The war in Ukraine didn’t start this year, it didn’t start the previous year, but all the way in early 2022, a month and a half after 2021 ended, so in term of politics and news, it’s nothing new.
In early 2022. Russia controlled at least a third of territories more than now, including cities in Kiev’s metro area like Gostomel, they were in the suburbs of Kharkov and had entire Kherson and its surroundings, yet now they don’t have anything from that and nowadays taking a 2014-2022 frontline place like Avdeevka is “big news”, larger cities in the area like Slovyansk and Kramatorsk at this pace seem like they won’t be contested in at least months and something like the early 2022 areas in northern Ukraine and Kharkov are a pipe dream.
…yet the French, German and Scandinavian politicians are acting like a war is imminent in the way didn’t act when Russians were literally miles away from Kiev, as if a country that is struggling against 500.000 non-NATO soldiers for a piece of land that it wants to turn into a buffer zone like prior to 2014, somehow has a reason to fight against an entire continent in which each large country has a larger military budget, where there are no Russians, no pro-Russian Ukrainians or others.
It sounds like a scenario of a c*appy cold war movie or Call of Duty mission, so what is the point? Maybe some sort of a bluff of raising stakes in order to compensate for the billions of supplies to Kiev that are having a greater impact?
Could it be that, “back then,” they all assumed that whoever the President of the USA was at the time would send in troops to stem any invasion, but in light of Trump’s “if they don’t pay their way, then they don’t want us there that badly” stance, they feel that it could send a message to Putin that the door to western Europe may be slightly open now?
I think its as much to do with how the Ukraine war turned out, as much as the actual Russian invasion itself.
Plenty of people in charge of military planning in western nations (and on this message board) believed that kind of war was a thing of the past. Two modern industrial European nations getting into a conventional land conflict with large armored militaries, ending up as a slow war of attrition, Where the ultimate winner is likely the one who is willing to come with enough trained manpower and war material to keep feeding into the “meat grinder”.
That is the “holy crap!” moment for European militaries that have been built, since the cold war, on the assumptionthat this kind of conflict was a thing of the past. Its taken a while for it to be clear that’s the kind of conflict it actually is, and longer for that message to sink in
That is also part of it definitely. This was also the assumption of 80 years of european military planning that Trump just tore up in a single sound bite (I mean there were plenty of other things he did to cast that into doubt but that soundbite was one of the more blatant ones)
Speaking as a resident of Europe, I can confirm that the perception that the USA is about to lose either its nerve or its damn-fool mind is a major contributor to our current political escalation.
The Russian bear is rabid and frothing, and ain’t nobody gonna save us but ourselves.
Quite frankly, Europeans should have been worried about Russia for quite a while now. I imagine a presidential candidate and major party seemingly cozying up to Russia and throwing shade at NATO has got them a bit nervous as well.
Europeans are awakening to the fact that Trump and his pro-Russian/anti-NATO views were not a one-off anomaly, but rather a now deeply-entrenched feature of the American political system. Even with a pro-NATO President in the White House, MAGA Republicans can and will hinder American security assistance to Europe through control of one or both chambers of Congress, anti-majoritarian maneuvers like the filibuster, or control of the courts.
The message to NATO allies isn’t necessarily “you’re on your own,” but that they may be at any given time depending on how the political winds are blowing in America.
I really hate the fact that this bastard, who is not an elected official anymore nor even a member of an established government anywhere, can make one stupid off hand remark in public and effect change on the world stage in any meaningful way. The world is not supposed to work this way.
I am 100% opposed to Trump and his remarks, but if it weren’t for his statement, I don’t think NATO-Europe would have started getting riled up the way they should. Someone like Biden, making the usual remarks about “We are committed to NATO’s defense” would have just kept Europe in its usual slumber, taking American participation for granted. It’s like there is no way to make statements about the US being committed and see Europe arming and mobilizing properly at the same time.
Because Ukraine might lose. The worst scenario from 2022 was that Russia would overrun Ukraine and then invade Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania triggering a war against NATO which would result in a nuclear war. The next worse scenario was that the Baltic invasion would happen, but NATO countries would refuse to respond to the invasion, effectively ending NATO. The Ukraine/Russia war is at a stalemate, but Russia seems to have the advantage at the moment and has far more domestic resources than Ukraine. Ukraine’s future war effort depends on Western supply which isn’t certain and is based on external politics, especially in the US. The Ukraine/Russia war stalemate seems to be the most likely future, but is not guaranteed. If a Russia breakthrough happens and Russian forces are able to seize Ukraine, then the same worst case scenarios from 2022 are relevant.
Yeah, as much as I hate to say it, Trump’s commentary was the best thing for European defense that the US could have done.
Otherwise as you say, they’d have continued to just assume that if something happened, the US would shoulder the bulk of the task until they could get their act together, or the whole thing was over. I believe this to be true, even in light of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
I imagine the specter of potentially not having Uncle Sam at your back makes you really nervous with an aggressive Russia nearby.
Whether you are aware of it or not, you are buying into TFGs lies and tripe about NATO ‘not paying its share/enjoying a free ride off the US taxpayer/etc.’ bullshit by repeating this. NATOs defense spending hasn’t suddenly shot up since TFGs remarks. It shot up after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The six highest contributors of arms to Ukraine by percentage of their GDP are the Baltic states, the Czech and Slovak republics and Poland. The first to supply a number of key weapons system types to Ukraine - tanks, long range missiles, anti-ship missiles, fighter aircraft, and naval drones for example - have been European countries, not the United States. Poland is doubling the size of its army because of the Russian invasion. Estonia gave its entire artillery park of NATO standard 155mm pieces to Ukraine in January 2023.
"We are giving all of our 155mm howitzers to Ukraine and we want to set a precedent in this way so that other countries don’t have excuses why they can’t give Ukraine the weapons to win the war,” Estonian Ambassador to Ukraine Kaimo Kuusk said.
And while Western Europe may have ignored the potential of a Russian threat for the past two decades, Eastern European NATO nations that were former unwilling parts of either the USSR or the Warsaw Pact have been warning about it this entire time. That’s exactly why Eastern Europe wanted into NATO as soon as possible in the first place.
As always, Perun has covered the topic of NATO rearmament as a result of the Russian invasion both as a whole and by some individual nations giving in depth analysis of what NATO countries have done since the invasion, issues encountered in doing so, and means they’ve taken to get around said issues.
The Eastern flank of NATO, of course, has been taking defense seriously - no issue there. It’s the Western half, as mentioned, that is the issue. Poland and the Baltics doing a fine job doesn’t get the slackers off the hook.
It wasn’t just Trump who was making such criticism of NATO, either - plenty of Democrats and Republicans alike - of all stripes - have said the same thing.
And they’d be equally as full of shit as TFG, and you are again repeating his BS in describing Western Europe as ‘slackers’. I’m assuming you didn’t just watch 4 hours of video in 4 minutes to see what Western Europe has actually been doing in terms of defense spending rather than relying on sound bites coming from TFG. And again, these ‘slackers’ have been the first one to provide weapons systems to Ukraine that the United States wouldn’t provide first until Western European countries provided them leaving the US with no excuse for refusing to supply them - and in many cases has provided very limited supply in comparison to what is available, both as a whole and in comparison to the amount Western European nations have provided relative to what they have on hand.
There is a sense that Ukraine is starting to lose this war, instead of, at worst, holding its own. And that plenty of Americans dont care, very much, they are done caring. The media circus has moved on to the Next Big Thing. Europe has neither the means, or in some cases the will, to do what it takes to turn this around.
Germany have barely been scratching the surface of what they could/would do. They’re still holding up shipments of Taurus missiles, they dragged feet on delivering Leopard tanks and other systems.
For better or worse Germany is seen as the anchor of NATO/EU, and its muscle was US bases deployed there in the Cold War. Germany hasn’t replaced that muscle. They’re not well-remilitarized (which historically is a good thing, German militarization was problematic at times in the 20th century).
Germany has to wake up and start anchoring German defense. That’s all there is to it.
The less said about fascist-adjacent footdraggers like Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Slovakia, the better. These are never doing to get on board. Hungary and Slovakia might outright backstab NATO if they had the chance.
Plus, Putin has been making noises about taking back parts of Poland and the Baltics.
That’s why Western Europeans are suddenly riled up. They realize that Putin’s adventures won’t stop in Ukraine if he’s successful. They realize there’s a good chance America won’t foot the bill for that, until Putin’s forces have occupied Poland and are raining artillery on Berlin.
This is all very uncomfortable to see. It’s a dangerous game America is playing here. But the fact is that in 5-10 years, Russia may re-arm and march toward the Rhine. If the rest of NATO isn’t prepared for that, they cannot supply-and-logistic their way to victory even with a fully functioning American “arsenal of democracy”. Their industry must be mobilized, their military must be trained and ramped. It has to start with Germany. Maybe putting the fear of god into Germany, via letting Ukraine struggle, is the only way Germany gets off its ass and assumes its proper place in this European conflict.
I’d strongly suggest giving the linked Perun video Germany, rearmament, and Ukraine - “Why 100 billion Euro may not fix the German military” for a look at the problems Germany is actually facing with rearmament. Note that the decision to spend an additional 100 million Euros on defense occurred right after the Russian invasion, TFGs recent rhetoric had nothing to do with the decision. I don’t disagree that Germany has dragged its feet more than it should have, particularly early in the war, but anything that can be said of Germany can be said about the US as well, and usually to a greater extent. The US dragged its feet on supplying ATACMS until long after France and the UK stepped up and supplied Storm Shadow/SCALP. The US was the last of the NATO powers to supply Western tanks to Ukraine, which are only just now showing up on the front lines. The numbers of Abrams the US have supplied is incredibly paltry both in absolute numbers (31 publicly announced) and in terms of what the US could supply. The US still has over 6,200 M1 Abrams on hand, including storage. Germany only has 601 Leopards, again including storage; Germany sold off most of its Leopard 2s in the decades after the Cold War ended. By comparison, over 120 Leopard 2s have publicly been delivered to Ukraine and have been on the front lines since last summer.
Just throwing money at the problem, even 100 million Euros worth, isn’t going to rapidly transform the Bundeswehr back into the backbone of NATO defense like it was at the height of the Cold War. It’s going to take many years for that to happen.
Putin has been making absurd noises threatening NATO since the war started. Remember the threats to sink the UK in a nuclear tsunami? Western Europe hasn’t suddenly become riled up. It became riled up over two years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine. And lest you forget, the ultimate deterrent to any nascent Russian threat that being a member of NATO supplies is the fact that NATO has nuclear arsenals capable of making every major city in Russia glow in the dark. Two thirds of those nations with said nuclear arsenals aren’t the United States and have been at the forefront of supplying Ukraine with weapons from the start of the invasion.
You won’t get any disagreement from me that more both should be done to arm Ukraine and should already have been done earlier. Placing the blame on Western Europe ‘slacking’ when the facts of the matter are that Western Europe has been at the forefront of delivering ‘escalatory’ weapons to Ukraine ahead of the US, however, is patently absurd.
Yes, and the point is that it’s not clear Germany intends to do so.
Hard disagree. Yes, initially Putin made some wild nuclear threats. He was talking about punishing meddlers. Nuclear threats are anxiety-inducing, but can be shrugged off as unrealistic due to mutual destruction. What Putin is now talking about - marching on Poland and the Baltics as he’s done in Ukraine - is plausible, especially if the US can’t sustain its contributions. This is the new threat that Europe is beginning to wake up to, something different than threatening to drop Kinzhals on London.
Europe has been first on a couple of things, but it’s only after interminable hemming and hawing and insisting they’ll only do things after the US does. There are a couple of take-no-shit countries like the UK and Sweden and the Netherlands who have grudges. But France and Germany have been a lot more equivocal up until now, they’re waking up to the fact that Putin could be pushing toward the Rhine in 5-10 years if they don’t mount a credible defense.
The amount of money they have already earmarked for additional military expenditures two years ago suggests otherwise, but either way bringing back a Bundeswehr with a standing army of 3 corps of 12 divisions with over 500,000 active-duty personnel ala the 1980s is impractical, unrealistic, unneeded and would take a decade or more to do. An overall increase in defense spending and capabilities, however, is already happening and is being paid for. You haven’t made them, but allegations that Western Europe are ‘slackers’ are absurd.
We’ll have to hard disagree with each other. The Russian military is by far weaker today than it was 2 years ago, and only part of that is the revelation of just how shit the Russian military actually was compared to how it presented itself to the outside world. NATO on the other hand is stronger, inverting the alleged ‘logic’ of Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine to ‘protect’ Russia from NATO. It has gained two new members with powerful militaries, increased defense spending, and forward deployed to nations bordering Russia. Any threat to NATO countries posed by Russia is now unlike prior to the invasion lacking in all credibility. Prior to the invasion one could pontificate if the rest of NATO would actually go to war over Latvia or Estonia. Now that NATO has forward deployed forces to those countries one doesn’t have to look hard for the answer.
The idea that Russia could be able to successfully invade Poland in 5-10 years, much less push to the Rhine is absurd. They have been bleeding out their stocks of leftover Soviet hardware in Ukraine at an unsustainable rate. Satellite imagery of Russian tank and artillery depots over the past two years show them shrinking drastically in size. Artillery, especially, is being cannibalized for parts, namely the barrels. Even ignoring the documented losses of artillery pieces, the number of barrels that have been worn out during two years of firing is extremely high.
The hemming and hawing on being the first to provide ‘escalatory’ aid to Ukraine is largely a German thing and due to historical issues, not a Western European thing as a whole, and the other nation hemming and hawing about providing ‘escalatory’ aid has been the US. Again, while the US kept dragging its heels on ATACMS, France and the UK were providing Storm Shadow/SCALP. Many Western European countries were offering to send their F-16s long before the US gave its approval on it, without which the transfer could not happen. The US was the last on the boat to agree to deliver Western tanks.
It’s not about how much various countries are sending to Ukraine, it’s about the vast majority of NATO countries refusing to spend the amount they’re required to on defence and relying on the US to make up the difference. Even with the increases due to the Russian threat, only half of NATO countries are expected to reach 2% of GDP on defence this year. And that’s countries reaching the minimum, not actually responding to the increased threat.