It’s time Europe reduced its defense reliance on the US, Czech president says
It’s time Europe reduced its defense reliance on the US, Czech president says
Europe can no longer neglect defense obligations, Czech President Petr Pavel said.
As an American, I agree.
As a Brit, I agree too. Europe is incapable of defending an allied nation within our own continent from invasion. We need to do better.
The military capability of European nations have to improve so we can guarantee our own security and be a more equal partner in NATO rather than a junior partner to the US.
I agree. But there's so much to do for a EU defense... GB is aligned with the US. Germany and a few other countries are entirely trusting the US. Hungary would probably side with Russia at this point.
I wish the war kick-started eu defense better.
I don’t think that we are incapable of doing that. What we have done is a balancing act of assisting Ukraine against Russia without going to war with Russia.
If we were to have sent in troops from the start then it would be a completely different picture. I’m not sure that it would be a better picture though.
As an American, I've mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I think I think Europe owning it's own defense would be a solid move to ensure it's own sovereignty and independence as a modern nation.....thing.
On the other hand, I fear this could lead to US - EU military rivalry. While not necessarily the strongest bond in the world, I do value the relatively positive relationship the US and EU have. I hope that bond is preserved and hope we can grow even closer over time.
I think the fact the EU steuggles as much as it does in the near future they would be at best a weaker China. Lots of bodies but sub par military capabilities. The benefit we get in the US is that we'd only need to come in as support and military guidance rather than sending a lot of troops. They will still suck at doing things as it will be military by committee so in cases with countries like Russia they will most likely defer to the US to just run things.
Yeah, if we stopped being the world's police we might have tax money for something else.
Taxes don't pay for anything at the federal level. They are deleted. We used to literally burn them back when we collected physical money. We can afford both our current military spending, and every single progressive policy that AOC or Bernie can dream up just fine. (Not saying we should, just that we can. I think we should scale back on certain aspects of the military, but that's a whole other discussion) The government just "prints" more money and deposits it in the appropriate accounts via the Federal Reserve. Taxes are merely an anti-inflationary device to ensure that inflation stays stable. Running deficits doesn't cause inflation. If it did, Japan would have been thoroughly fucked in the last 30 years of running the highest deficit by percentage of any country in the world. In reality they are running the largest deficit economy, and barely fighting off deflation.
Edit: this only applies to a sovereign fiat currency.
As an American, I think my government has become WAY too inconsistent and unreliable. We might elect Trump again, ffs. America can’t be counted on to meet its NATO obligations anymore. Too many fascists are in positions of power and sympathize with Putin.
It benefits everyone to have distributed defense. Work together, but be able to have a basic level of your own defense is vital.
As a human being i think you have become incosistent and unreliable too. Lean history, see what's happening around you, think with your own brain.
That implies you considered me consistent and reliable in the past. I’m flattered.
As an American, it's 2023 we should never need weapons. Diplomacy should be the only option.
Unfortunately, many of our international contemporaries disagree. And as long as we do, we need something in case diplomacy fails.
Ukraine trusted diplomacy when they gave their nukes to Russia.
Diplomacy backed by what? "Diplomacy" with no leverage is ink on worthless paper, there needs to be some kind of reason anyone should listen to you.
This, just send a couple of hexbear users and watch their governments collapsing!
Europe shouldn't let it's home-grown defence industries languish in the name of strategic cohesion. Europe has no domestic competition to the F-35, no cohesive military procurement strategy that rewards European businesses, and no mechanism to avoid the shitshow of being entirely dependent on US defence contractors for maintenance of key defence infrastructure.
It also doesn't have access to nearly as many raw materials as the United States does.
I wish we'd all just calm down with the military spending, but I also understand when dealing with the USA it's probably safer to not rely on then(us) to keep their(our) word
Trump's presidency certainly showed that the US is one election away from balking. I'm pretty sure that's Putin's plan in Ukraine now.
I hope they have no competition to the F-35 because everyone’s been saying it’s a piece of shit for the last fifteen years.
I think the situation is more nuanced than that.
Of course, the F-35 program was an incredibly expensive mess (litterally the most expensive weapon program of all time), because of conflicting specs, data leaks, political infighting, cost overruns which are the stuff of legend, etc... At some moments, there were certainly reasons to think the whole program would collapse on itself like wet tissue paper.
But there are operational F35 now. 900+ as of 2023, which is 4 time more than the rest of Gen 5 fighters combined. And performance-wise, it is good, especially on the stealth & avionics parts. On the other side, the J-20 is largely unproven (probably a decent design, but not as good), and the Su-57 is a bunch of glorified prototypes.
Now sure, cost is high, maintenance is time-consuming, availability somewhat below target, but it's not particularly surprising for high-performance equipment. It may fall short of the ambition of the program on the cost part, but by itself it's a dangerous and fully operational fighter.
Anyone that says that has no idea what they're talking about lol, the F-35 is completely unmatched in terms of multirole aircraft (along with the F-22 for a more fighter-focused role) and likely will only be surpassed with gen 6 aircraft.
The SU-57 and practically any "modern" Russian aircraft are complete jokes that will fall apart with 2 seconds of airtime, and the J-20 and a majority of Chinese aircraft are cheap imitations of western (mainly American) technology which although much more capable than Russian aircraft, still fall behind a lot due to the corruption/authoritarianism in the Chinese military & government absolutely crumpling any hope of having actually competitive engineering & building.
European aircraft aren't even worth considering as competition either (although are far superior to the previous 2 nations' mentioned, in most cases). Eurofighters are just another one of the projects European nations had that was plagued by issues from the fact that it was multiple parties with differing requirements/interests/goals trying to develop something. Gripens are less effective budget alternatives to American gen 4 fighters. Etc. Etc.
The combined capabilities in technology, resources/wealth, and pool of experienced/intelligent engineers that the US has at its disposal makes it extremely hard to even dream of touching their capabilities when it comes to aircraft. Even with ground vehicles, the only real competition is Germany... but German armed forces are kind of in a state of disrepair right now, they've really neglected their military. It's really only the defense companies like Rheinmetall and KNDS which can be pointed to as successful currently.
Europe has a long way to go to compete with American military aircraft. Right now the US just has so much more experience and knowledge when it comes to fighter jets & more modern technologies present in said jets. It'd require a lot more investment in aerospace engineering and technology as a whole really, not just when it comes to aerospace. And Europe is currently even more desperate for tech workers than the US atm afaik.
Cope
What? No. The only people saying that shit are Russian or Chinese talking heads, for obvious reasons.
Anyone else is singing the praises of the f-35. Literally it's biggest issue was with the alignment of its guns being fucky. But these things should never be in position to use guns in the first place.
If defence industries mean the military complex then every country in the world should let that sector rotten and disappear.
Hey this is the guy who said that all Russian citizens living abroad should be surveiled and cited Japanese internment camps as precedent.
“I can be sorry for these people, but at the same time when we look back, when the Second World War started, all the Japanese population living in the United States were under a strict monitoring regime as well,” said the Czech president. “That’s simply a cost of war.”
He's probably not doing this in the interests of peace, he's probably doing it because he wants to launch a race war against the Mongolian horde and the US won't play ball.
lmao there's always a rogue president who says this while the rest of the EU falls in line with Washington
He's not advocating Europe separate from the US, but become a military superpower in its own right by having as large a military as the US. I am sure both Petr Pavel and Joe Biden agree on enforcing the "rules-based international order".
To think that the EU suddenly wants to ditch the US because they see them as a burden/dangerous is wishful thinking. In fact the only countries willing to do that might be France, because the local bourgeois don't like to be limited by the US on pursuing their imperialist interests in Africa.
Idk anything about this fella, but that snow white hair and beard look fuckin fresh
Lots of euro leaders have said the same over the years. The question as always is, what will you do about it?
Well PESCO did get created. Denmark dropped their opt out from CSDP. Stuff like this moves slowly, specially upon there not being single hegemonic leader saying "We do this" and everyone else answering "Yes boss". EU is herding catch and it makes everything move slowly.
Yet on the other hand, he says EU should hurry up at expanding and integrate Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and others. He's pro-NATO, he just thinks the EU should have more of the muscle. Either that or he's just entirely full of shit.
Yet on the other hand, he says EU should hurry up at expanding and integrate Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and others.
I don't understand how expanding EU is contradicting the headline. Care to explain?
EU/NATO are vassals and part of the same empire as America/UK. Basically, they're all the same side. My point is that if you're against NATO imperialism, this guy isn't who you're looking for. He just wants to be a bit less junior of a partner in the empire.
Jokes on him and the EU though, they're even more junior than ever before and getting further vassalized and de-industrialized and dependent on the USA.
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He's also called for more blanket surveillance of Russian passport holders in the West.
https://www.rferl.org/a/czech-president-ukraine-support-nato-summit/32460184.html
Becareful praising a strongman when he speaks against your enemies brashfully. Today he is your friend, tommorow you might find yourself amongst his list of enemies.
Authoritarians are only ever on your side temporarily.
10x yes! Not only that, their reliance on US cloud and their interferences in UA/RU war for the US interests.
Russia invading Ukraine is bad for the entirety of Europe and the western world, it's not just "US interests".
For US interests.... ya, Russia taking whatever country it wants in eastern Europe is only on the US interest. Has nothing to do with anyone else. NATO is all Nazis or something amirite?
Alright, Czech guy, are you gonna put your constituents' money where your mouth is and help build up Europe's defense force? Or are you not gonna change a thing because you know the US will continue to act as the world police?
I think you know which one you'll choose.
I'm supposed no one is actively adding the us into the EU
Colonel sanders
Europeans starting to realize that NATO is a protection racket is pretty funny.
A protection racket usually involves paying a potential attacker not to attack.
Plus NATO has bombed / attacked europe many times, it dismantled Yugoslavia, the last surviving socialist bloc in europe after the USSR.
Well this is certainly one flaming hot take
Take your bets now everyone, we've got:
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"stupidly tries to deepen ties with the cyberpunk oligarchy of China",
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"stupidly try to deepen ties with the impotent Mafia state in Russia",
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"stupidly try to deepen ties with petro-dictatorships/monarchies in MENA",
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"immediately double back because they realized that reducing reliance on the US means having to actually uphold their NATO spending requirements at a minimum to replace the US subsidizing their national defenses",
and least likely of all,
- "actually do anything even remotely productive towards genuinely achieving strategic autonomy as a democratic superpower in the world independent of the US' trajectory."
How can China be an oligarchy if the CCP holds all the power? Billionaires ain't got shit in China, even fucking Jack Ma was forced to step in line.
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Europe should have left NATO 30 years ago, when the first cold war ended, and forged its own path, instead of continuing to get its marching orders from the USA. Now Europe is getting lead into a second cold war by them.
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Socialism is not "when the government does stuff"
To push back on this a little, the US did intentionally create an international division of labor after WW2, where europe and the countries it just defeated (Germany, Japan, Italy) would let the US handle the war industry / being the world's cop / capitalist enforcers, so they could focus on consumer products, and serve as anti-communist bulwarks with high standards of living.
European countries do save value by letting the US handle most of their defense, that they can then allocate to social services.
Of course the majority of value, and their social welfare programs, still come from unequal exchange / a tax on imports on goods produced by super-exploited global south proles.
Defense money is not lost, it pays people within your country. And you can even decide whether it goes to big corps or small companies.