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I’d be more concerned with Europe neglecting their militaries for decades
Because Daddy America and NATO would protect them.
Europe really should have formed its own pan-europa defense organisation during the years that NATO was getting softer.
No it's because we survived 2 VERY destructive world wars in our homes and don't have the stomach for massive military operations anymore.
Add to that the numerous laws and constitutional bans against building militaries too large (supported by America!). Austria constitutionally forced to remain neutral, Finland forced to remain neutral due to Russia, etc.
Do you really no tunderstand why Germany was discouraged and was resistant to building it's military after two fucking world wars it started?
Really?
It's not as simple as you make out. Europe also isn't one country and one law.
Someone in this thread said Americans are reticent to support Ukraine because of pointless wars in the Middle East. Well imagine how fucking reticent you'd be if a massive chunk of your population died fighting wars in your own homes and back yard?
But the EU is kind of one country with one law. It is a federal system, but you can make a federal military structure. And the current European defense structure has been failing for a generation, constantly requiring American involvement and leadership.
And the EU initially started as way to tie together industries tied to defense as a way to keep the peace. At this point, might as well tie together the militaries as well.
The EU isn't a federation or country. It has some federal characteristics but it's nowhere near as unified as the USA.
It's closer to a confederation.
Hindsight sure is sharp. We're a short sighted reactionary species.
Hindsight sure is sharp
In hindsigth, are there strong reasons why european nato members should have invested significantly more in military, than they did?
You have to factor in the length of human life. There isn't a lot of living memory from ww2 anymore. And the ones that are still living are too far gone to have any influence. It's also hard to justify higher taxes in peacetime for weapons that might never be used.
And the ones with living memory of the great wars remember how the buildup of European militaries led to the decimation of the European population. Large armies are costly and so need to do something to justify that cost, this leads to wars, wars inevitably lead to wholesale destruction and death of civilians, why build up again for that to happen.
Unfortunately while Western Europe didn’t build up, the Muscovy focused on expansion after the fall of the union. Now Russia is looking west at a continent not as armed as it should be and backed by an America that is once again isolationist, it’s a return to the status of the 1930s and I don’t see it ending well
The NATO assasinated politicians in my country. If we had had free elections I'm not sure we'd be US allies.
They havnt. Its literally only when you compare directly to America that their militaries seem sub par.
Britain or France alone could go toe to toe with Russia in a conventional war. And would utterly dominate basically any county on the planet other than China Russia or the US. If it ever came to an all out war between Europe and Russia, Russia wouldn't stand a chance. There would be Eurofighters over Moscow within a week.
Ah right, UK and France, two countries known for their pacifist ways. Or Finland and Poland, countries totally not ready to defend against a Russian offensive.
beacuse we spent the last 20 years helping America perform aforementioned counter-insurgency in the middle east, to the obvious detriment of peer-to-peer conflict.
( european here ) we are an Usa colony, the Usa set the foreign agenda, laws and cultural norms , immigration policy... We have been damaged by sanctions on russia... And we have to pay to help our master to expand his empire? Your empire, you pay. The only state that slight oppose your foreign policy, hungary, is bullied to hell.
The Usa is the only empire that pretend to not be an empire.
You want europe to pay for the army? Remove every usa base from europe... No? Why?
Most intelligent Italian
i thought it was removed
Well he sent me the stupidest PM I've ever seen, so maybe he's banned
jfc yes he's banned
It kind of is, but also not
At least if you use Jerboa, if you attempt to reply to a deleted or removed comment, you can often still read it
the reason for this is, i guess, related to undelete feature. it's available for limited time, because unlimited storage of things like this would be probably GDPR violation
Because that ducking idiot Sarkozy came to power and loves US cocks so much he decided to join NATO and fulfill the prophecies. And her we are now, just like De Gaulle had foretold!