to do so.
Ukraine was not a significant military power and they at least stopped Russia. They had a little help from NATO and other allies with arms, but we aren’t giving them the best stuff.
If the USA were to disappear from NATO, the European military industrial complex, which does exist, might need step it up a bunch.
I should be clear that I believe the NATO alliance (with the USA) is a vital force for democracy and the USA’s vital national interest. Trump is an idiot.
Sure, but is that NATO anymore? Countries that don’t even come close to the Atlantic or even border the Baltic Sea are in NATO. It is clearly and definitely us (whomever us is) vs Russia (plus I suppose Belarus.). There are a lot of ethnic Russians in the three Baltic states for whom Putin can make the same kind of argument that he is liberating them.
I do not believe NATO Article 5 will stand up. I doubt Putin is keyed with any of his generals yet if anyone is going to “test” Article 5 it is he.
I’m assuming NATO stays unified after the 800lb gorilla leaves the alliance.
In which case my previous post is still true.
But you do bring up a good point. Will NATO still be unified in the defense of Europe without the 800lb gorilla behind them? It is easier to tell the bully you’re not taking his shit anymore when your older brother is standing behind you.
But does The UK, Belgium, Italy, and Finland really want to go to war over the Russian invasion of Albania? (I randomly chose those countries)
Traditionally the USA is the one that tells Russians they ain’t invading shit.
Is the European Union capable of forming its own military alliance? Yes it is.
But they can’t even agree what side of the road to drive on. And they’ve being going to war with each other for like a 1000 years.
Hungary, Slovakia and (depending on elections) Romania seem more likely weak points in a scenario like that.
But, say, the 800lb gorilla flees into the jungle and stays there, with Trump being the great silverback gorilla… Could Europe find new strong NATO allies to invite into the club. Are there any countries waiting in the wings? Perhaps countries that are concerned about russia, and still willing to go against trumps (if we imagine) wishes?
(Ukraine not possible candidate atm)