With hindsight, this was extremely important. Without France's nuclear energy and arms, Europe would be in a very very bad position right now.
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1j46edt/we_are_figh...
Unfortunately, our competent leadership was gradually replaced with charlatans and imposters and we are now in a terrible situation.
If there were a shortage, it's no problem to pay even 5x more. Then you'll see suppliers pop up everywhere.
So I would not take theories for granted, even if they make sense.
https://english.radio.cz/czech-radioactive-dillema-8109837 https://www.suro.cz/files/2021-03/Uranium%20mining%20history...
I guess lots of this could be restarted if there is demand ?
France has more of 10y of Uranium stockpile for it's own consumption.
But that doesn't need to be an issue imho. Decentralized systems are generally messier but also more resilient than centralized ones. If this situation leads to an arms race of individual countries, the outcome may well be that the combined total force is the strongest on the planet. The question is whether they're willing to go there. They would have the engineering and industrial footprint, but they would completely need to change their political DNA. Avoiding armament of European nations is literally the EU's original raison d'être. On a more practical level, they would need to ditch the Maastricht rules on fiscal discipline, something that is also deeply enshrined in the EU's institutional mindset, as well as its laws. Or they would need to issue collective debt, but that runs against the political DNA of some member states. Everything is doable, the question is whether the sense of urgency is strong enough. Given how keen European leaders currently are to let everyone who wasn't asking know that they're helpless without the US, it seems that there's still a long way to go.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we...
I think this has been suggested by Ursula von der Leyen. Europe has to get united and get to the point where it can defend itself. The US has definitely proven that they are unreliable, so it has to be done. But it will take some time, and in the meantime Europe has to rely on the US. If not as allies, then as partners.
The US have been threatening to become enemies, but that's not (yet) the case, which is why the EU is still considering relying on a partner.
One of them is a proposal to suspend strict budget rules to allow member states to ramp up "their defence expenditures without triggering the excessive deficit procedure," Von der Leyen said.[1]"
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/eus-von-der-leyen-proposes-800-billion...
The UK does have a nuclear arsenal, but it's essentially leased from the US.
It's quite similar actually to Germany's dependence on Russian gas. It was all self inflicted (nobody seem to remember the corrupt German politicians, that all went to work for Gazprom and co...).
I share the scepticism that the UK can fire these independently. But then, from a purely technical PoV, you'd imagine these missiles can be fired:
- from underwater, away from radio reception
- as a second strike weapon, i.e. with command centres destroyed
So here's the dichotomy. If these assumptions hold, then the UK must be able to fire the missiles independently - they seem to work offline. And if they don't, then they are even more useless than I thought. Essentially they would only be good for a first strike, approved by the US, or second strike in a sub-global conflict, not even for a NATO-wide defence in an all-out war.
I can't see a third way. Maybe US satellites which would diffuse a Trident in-flight if the US says so?
I could see them having some sort of DRM "license key" that only gives, say, a 90 day window before it has to be renewed for the missiles to function.
If they can't independently maintain the weapons, it ceases to be true beyond the short term, though.
OTOH, my understanding is that that is not a problem for the UK; they don't “essentially lease” their arsenal from the US; they use domestically developed and maintained warheads on purchased-from-the-US but locally-maintained Trident missiles carried by UK-built-and-maintained subs.
They might have some uphill work if they wanted major delivery system upgrades, but their existing arsenal is, AFAIK, functionally independent of an ongoing dependence on the US.
The Haudenosaunee a/k/a Iroquois had a unique confederacy consisting of two dominant and a few lesser powers [1][2]. And the Roman Republic had two consuls, including on campaign. Maybe a nuclear command inspired by both is the answer: any launch requires codes from each of Paris, Berlin and the head of state of the country actually launching.
(Practically, the Germans are sort of irrelevant given they not only have no nuclear weapons, they’re also dismantling their civil nuclear expertise. I’m assuming they grow up and reärm. Otherwise, centralising nuclear power in Paris doesn’t depend on Germany agreement.)
At the end of the day there is no EU without Germany, and as we've seen with Ukraine, waging a war without funds is like trying to breathe in a vacuum.
For nuclear purposes Germany is irrelevant. For martial purposes, it’s a distant second to France.
It obviously should be part of mutual-defence discussions. But it doesn’t need to be and doesn’t bring that much to the table in the short term. (Absent a hypothetical land war.)
Russia was on the ropes in many ways because of the cost of the war they're waging, while Ukraine was in a stronger position because of aid and promises of future rebuilding investment. If push comes to shove and there's a European conflict, Germany has a (horrifically) proven track record of war production.
I'm also baffled by the claim that Germany is a distant second to France in terms of military. Germany doesn't have any need for a carrier because they don't have colonies/former colonies they want to "work with". Germany does however spend more than twice what France does on their military budget, although in GDP terms France spends more... alas France has a much smaller GDP. Germany has a slightly smaller military force, but only about 19k or so.
Within the context of the French nuclear umbrella there are two questions: strategic nuclear deterrence and everything else. Germany is useless for the former. It's important, but not critical, for the latter.
> baffled by the claim that Germany is a distant second to France in terms of military
Their force projection is limited. They're absolutely going to strengthen any alliance they join. But outside a conventional proxy war of attrition with the U.S. or China, they're not strictly necessary. (And could be a net negative due to their politics.)
> The modern world is a place where nuclear-armed great powers, led by authoritarian leaders, often feel the impulse to bully smaller nations. If those smaller nations lack nuclear weapons, they lie prostrate and vulnerable at the feet of the bullies. But if they have nukes, they are much harder to push around. This doesn’t mean they’re impervious to attack — Israel has been struck by Iran and its proxies — but having nukes dramatically improves a small country’s security.
* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/japan-south-korea-and-poland-n...
And the proof is in the pudding, during these 75 years not a single bomb exploded with intent to kill. The forecast for the next 75 years surely is more dire.
Seriously, if someone decides to nuke the US, where would they start? Almost certainly Washington DC and NYC. The US is too big to bomb in its entirety.
Maybe I should move to Boise, Idaho or something. I don't think they're going to get bombed, and it seems nice.
> The US is too big to bomb in its entirety.
Russia has ~5500 warheads, so maybe not every square inch but certainly several cities and other locations in each state.
First, nuclear forces: ICBM and IRBM silos and their C2, nuclear weapons storage, strategic airfields and ballistic-missile submarine bases. (This is why nuclear arsenals escalate against each other. The defensive role of missile silos is both deference and to soak up the enemy’s nukes.)
Second, leadership: command posts and communication.
Third, other military: barracks, supply depots, marshalling points, airfields, ammunition storage, tank and vehicle storage.
Fourth, military industry: ammo, tank, APC factories; refineries; railyards and repair facilities. Steel, aluminum and power generation.
Fifth, population centres. (You don’t want to nuke New York if that could have taken out a silo that will flatten a dozen of your cities.)
In summary, somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere :).
So, attacking them just means they launch everything at you while also wasting your nukes.
Nuking full siloes is the point of a first strike. So yes, you’re relatively safe near a silo field if America is launching first and the adversary assumes or knows that every silo launched perfectly.
I’m not saying nobody would ever target a missile silo, just that they aren’t particularly high on this list of targets.
The target list is obviously conditional on a nuclear war happening. Unless your position is the U.S. is invulnerable to a first strike, then the silos should stay at the top of the list. (Even in a second strike you hit them and hit them fast. If there was a launch error you get a tremendous defensive ROI in taking them out.)
Even France and the UK has 4 nuclear subs, the US has what 14 ballistic missile submarines?
That’s incoherent with this thread, which started with someone asking what would happen “if someone decides to nuke the US.” Not if France launched a suicidal first strike on America.
The realistic scenarios for America getting nuked are a first strike from a rogue state, first strike from Russia or China, and second strike from Russia or China.
First strike from a rogue state is basically nuclear terrorism; it will probably target a population centre or something close and hittable, e.g. Guam for Pyongyang. First strikes from Russia or China would target silos. (Unless theatre-based, e.g. hitting Guam and our Japanese airbases ahead of an invasion of Taiwan.) Second strike would mean silos are probably empty, though not necessarily, these are hundreds of decades-old mechanisms in who knows what condition of readiness, but sure, if the American first strike is comprehensive and flawless, and the enemy omnipotent, we’d probably not see too many nukes go at silos. (You would at other nuclear infrastructure.)
So in general, no, if we’re in wide-scale nuclear war the planners who thought about this for decades in the Cold War may not have missed that launched tubes that have launched are now empty.
Obviously by definition someone can attack first, however:
“First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_strike_(nuclear_strategy...
So yes in theory sure a first strike would take out nuclear silos, but neither side believed they could preform a successful first strike. It’s a theoretical goal, not something that seems to have been possible barring the very early days of the Cold War before ICBM’s existed.
Which then brings up the question of what exactly you target if you assume thousands of nukes will hit you regardless of what you aim for.
By useful I mean you can do significantly better than saying if it’s targeting the middle of the US, east, or west coast. Though it’s quite a large area.
If you’re doing a first strike and aren’t a moron, you conventionally strike the early-warning radars first. Ideally in a plausibly-deniable way.
There’s no plausibility deniable way to take these systems down in practice.
Grim times ahead for sure but i'm not that stressed considering that something like 70% of russia's population is in the west of the country, very, very close to europe
He's already talked about invading Greenland, what's to stop him from trying to invade somewhere else, somewhere with more firepower to fight back? All it would take is Fox News or OAN to start running stories about how the US is actually entitled to the land of France. It's not like it matters if there's any truth to it.
Is it? I mean I don't think they could legally refuse (if use of force was authorized by the president and congress)? So it would still effectively be a military "coup" and those can obviously still happen in authoritarian countries.
There's a handy map in this article:
* https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/who-would-take-th...
* https://www.newsweek.com/safest-us-states-nuclear-war-attack...
In the US, the west coast and Florida seem to be the best candidates from fallout. See also perhaps:
* https://www.mirasafety.com/blogs/news/nuclear-attack-map
* https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/yc0ho2/us_cities_a...
It's a 7700nmi trip:
* http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?MS=wls&DU=nm&P=KJFK-NZAA
Not many private jets (or even commercial ones) can do non-stop:
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...
I'm a non-believer when it comes to these sorts of things, but if anything was to convince me otherwise it'd be watching Trump speed run us towards another World War these past few weeks.
I think the concern is that telling Ukraine to surrender their land after they were invaded by Russia will give Russia the confidence to start attacking other European countries. Traditionally, NATO would have protected us from that happening, but with Trump upsetting all our NATO partners, I'm kind of concerned that that won't help this time.
I've been listening to a lot of French news lately and France is already talking about needing to build more nuclear weapons and to extend nuclear protections across Europe, as the US has in a short few weeks completely alienated all of our allies from the past 80 years [2].
So, I don't know, seems like we're closer to everything going to shit globally than in any other time in my 40+ years.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-will-work-firmly-a...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/how-realistic-is-france...
I think it's unlikely the Russians would nuke somewhere like that as they only have two decent cities which would be hit in retaliation. It's more likely if they went nuclear that they'd hit troops in Ukraine. Biden issued a lot of threats to Putin if they did that but under Trump I'm not sure much US retaliation would happen.
You should be. The more small states with nuclear weapons, the more chances there are that any one country feels like a nuclear assault could be "worth it". Heck, just look at India and Pakistan. I can't remember which Indian government minister said it, but years ago he essentially said that India could "absorb" a nuclear strike from Pakistan, because since India is bigger with a lot more people, any nuclear volley would mean the complete annihilation of Pakistan while India would "only" lose a couple hundred million people...
The more proliferation there is, the higher the chance any one government will move away from MAD theory to "well, guess we've got nothing left to lose".
I too hope that more nuclear arms will result in reduced conflicts and a reduced risk model overall. But if I were to bet, I'd bet that if we 10x the number of players with Nuke's, we 10x the number of chances for some to be used.
It will make the world a safer place. That's why Macron is opening up this discussion at all.
Now I'm not so sure.
Small nuclear armed states will never have a credible deterrent because unfortunately due to their countries' small size they will always be at risk of a first strike. Chinese leaders believed they were in this position vis-a-vis the United States until about a decade and a half ago.
For example, we hear about North Korea a lot but they don't have a credible deterrent. Their stockpiles are easily destroyed in a surprise attack by a couple of JASSMs because they don't have the luxury of a large landmass like Russia and China to move their mobile launchers around.
Japan is considered a "paranuclear" state, with complete technical prowess to develop a nuclear weapon quickly, and is sometimes called being "one screwdriver's turn" from the bomb, as it is considered to have the materials and technical capacity to make a nuclear weapon at will.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-V#Potential_as_an_interconti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_(rocket)#Vehicle_descr...
"The Epsilon is expected to have a shorter launch preparation time than its predecessors;[11][12][13] a function called "mobile launch control" greatly shortens the launch preparation time, and needs only eight people at the launch site,[14] compared with 150 people for earlier systems.[15]"
All this is just a coincidence. ^_-
The biggest threats to Japan are China and North Korea: you do not need ICBMs for them.
Cruise missiles have ranges of >1500km:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile_family)
And with that, a missile launched from the north of Japan (e.g., Sapporo) can hit NK:
* http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=1500km@RJCC
Southern Japan (e.g., Nagasaki) can reach Beijing and Shanghai:
* http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=1500km@RJFU
Japan doesn't currently have any, but perhaps Taiwan and/or SK would be willing to sell them some existing design:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyunmoo-3
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsiung_Feng_IIE
Though they seem to be working on updating their own design:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_12_surface-to-ship_missil...
So did Churchill [1]. Unfortunately, that way be strategic nuclear war.
For those unaware:
> The Vela incident was an unidentified double flash of light detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite on 22 September 1979 near the South African territory of Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean, roughly midway between Africa and Antarctica. Today, most independent researchers believe that the flash was caused by a nuclear explosion[1][2][3]—an undeclared joint nuclear test carried out by South Africa and Israel.[4][5]
> The cause of the flash remains officially unknown, and some information about the event remains classified by the US government.[5] While it has been suggested that the signal could have been caused by a meteoroid hitting the satellite, the previous 41 double flashes detected by the Vela satellites were caused by nuclear weapons tests.[6][7][8]
They have assassinated people in the EU and UK. Sabotaged our pipelines. Paid anti EU politicians. Threatened EU powers. Shot down civilian flights. Made plans to invade the Baltics.
They are an adversary. We have weapons and an army. We should neutralize that adversary.
Russia has currently lost momentum in Ukraine. So they are seeking a temporary peace, to rebuild. Logic dictates that we start behaving as their adversary. To not give them any benefit, and build on that momentum to keep them diminished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_progra...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
Given how that played out, not one will ever get ridd of nuclear weapons they have & many more will logically now need to have them as well to assure basic security for their country.
The French offer to extend their nuclear umbrella seems to me to have two purposes:
1. Deal with the immediate vulnerability opened by questions over U.S. Article 5 commitments to NATO
2. Try to get ahead of potential nuclear weapons proliferation among other EU states
Certainly France is competitive when it comes to ships and many expendable munitions, but they aren't selling F-35s and the US is, and so far it seems that the juice is worth the substantial squeeze when it comes to that jet. The race is largely for second, because first place (the Lightning) is so far in front of the pack.
They will hopefully purchase Eurofighter or Rafale or whatever else in the future.
[1] (fr) https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2022/03/15/la-d...
In fact I think it was the US army that complained about the F-35 being way too expensive.
To say it was underwhelming would be an understatement.
Is it explicitly nuclear?
For conventional war, probably. For nuclear, will Paris risk its homeland for Latvia?
A 'European army' would be under the control of... the EU? Some new organisation to be specifically created for this purpose? Some committee-designed scheme of rotating leadership between the main powers in Europe?
These are not spurious questions. Europe is a large and diverse place, far more diverse than e.g. the USA. Would such an army serve to protect Hungary as well as Spain, Sweden as well as the Czech republic, Poland as well as Germany? Even if some of those countries do not care to fall in line with the agenda set by the Eurocrats in Brussels?
I know that many like to complain of Europe's bureaucracy, but we're talking about half a billion educated people, with enough resources and with an existential crisis, which we're surely facing, the EU+UK, joined by allies, can be a force to be reckoned with.
The problems EU is facing come from within. We have far right movements as well, aided by propaganda, the pandemic and the immigration waves. The far right are more contained than in the US apparently (due to US having just 2 parties), but it can lead to government paralysis. Seeing the US administration ally itself with Russia to dismember the EU wasn't in my cards.
So, it's going to be an interesting year.
In that sprit, I'm curious what advantages Euro-nukes offer relative to the existing French arsenal. What is the current status and limitation of French nuclear protection through NATO and European Union security guarantees, and how do these limitations compare to what nuclear protections the USA has historically provided?
Related read that we need more nuclear proliferation as a deterrent.
If Ukraine had nukes, Russia wouldn’t touch it.
Glad this video of Rubio making an impassioned speech about how "the credibility of America is on the line" when it comes to defending Ukraine has resurfaced: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
The complete collapse of the Republican party into one man's personality cult, any scintilla of principle be damned, is definitely not something I wouldn't have predicted 25 years ago.
After independence, Ukraine had physical possession of a huge nuclear arsenal but lacked the codes and infrastructure to operate or maintain it long-term. The only practical options were to dismantle them, bargain them away, or possibly sell off some nuclear material or technology to third parties — though they ultimately chose to denuclearize under the Budapest Memorandum in exchange for security assurances.
What could have truly deterred Russia was Ukraine’s enormous conventional military inherited from the USSR (actually, the size of Russia's), but it was steadily gutted over the decades through underfunding, corruption, and arms sales.
That the US and the UK (and obviously Russia) did not honour, did they?
The only obligations it imposes, besides not attacking Ukraine, is to seek UN Security Council action should Ukraine be nuked. I don't know why people keep trotting it out like it's a comprehensive defense pact.
https://bsky.app/profile/dittie.bsky.social/post/3lji5yzf5ns...
Nor is the US currently 'honoring it' clear from a direct reading of the langauge:
https://bsky.app/profile/igorsushko.bsky.social/post/3ljnqjm...
Between 1918 and 1938, how many treaties were signed, broken, rewritten, and ignored by how many powers?
To be fair Ukraine didn't really have nukes. I mean they technically had nukes in their territory and maybe could have kept them if they really wanted to but it's a bit like e.g. Scotland trying to keep British nukes after declaring independence. Wouldn't make a lot sense.
Economically Ukraine was in a horrible state. Nuclear weapons have extremely high cost and I'm not sure if they even had any delivery vehicles? Also the the political repercussions, trade relations with Russia were very important etc.
Last but not least Russia and Ukraine were certainly not adversaries back in those days. After all Ukraine was on Russia's side when they attacked Moldova to establish Tranistria. Them going to war back in the 90s would have been almost as absurd as US invading Canada...
Ukraine might have been in much better spot in some ways (they actually had functioning nukes) but in other ways it was simply infeasible politically (Russia was closer to being an "ally" than and adversary back in those days) and obviously economically unjustifiable.
No they didn't. There was never any promise like that.
There wasn’t a treaty obligation. But there was a promise.
Similarly, there is no treaty obligation for America to respond to Russia nuking Paris with even harsh words. Just promises around the treaty obligation to take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force” [1].
Let there be no doubt: the United States is defaulting on its promises in Ukraine.
[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm
> Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
Which they did.
Russia is violating § 2. But Trump, Musk and Vance, by directly negotiating with Putin in respect of Ukraine's borders, are failing "to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine" (§ 1).
[1] https://policymemos.hks.harvard.edu/files/policymemos/files/...
If someone trades territory for a U.S. security guarantee--absent a U.S. base that would have to be bombed by anyone trying to take more of the country--they're an idiot.
Russia violates 2, but not US. Negotiating with Putin does not violate "to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine" because it's not enforced. Ultimately it is up to Ukraine if they want to accept the deal negotiated by Trump
America negotiating with Putin on the future borders of Ukraine absolutely disrespects its sovereignty (by not including them) and borders. The proper role, if we wanted to directly mediate, would have been making it clear to Kyiv that the resource roll was done while informing Russia that if they come to the negotiating table then sanctions relief will be on the table. Then step back.
'to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind;'
The US is making any support contingent on a peace agreement that Ukraine doesn't want because it doesn't want to give up it's land.
Come on.
> because you don't like how the negotiating is done does not mean that US is disrespecting Ukraine's sovereignty
We're treating their borders as violable in the negotations. That violates the deal. The fact that many Americans have jumped the shark when it comes to honest dealing sort of underwrites why we're no longer a reliable partner--we don't even know when we're lying.
US is still a reliable partner - which is why many countries continue to be in partnership with it. Fact is, US had made no promise to protect Ukraine.
That challenges its borders! If I agree not to steal your stuff and you find me hiring someone to steal your stuff, and I start arguing around the technicalities of our agreement, I’m a dishonourable liar!
> US is still a reliable partner
Are you watching the markets? Are you seeing the trade barriers go up? Our export companies are crashing. Our allies are writing separate security agreements, agreements that not only duplicate our own but balance American power.
I swear to god modern America is half made up of Calvin Coolidges. I’m not quite with Thiel on revisiting universal suffrage. But obviously the law of large numbers isn’t working when so correlated by social media.
https://bsky.app/profile/dittie.bsky.social/post/3lji5yzf5ns...
Which they did. Please tell me which exact aspect of the Budapest Memorandum did US not follow through?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_de...
> ... In 1994, Ukraine agreed to transfer these weapons to Russia ... in exchange for economic compensation and assurances from Russia, the United States and United Kingdom to respect the Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders....
And yes there is this point but this is irrelevant. Ukraine played by the rules and got played. Nobody would have invaded Ukraine in 1994 if they had refused, especially given the state of the Russian army at this time
> While all these weapons were located on Ukrainian territory, they were not under Ukraine's control.[4]
Which they did. Please tell me which exact aspect of the Budapest Memorandum did US not follow through?
Most important piece here, don't despair, protect your people, build mutual aid communities with your neighbors and friends, there is no one coming to save us but ourselves.
right from wrong is not applicable to this situation not even one bit
Russia has invaded a neighboring country twice and spent the first two years of the war they started threatening nuclear weapons. They disregard all negotiated agreements and treaties, poison dissidents in countries the US is allied with, with impunity, engage in asymmetric warfare against Europe and the US, meddle in elections. The Russian government has nothing but contempt for a rules based world order.
Why, suddenly, is the US cowering back when the stakes are much higher and its direct involvement much lower?
I'm not passing judgement on it, just noting that what we're seeing is consistent with his campaign messaging.
The point is our alliances are also foreign entanglements. These idiots didn’t think through that withdrawing from those means fewer weapons (and other) orders from America, more nukes pointed at America and less strategic depth between our adversaries and our shores.
I feel like this is where a lot of NATO commentary gets bogged down. There's a large group of people, conventionally referred to in US media as "the blob" (https://www.vox.com/22153765/joe-biden-foreign-policy-team-r...), who believe that the United States has an affirmative duty to engage in lots of global military interventions above and beyond the actual commitments it's made. I don't think they're lying - people seem to genuinely believe, for example, that the US is betraying NATO by cutting off support for Ukraine when most NATO members would prefer to expand support. But the North Atlantic Treaty simply does not contain a promise to align foreign policy in this way.
You’re correct in this being incorrect.
The informed concern is in Trump and Musk’s coziness towards Putin. That brings up questions around what, if anything, Trump would do if Putin annexed Latvia.
But reasonable questions about the strength of an alliance aren't the same at all as withdrawal from or betrayal of the alliance.
Will your allies trust you any longer if you just follow the letter of the treaty? I don't think they will. More critically, nor will anyone else.
The US have historically positioned themselves as "defenders of democracy" and have multiple times used that positioning actively. It's inevitable for an expectation to be there for them to do just that. The US is free to violate expectations and just follow the letter of the treaties it has, it is a sovereign nation after all, but the surprised and frankly childish "we have no obligation!" reaction to the blowback is more unreasonable than the expectations for its support of Ukraine, particularly in how it has been handled politically.
Even if they didn't agree, EU nations and Canada at least sent their soldiers to die in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway.
Why are you surprised people expect such policy alignment after thirty years of it?
Why are you surprised people consider this a betrayal of what NATO stood for in the past, as a proxy of the democracies of the west? Just because there is no violation of the letter of the treaty?
I don't think it was surprising that the Iraq War led to anti-American sentiment, I don't think it's surprising that the current about-face on Ukraine is leading to anti-American sentiment, and I won't be surprised when it happens again in the 2040s.
They did, not all of them but many did. On Canada I may be wrong, sure. I believe even Ukraine has KIAs in Iraq.
> France in particular sided with Russia to block the Security Council from authorizing military action, leading to substantial tensions with the US and widespread disapproval from the public on both sides. European demonstrations against the war remain one of the largest mass movements in history.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars broke the model the US and EU had been trying to push until that moment, alienating the south of the world from it and providing certain countries with a justification for their future actions. France had the right of it in the UN assembly.
People were angry back then for similar reasons they're angry and shocked now, and once again it has to do with expectations.
I also don't believe the Iraq war alone is not really enough to deny the alignment between EU and US foreign policy in the last 30 years or so anyway. You won't have complete agreement with 30 nations involved ever.
> But the North Atlantic Treaty simply does not contain a promise to align foreign policy in this way.
I think this in your original comment highlights your surprise at what those people believe, or at least your not understanding it?
This speaks to the fact that I haven't seen any clear "this is how we win it" proposals. I could understand why the details would be classified, but I've not seen broad strokes, either. Has anyone else?
I'm getting downvoted but honestly looking for answers.
And that price means Europe will have to absorb a dramatic, sustained drop in quality of life — plus forced mobilisation.
Even the Poles - the most serious player in Europe right now — only have about 200,000 troops.
The British and French combined have maybe 40,000 soldiers actually capable of high-intensity combat. That’s enough for, what - four weeks of real war?
After that, there will be no volunteers. That means a draft.
So the real question is: Are you ready to be drafted to “defeat Russia”?
The US was doing that. Russia’s will has won out over the US’s, that is a defeat, and we can only hope next time it isn’t the same.
My country, Norway, shares a border with Russia. We have 5.5 million people. Would the US abandon us because we’re running out of troops? That’s the question we’re asking ourselves.
There’s a finite number of Ukrainians, and an even smaller number of Ukrainian men actually willing — or physically able — to fight.
20% of the population already left, and around 1.5 million of them went to Russia. Another 15% are stuck under occupation.
Ukraine’s demographics were already a disaster after the WW2 wipe-out, the Soviet collapse, and 30 years of economic decline and emigration. Now they’re drafting 18 to 60-year-olds just to keep units filled - at 40%.
So what happens in a year or two, when there’s no one left to draft?
The Poles aren’t volunteering to die en masse, and they’re the only EU country with anything resembling a real army — and even that is one-fifth the size of Russia’s.
So who’s holding the line then?
The US Army? The Marine Corps?
Is anyone actually ready to send Americans to die in the Donbas?
Keep Ukraine on life support for a decade, hoping Russia collapses under sanctions?
Cuba’s still standing after 60 years. Iran after 40. The USSR took decades to fall — and none of them had China bankrolling their survival.
Russia’s economy bleeds, but it’s not cut off. China sends tech and machines, India buys the oil, and Europe keeps quietly paying top dollar for gas through backdoors.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s population shrinks, its economy is wrecked, and its army can’t fight without Western money, Western weapons — and soon, Western bodies.
Because if you actually want to push Russia back — not even collapse it, just push it back — that means European and American troops on the front line. Conscription, mobilized economies, the whole package.
Without a sustained meat grinder to chew up Russian forces, Russia just consolidates and digs in — with China keeping the whole thing afloat.
And if the West isn’t ready for that, who exactly do you think will still be standing in 10 years?
The only guaranteed winner? China — with Russia as a client state, Europe as a deindustrialized theme park, and America too exhausted to stop them.
If this is a game of who bleeds out last, Ukraine’s already done, Europe bleeds out first, Russia bleeds to its usual stupid level — and China walks away without a scratch.
Agree that China is a winner of it all simply by virtue of not being mad, but as they like to say in Russia — it's not the evening yet.
“We had to support those rebel Ukrainian states so Ukrainians fight them, not us.” “We had to preemptively disarm Ukraine, or we’d be fighting Ukrainians inside Russia within five years.”
As for China — surely they’d be nervous if Taiwan was one-third of their population and shared a land border.
Ukraine isn’t just a border state, it’s alt-Russia, as Taiwan is alt-China (and so was Hong-Kong). A competing civilizational project trying to jump off the imperial train and build a Polish-style normal nation-state — and that makes it an existential threat. Not because Ukraine is strong, but because it offers Russians a dangerous glimpse of an alternative path — a Russian identity without the empire.
Except Ukrainians ask the West for support to fight for themselves, so the West is given a rarest opportunity to do a morally right thing while furthering its own interests.
??????
guess France is out of EU or... ?
With rotations, France can probably field about 15k troops on an actual frontline — and after that, it’s draft time.
For comparison:
* Russian armed forces: 1.1 million. * 500k deployed in Ukraine. * ~300k on the active frontline right now.
In terms of real land warfare capacity, France is in the same weight class as Belarus or Romania — and about 20 times behind Russia.
Even if you argue technical edge (better equipment per soldier), France has zero industrial mobilization capacity and no modern large-scale combat experience.
Russia doesn't have infinite capacity, their primary strategy was to take as much as possible at all costs as fast as possible, while waging info campaigns against the far right, in the hopes that Trump would come to power and cement a deal with them. If that option goes away, it strictly reduces Russias exit strategies. They can't escalate, because the west has more leverage and more options, it would be zero sum at _best_ for Russia. The West would likely hand them Crimea for peace, but giving them all of Donbas is too large a victory for Russia. The post WW2 orders foundational principle is that appeasement of land grabs leads to stronger positions for the grabber - see Hitler's numerous escalations before his full on attack as an example. Ideally you don't wait until the attacker is on your door step before fighting back, that's what this whole debacle is about.
Some of the options could have been:
- Continue on, but with aligned support from the left and right (read: Russian psyops campaign vs the US right failed). Probably enough on its own.
- Pressure China (tariffs) to pressure Russia
- Pressure Europe to increase commitments
- Offer Russia Crimea (already done ages ago, when their position was stronger)
- Setup an increasing schedule of more advanced weaponry
AFAIK they haven't responded to the last several increases; what would they respond with? The Nuke is their last card, and in addition to pulling in more Western support would alienate the other players (India, China) who have their own leverage on Russia. IDK overall it seems like the only major limitation here was the psychology of Trump's party.
Europeans are still high on their own supply, fantasizing they’re global players, when in reality they’ve got no money, no energy, no industry, no credible army, no unity, and no diplomatic weight — not even within their own borders.
Europe spent decades as an American piggy bank and a strategic liability. Now the bill’s come due — and Uncle Vlad is doing Uncle Donald a favor, playing the bogeyman just well enough to scare Europe’s capital and industry back into the safe harbor of the New World.
And if Russian pressure helps deliver "MAGA in four years" by triggering capital flight from Europe to the US — is Ukraine really too steep a price for such a valuable service?
The party that has 50/50 chance of winning the elections has been communicating to Putin all this entire time that they will hand him Ukraine when they win. Now they conclude that this strategy didn't help Ukraine and therefore it's time to hand Ukraine to Putin. Brilliant strategy, I wish them to enjoy their Russian friends who will definitely not screw them over very soon.
Let the Ukrainians decide. The war could have been over if Biden and Musk hadn’t meddled in Kyiv’s strategy.
There is no peace with a Moscow that believes it can gain resources and mollify its population with wars of expansion. Pausing in Ukraine just allows for build-up for another wave. Maybe in Ukraine. Maybe elsewhere.
This is the exact line of thinking that Hitler used to justify WW2. Surely we can all see this logic for the farce that it is. Ukraine never had a shot at winning this war and it’s only with massive international support that they’re able to maintain the fragile stalemate they now find themselves in.
Hitler argued that he lost WWII because external powers were limiting the Nazis through diplomatic channels?! (Also, since when do we care about how Hitler justified things?)
> Ukraine never had a shot at winning this war
A significant amount of Russia’s naval and air assets were vulnerable to Ukrainian drone and missile fire in ‘22.
> it’s only with massive international support
You mean like the American Revolution, WWI for the Allies, WWII for the Allies and the Cold War for Europe?
Hitlers literal claim was that Germany needs a living space, that Germans do not fit into German. Plus he claimed that the world is a war of races. Like, these were his literal justications.
It is about zero paralel with "The war could have been over if Biden and Musk hadn’t meddled in Kyiv’s strategy."
With money and military/economic tensions for EU and US ? EU might have some interest in stabilizing the border and preventing future threats, but US literally has no interest there. And the only EU member that possibly had to worry about Russia is Finland, but they are in NATO now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
You know, that one thing that certainly prevented a lot of nuclear proliferation so far.
Did we (1) fail to respect their borders? (2) Threaten to use force, invade them or use those nukes against them? (3) Wage an economic war against them? (4) Fail to seek UN Security Council action in response to Ukraine being nuked? (5) Nuke them? (6) Refuse to talk to them about the agreement?
Because that's basically the entire agreement.
Also, Trump is supporting Russia while attacking Europe, Canada, Mexico, Greenland ... . Trump talks about annexing parts of Europe (Greenland) and annexing Canada.
Like common, Trump is not just stoping to send arms. He is doing everything he can to weaken west and empowers Russia.
They were building into a good position with russia very depleted and economically on the ropes. Despite hold ups in US aid over the Biden admin. Pressing more aid and strengthening their position would be better for negotiating a peace. But quite simply Trump/Vance/Musk don’t want that.
This whole thing started when they willingly disarmed in return for security assurances that didn't turn out to be worth the paper they were written on. It progressed when Obama failed to help them stop Putin in 2014, and now it's metastasized due to Biden's half-assed support and Trump's active antipathy.
Next, they need artillery to halt the slow advance of Russian ground forces. With the new unjammable wire-guided drones that were introduced early this year, Ukrainians have already successfully halted Russian advances in most sectors, but ample artillery support is even more effective. They need lots of artillery to blow up with a big bang everything that the Russians throw at them.
Finally, Ukraine must be equipped for counteroffensives. They need a large supply of planes, tanks, IFVs, and other vehicles to go from defense to attack and liberate occupied territories. Once Ukraine has the means to counterattack, it is up to them to decide how far they want to go before sitting down with the Russians to negotiate peace. Strong enough pushes by Ukraine may force the Russians to concede some areas without a fight, just as they previously withdrew from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Sumy.
The current approach has been a slow trickle of aid in a naive hope that Putin might back down. That strategy has clearly failed. Ukraine needs full support, everything we can provide. This is both the moral choice, and the cheapest option in terms of money and lives.
It is really important to stress that Ukrainians do not expect others to fight for them. They are only asking for material support: weapons, ammo, vehicles. The rest they can handle on their own.
Like if you ever want anyone to give you a single dolar for your weapons in the future.
They had been threatened by Russia with nuclear weapons and it looks like when push comes to shove the US is not going to defend them(go to ww3) using nuclear weapons.
Trump's actions about WW3 means that countries that have nukes are first class, and the rest are third class. It looks like a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in which nuclear countries divide the non nuclear's territories.
When Russia invaded Ukraine it had almost nobody defending the border, that was the reason of Kursk offensive success.
The official story was that "Russia had to defend itself from NATO invasion". In reality they knew nobody was going to invade a nuclear power not having nukes, while they could invade freely.
I would go even further. All countries that used to be part of the USSR and got violated by USSR for decades without any external help would be wise to develop at least the capability. In secret if need be.
I suspect right now we're seeing a lot of public noise designed largely to get Europe to spend more on both internal defense and their NATO commitments, while privately the attaches continue to conduct business as usual, at least when it comes to the American-supplied nuclear deterrent.
- one month after the US openly said it won't be the primary security guarantor of Europe
- a month and a half after the second inauguration of a NATO sceptical president
- three years after the start of a major european land war bordering the EU
- 14 years after another US administration formally announced it's "Pivot to Asia"
... a European country has announced it's "open to discussion" about extending its nuclear umbrella. Not that it's offering the umbrella. Not that it has discussed offering the umbrella. But that it's open to start those discussions.
Words are actions in politics. They aren’t jokes or memes. We are threatening our neighbors. And for actions we have flipped on Ukraine and now withdrawn all aid, including intelligence, and just reported turned off their ability to target with GMLRS. We have even turned off our cybersecurity activities as it relates to Russia. Writing is very clear to people outside the US.
A declaration of war packaged as a prank.
…the call is coming from inside the house. Europe’s existential risk has shifted from Russia to a Russo-American alliance.
Still, long term maybe you're right. It does make geopolitical sense for the US to be more closely aligned with Russia. In a pivot to Asia it's much more useful to sow-discord in the Sino-Russian relationship, than it is to prop up the EU.
The EU have been loyal allies. Their defence production is also nothing to be sneezed at. If we found ourselves in a war of attrition with China and either Japan or Korea stood neutral, an America with Europe has a much higher chance of succeeding than an America alone.
And if we surrender to Xi the way Trump has to Putin, that puts the American homeland at direct risk in the next conflict from both sides.
This entire enterprise comes down to some Silicon Valley types not liking the EU. It's personal and irrational and unfortunately, with Trump an ersatz monarch for two years, an example of why extreme power concentration sacrifices the immortal goals of a nation for the personal whims of a mortal leader.
The fact is Europe can afford to defend itself. This isn't the cold war were the soviet military was 800km from Paris. It's 2025, where the shell of the Russian army is struggling to capture territory 2,400km from Paris.
If the USA in the 70s was willing to thaw relations with China to offset the USSR, it will surely thaw relations was the Russian Federation now to offset China. I do not think European arms production is a significant factor in any US/China conflict; any "Taiwan Emergency" will just by a factor of geography not be a long protracted conflict, and has much more potential to flair up into alarming levels than even this one.
As for the EU, I imagine it will eventually create more integration tiers above the ones that currently exist. If I am not terribly mistaken Macron advocates for such a thing. Not a bad idea to be frank.
I'm an American but I obviously don't represent my country. I just want to say one thing...
You Europeans don't need to worry. We will not abandon you in case Russia shows up in NATO territory because we have too long of a history together and strong commercial relations. We are a large country and you can bet we have shared values. It's in our strongest interest to ensure that you don't become part of a Russian Empire. We'd go there again as we've done multiple times in the past. Even Trump would do it. Don't take our renewed relationship with Russia as indication that we trust Putin. We just decided it's not worth pushing them against a corner. Disrespecting Russia is a mistake and leads to bad and dangerous outcomes.
But one thing we will no longer do is bail you out on every little crisis in your continent. We are not your private security. YES, let France be your nuclear shield. YES, have the UK and its ships protecting you. German tanks. Italian airplanes. Polish artillery. Make sure you are armed to the teeth and Russian dictators won't dare to invade you.
This history has been wiped out in a month's time. Trump has threatened to annex EU territory, plays with economic destruction on the daily, constantly lies about Europe and mocks and humiliates us.
America is now a threat and an enemy. "Don't worry" will not cut it.
Your mind must be truly warped when you think supporting a sovereign country that is ruthlessly destroyed by Russia is "disrespecting Russia".
We do not have shared values. Yesterday Trump decided to cut sharing intelligence so that Russian missiles and drones can go through without Ukraine being able to prepare for them. Trading human lives for a better mineral deal, like picking a corpse.
Demonic "values".
https://www.politico.eu/article/us-will-take-greenland-one-w...
The last time a US president has used that phrase Nord Stream was blown up.
There is a high chance that all of this is political theater designed to get the EU to spend more on its military and take over the Ukraine war so the EU will be the culprit while the US can trade with Russia and China. Playing off continental powers against each other has historically been the hallmark of Britain and now the US, both of whom live in splendid isolation.
The EU should hedge against this scenario and seek better relations with Russia.
If Trump is serious and none of this is theater, the EU should also seek better relations with Russia, otherwise it will have a two front war against the two superpowers.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09662839.2020.1...
plus fun to see divide and conquer get used elsewhere and on HN
Macron isn’t German.
When the real trouble starts, it’ll come down to the Germans and the Poles, as it usually does.
On the bright side, all that capital fleeing France and Germany will go a long way toward reindustrializing the US and giving Britain’s economy a much-needed shot in the arm — so, it’s not all bad.
What about the European power with the worlds largest nuclear arsenal?
If we’re being pedantic to the point of silliness, we could argue that a significant fraction of Russia’s nuclear assets are outside European Russia [1][2]. And that Muscovite Russia retains significant elements of its Mongol roots relative to the Kievan Rus [3].
[1] https://npolicy.org/interactive-nuclear-atlas/russias-nuclea...
The Europe-Asia boundary is a political boundary [1].
But clearly missed the announcement that declared Eurasia to always having been Asia.
Nothing in the text you’re referring to implies that. It just suggests Russian isn’t fully European. Which has never been in doubt. Within a security context where Russia is the aggressor, it makes sense to exclude them.
> Russia is the most populous country in Europe
but it's only partly in Europe:
> is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia.
And to be honest I am not even sure first party nuclear protection is worth that much. French president Giscard d'Estaing famously said he would probably not have used nukes if France had been invaded under his presidency. What a moronic thing to say (it massively undermines French nuclear deterrence).
De Gaulle did not leave NATO, the alliance; France has been a member of NATO since its founding without interruption.
France left NATO’s integrated military command from 1966 to 2009, and also did not join the NATO nuclear planning group when it rejoined to integrated military command.