I wonder if we'll see a coordinated wave of F-35 cancellations. They must all be aware they are potentially buying bricks. The time to do it, thus, is now - the situation isn't improving while time and money are wasted.
But that's an enormous political escalation.
Or maybe Europeans, as "founding members", are able to support the planes on their own? I doubt it though. The engine alone is US made, ans that alone is probably unmaintainable without their support.
On the F-35 program, ability to perform local support isn't so much based on being a "founding member" but rather program partnership level. The only other Level 1 partner is the UK. As Level 2 we have Italy and the Netherlands. All other countries are down at Level 3 (most heavily dependent on US support), except for Israel which is sort of a special case with a unique variant and special rules about local control. Ultimately though, you're correct that the F-35 will quickly turn into a brick for every export customer without active US support.
The other factor is the NATO nuclear sharing arrangement. The F-35A is the only new aircraft certified to carry the US nuclear weapons under that arrangement, so that impacts Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Netherlands. Germany looked into certifying the Eurofighter Typhoon for the nuclear strike mission but decided that they couldn't afford it, and bought the F-35A instead. Of course, if the US pulls back from NATO and ends nuclear sharing then that concern would become moot and some of those countries would be likely to develop their own nuclear weapons.
"Germany looked into certifying the Eurofighter Typhoon for the nuclear strike mission but decided that they couldn't afford it, and bought the F-35A instead"
I remember the story rather like this:
US: "you want to certify your fighter for nuclear devices"
Germany: "yes"
US: "ooh, that will be expensive and takes a loooong time. Don't you want to just buy our F35 instead?"
And germany basically did. With the implicit understanding, to buy a piece of nuclear protection with that. Well, all gone ... so there are really only some voices left, wanting to keep buying the expensive, potentially useless bricks.
Yes, that's basically accurate. Since the end of the Cold War, Germany has always taken the cheapest possible military option in order to fund their precious social programs and treated the military as just another government jobs program. While I think the current US administration's moves to cut off our allies are deeply stupid and the moral equivalent of treason, Germany has only itself to blame for creating such a dependency. Alliances are always temporary and now Germany will have to face reality.
"Germany has always taken the cheapest possible military option "
Not in my understanding. Rather germany always went for the specialized and therefore expensive version (Goldrandlösung) of anything. But sure, parliament says, we are in peace, we don't need so many of those expensive toys. So they rather buyed only limited numbers and created another buerocratic controll gremium.
France could afford a nuclear programm and an aircraft carrier with an equal budget.
So yeah, there are many factors to blame, but I don't think it was because of too little money. Rather too much money with no one sane checking, if it serves really the purpose of defending the country.
Could the UK thus be Europe's Trojan horse of support? If the US can't switch them off (allegedly), can they use their supply chains to support the rest of Europe?
They may lack the scale, but perhaps that can be built up.
The UK doesn't have the supply chains to support the rest of Europe. There are lots of parts on an F-35 that the UK can't make; despite being a Level 1 partner I don't think they have the full technical data package for everything. But neither does the US have the supply chains to support ourselves without the UK, especially for the F-35B model. That's why this whole dispute is so stupid, and hopefully cooler heads will prevail.
Europe can't even maintain some Eurofighter fleets without US support. The Austrian model for example needs a crypto key for secure communications from a US company for every flight.
The US cryptography key is only needed for NATO Link 16 communications, not for regular flight operations. This is totally normal because Austria isn't a full NATO member. They are part of the NATO Partnership for Peace program which allows for limited levels of cooperation.
But right now the fact that there US citizens (apparently civil contractors, not military personell) stationed at austrian air bases to enable some functionality is a big deal. This is a big deal because the wish-wash Austrian Neutrality is crucial to Austrian Identity.
How is it a big deal? If Austria wanted full access to NATO technology then they should have joined NATO. They chose not to, and now they have to accept the consequences of that choice. Can't have your cake and eat it, too.
It's the usual hypocrisy. There never was money for the military, neutrality ever popular and nobody thought about it back when things seemed more stable. Now that things are changing, it's a big deal. Maybe we join Nato, maybe Europe get it's own shit together. We'll see.
There are still doubts as to whether the new Trumpian reality is permanent. Politicians in Europe are still hoping that this is all a bad dream. So I guess the orders will somehow (by delaying payments, inventing some requirements, finding problems in deliveries that have to be endlessly discussed and fixed, ...) be delayed for 4 years. If the next president is still looking as anti-European as Trump, orders will for sure be cancelled.
I doubt "until the administration ceases to act insane" is going to be enough. The current administration has proven to be untrustworthy, so nothing they say is going to restore trust in the US. On top of that, what guarantees could the US give that a future Trump 2.0 isn't going to break on their first day?
The problem is systemic: The US doesn't have a functioning democracy. FPTP, gerrymandering, unchecked campaign financing, the electoral college? It just isn't working, and the US is permanently stuck in a dysfunctional two-party system. If that doesn't get fixed (and let's be honest, it won't), the rest of the world won't be trusting the US until it can demonstrate a few decades of continuous trustworthy leadership after Trump is gone.
Still. None of the desired 800B of investment in defense equipment and technology can have US suppliers after the last couple of weeks. Even if the US eventually gets rid of this cancerous development.
As a side thought: it is oft remarked in the defence industry circles how buying local might be more expensive but more of the money stays at home.
Quite apart from any sovereignty arguments, cash spent at home goes to purchase of hopefully local components, materials, all along paying for local salaries, which drives local economies. And this is taxed along the way too, as income tax, VAT and ultimate corporate tax.
I wonder if that's really true to a significant amount, and if so, how much does that matter. Eg if I can buy something for X abroad, or c*X locally, for what value of c is this overall breakeven?
I think this is overly optimistic. Countries around the world can't build strategies around the US that will only hold when the Democrats are in power. Trump and the Republican party as a whole have thrown reliability out the window. Even if the GOP come to their senses and reject the America First ideology and pop their disinformation bubble the damage has still be done to the character of state. The only option for the US is to hold on to its power by sheer muscle power, but that will only last so long.
Doubts? Maybe officially in PR statements, otherwise you would have to be mad to think this is temporary. Its as temporary as his lifespan. People with actual power are not that stupid anywhere.
I am not holding my breath that he will just walk away in 4 years, why would anybody be so naive? He thinks US constitution is an old toilet paper, its mememe. Look at what happened last time he was supposed to go out.
> There are still doubts as to whether the new Trumpian reality is permanent
We have to assume that the US cannot be trusted as a military ally for at least the next 4 years. In fact, we have to be open to the possibility that they will be willing to be hostile. Including, but not limited to, extortion tactics. That's the hard baseline here.
We also have to be open to the possibility that the US either won't or can't have a proper election in 2028. And even if there is a proper election, that even a "sensible" president will not repair the damage.
What is already permanent is that Europe will never have the same level of trust in the US ever again. Perhaps some of it can grow back over a few decades, but the former level of trust will not return.
Trump has been here clearly signaling that a large portion of the US population does not support international military subsidies and Europe has done nearly nothing to prepare. Pushing forward a head-in-the-sand narrative is hugely detrimental to Europe’s independent future and requires a degree of blindness that is absurd
By "military subsidies" you mean US government money subsidizing US defense industry I assume?
Because that is where most of the money ends up when the US "supports" other countries. The US unloads weapons from its stockpiles (that need to be replaced at some point anyway) and then replenish the US stockpiles. This is both a huge injection of funds into US defense industry, and it takes care of the expensive problem of dealing with old ordnance.
US defense industry is going to be busy restocking the US stockpiles for a while longer.
If revenue were to soften before that, the Trump administration can distract from this reality by pumping more money into the industry short term. This may actually push the problem forward in time to the next president if they can keep pumping in enough money to hide the problem. It looks as if they are doing exactly this.
Of course, a few years down the line the defense industry will be in trouble as "consumer trust" is gone, Europe have ramped up their production and revenues will start to plummet.
Like all things it depends on the terms, in my mind though China would probably be incentivized to give us a good deal - Im sure they would be very amused delivering real hardware while the USA continues to demonstrate their incompetence at shipbuilding. It would also signal that Australia wants to sit out any USA/China war, which might be hard to do politically (which is maybe why Im not PM) but its certainly the position I hope Aus ends up taking should these 2 buffoons start a real blue
We need to pay the money to USA as tribute so its a write-off anyway, but I have low confidence we will ever see working hardware from it. However I bet China would actually prioritise delivery of some new subs if we pivoted to using them as our naval supplier, to win mindshare in the west as an alternative to America or Russia as an arms supplier. and we set up the next 100 years of paying off bigger countries to leave us alone, which honestly worked well enough the last 100 years
We're uniquely suited to not support the F-35. Not unless you swap out the engine for a Safran one, change the avionics for Dassault's, rip out the rest of the electronics for the Thalès stuff and replace the ordnance with MBDA's.
We'd keep the frame, but Serge Dassault and Charles de Gaulle would probably smite any French mechanic coming within 20 feet of a F-35 to do anything but dismantle one for its secrets.
Which is exactly the steps a European power needs to take in order to support an F-35 or similar aircraft. Remove the foreign made equipment you can't support and put your own domestic equipment, or at least put something sourced from the EU on it
It is not going to happen. There is no european manufacturer or a consortium that can build a similar airplane with comparable capabilities. They can't even match the F-22 which is more than two decades old.
The only way Europe can match Russia/China is to keep buying american made weapons. Maybe in 20-30 years the situation will be different and Europe will have the same capabilities of the US, but until then... buy, baby, buy!
It seems to me Donald is beheld in some way to Vladimir; what's being done now to my eye is too specifically about setting up UA for second RU invasion.
Donald then I think, step by step, is going to ally with Vladimir.
1. US aid to UA stops (done).
2. USA leaves NATO (on the way).
3. US troops in Europe leave or move to Hungary (floated).
4. Hungary is ejected from EU due to Orban obstructing everything he can.
5. Hungary becomes RU satellite state (maybe with many tens of thousand of US troops).
6. USA lifts its sanctions, placing it directly in conflict with Europe.
7. Donald invokes Insurrection Act, military units can now be used for civil policing (this is why top military brass and specifically top military lawyers removed).
8. Europe puts boots on ground and air cover over UA.
9. To "encourage peace", Donald now disables support for US weapon systems being used by Europe in UA. At this point, F-35 is history whether or not EU has dropped them or not.
10. Protests in USA, military used, people die, Donald suspends Constitution "to restore order and combat subversive elements".
11. No more elections. All court cases underway made irrelevant.
Not American, but provided US military has an oath towards the Constitution (and not to whatever the government claims), I doubt _all_ of US army would follow (either internally, either externally) such a brutal reversal of duty as well as alliances.
Duty is to the Constitution and the Commander in Chief. And alliances are at the discretion of the President. The military will do whatever they are told in terms of who the have to be friends with.
I know. That's the theory and mostly the practice.
Only, ask your military to return against your just previous allies (at your own initiative) among which the one that helped your very nation to fight for its independence, with which you did cross-training and exercises, for the past 80 years... everyone is in for quite a bumpy road.
You mean the _Vichy_ French soldiers? that's quite a different situation than the allied French army :)
And, I was more thinking of the situation on American ground, within the USA and between the USA and Canada. I don't mean it wouldn't happen. I mean that I don't think that would happen with 100% engagement from all US army. The disconnect and reversal of strategy of the US, against its own allies, is too sudden.
Anyone with a working memory of a couple of years remembers people like you who said a variety of excuses to the tune of "it won't be that bad", "you're exaggerating" and "it won't happen like that".
Of course, all of them were wrong. Short of WW3 between Europe and the US, many awful things that were predicted have come true. DT has severely weakened the USA, weakened the stock market, damaged US reputation and trust in the US army, dismantled many departments, put useless shills in most important positions, pulled out of Ukraine, stopped aid to Ukraine, sucked up to Putin, and turned it all into a country that most people in Europe consider a hostile enemy (myself included).
So. For the sake of your fellow citizens, quit the excuses.
The result, and perhaps the definition, of the polarization problem is that every time something terrible happens, the responsible side would rather say "I love suffering, this feels great" than lose face in an imagined argument with the other side.
The solution should probably be to go in and fight Russia immediately.
I think it's foolish to restrict operations to Ukraine though, and feel that the size of Russia is one of its main weaknesses. If there's to be a war, it should involve incursions into the US proper.
> 8. Europe puts boots on ground and air cover over UA.
Given the size and battle experience of their armies I think that it's more probable that it's Ukraine that will cover Europe and not viceversa. And if they'll have to flee their country add a 12th point the UA army takes sanctuary in the EU that goes the way of Lebanon in the 70s when another army had to flee there.
Yes. Right now it's the EU which needs UA, and EU knows it; EU military is weak and has no idea how to fight with drones. UA military is strong and knows how to fight with drones.
If UA goes down, then EU goes down, because RU will attack before EU is ready.
This is why I think we see EU direct involvement in UA fighting; needed to keep UA up, and needed to get up to speed with drones.
> If UA goes down, then EU goes down, because RU will attack before EU is ready.
Do you have any numbers or analysis to back this up, please?
A few counterpoints:
- Russia failed to 'take' a relatively unprepared Ukraine, and arguably has only managed the gains it has made because the support (from Biden US and EU) was drip-fed according to the Biden team's strategy.
- Russia is haemorraging fighters and modern fighting machinery in the current war in Ukraine. It's unknown how much longer the loss of life can be sustained without internal unrest. The absence of modern machinery would obviously make an invasion of Europe less likely to succeed.
- While Russia might now be a "war economy" I've seen reports that they can't economically sustain the war for too much longer.
- While the EU certainty needs to invest in defence, some countries are already strong, and would likely fight to protect the collective.
Overall, this suggests that Russia would fail against a united Europe, were they to extend beyond a defeated Ukraine.
While Russia certainly botched the invasion they probably would have taken all of Ukraine by now without so much western support. Ukraine would of course be in a much better position now if that support had been stronger and not been dribbled in.
Russia's economy is teetering and looks very weak now, but much of that is due to sanctions. Sanctions that trump will probably remove soon, for zero concessions. I'm not sure how effective EU sanctions will be on their own. Soon we will be seeing a much stronger Russia, already on a heavy war footing, start swallowing up a much weaker Ukraine. I don't like what might happen after that plays out.
I get that Trump is unpredictable from one moment to the next, and also that (at best) is strongly influenced when he speaks to Putin, but he's been consistently spoken and (just about) acted from anti-war and pro-peace-deal positions.
Wouldn't freeing up Russia through removal of sanctions and a refusal to engage militarily resulting in an escalation in Ukraine and potentially beyond into Europe be seen as a big failure of his position?
Nah, Swedish aerotech already out matches both Russia in terms of production capacity, arguably 6th if you ignore stealth, weapons range and weapons reliability. And already beats China in terms of technology, they're just now producing 5th gen airframes with copied tech, where Sweden isn't just following.
The EU without the US can already produce 5th gen, the selling point of the F35 was 6th gen compatible with 7th gen (NGAD).
Russia is still flying more 4th then 5th gen fighters, because they can't get their bricks off the ground. Why would the EU want to copy the same mistakes of their enemy?
No, because the US could fly them, (assumedly), but doesn't. Where my understanding is Russia can't keep their fleet maintained let alone produce more. You don't use gorilla air tactics and bomb civilian infrastructure if you have other options. Russia is smart enough to know the value of winning hearts and minds, but they don't. Why not? Because they can't is the only reasonable conclusion I've seen
I don't have access to perfect information, but I find the reports that Russia is unable to maintain their entire fleet creditable, and believe and/or trust the experts who confirm this analysis.
As far as I know the US military still has more 4gen jets than 5gen.
Obviously Russia has no 5gen at all (or just a few 5gen Su-57, if we going to name them 5gen).
Anyway, my point is that as of now Russia has no need for gen5 and can't afford it anyway, just like about anyone else except for the US and a few countries that have them but at the same time have to rely on the US anyway.
If you look at the raw specs maybe. Grippen has a specific role which is starting and landing anywhere and being easy to support, both in manpower and materials. You can land a Grippen on any short stretch of paved ground, get it rearmed and ready to fly again in half an hour with 5 people. Whereas higher spec american jets like the F16 need very long, clean and straight runways, lots of support infrastructure, lots of personnel and have a long turnaround time. With the likes of F35 and F22 this is even worse.
As other poster said, Gripen is perfect for a defensive role as a missile launch platform. It's not supposed to go 1:1 with F-35:s, but to counter the Russian air capability - and mostly in a defensive role. F-35:s were really great when they came with larger techno-military-political ecosystem but now the trust in that ecosystem is shattered.
Don't forget the F-35 is the best plane for the PREVIOUS war. The current and the NEXT war will be fought with drones. And Ukraine is one of the countries that has the best drone industry.
Maybe we (as a Pole living in Norway) can't have state of the art jets, but in practice don't need them?
We (as the whole eastern block - Scands, Balts, Poland, Romania and Ukraine) should cancel our orders of F-35 and focus on developing our drone and strategic missile industry. And focus on investing, developing and buying from our closest allies - the eastern block.
Not on the countries that don't care because they are either too far from Russia (Spain, Italy) or have vested geopolitical interest in alllying with them (Germany). France and UK might want to join to balance out Germany.
At least that's what I understand from hearing smarter than me discuss the current situation.
Which next war? The type of small, short range drones currently being used in Ukraine and Russia won't be of much use in a major regional conflict with China. Ranges will be orders of magnitude longer and communication links for drone control won't be reliable.
The main reason that Ukraine and Russia have had to rely so heavily on drones is that they had no better alternative. The air forces on both sides are shit with zero (or effectively zero) 5th generation aircraft that can survive in a contested environment. The F-35 was designed for that mission and would at least have a chance.
> The air forces on both sides are shit with zero (or effectively zero)
I wouldn't call Russian AF "shit". The УМПК (JDAM) bombs crushed formidable defense of Avdeevka and now hit AFU hard in Sudja. Ka-52 helicopters stopped counteroffensive a year ago. Surely, sky is contested, but it's still important component that hurts Ukraine very hard.
> have had to rely so heavily on drones is that they had no better alternative
What would be an alternative to wing reconnaissance drones? What can hyper-equipped US armed forces offer as a replacement FPV and fiber-optics FPV attack drones? Yeah they have Reapers and other fancy expensive gear for the first 3-4 weeks of active war, then what?
The Russian air force is shit. They have zero capability to conduct close air support and have been reduced to launching stand-off weapons from within their own air defense coverage. This has some value but it's basically just another form of artillery. US tactical air capabilities are on an entirely different level.
The US has a variety of overlapping reconnaissance capabilities including not just large UAVs but also manned aircraft (including the F-35) and multiple satellite constellations. Over the next few years the priorities in that area should be to accelerate the B-21 Raider program (it will make an excellent recon platform) and develop some sort of prompt satellite launch capability to replace combat losses within hours. There is also a general recognition that we'll have to increase spending or shift budget priorities to build up the industrial capacity necessary to sustain longer conflicts.
Have you seen that Chinese dragon made with drones they showed off during the NYE show? Now imagine them autonomous and every carrying a bomb. Even Phalanx will not help you. Bye bye aircraft carriers.
I've seen it. So what. How will those drones get to the aircraft carrier? Their batteries only last a few minutes, and they barely move much faster than a carrier.
Today. So many things we have seen in the last couple of years have been pure sci-fi a decade ago. Switchblade 600, for example, has a loitering time of 40 minutes and a range of 24 minutes.
> and they barely move much faster than a carrier.
Fly in the direction bow to stern, low above the water. Or just ... loiter in the path of the carrier.
You're really missing the point. Have you ever even been on a boat? The Pacific Ocean is a big place, and carriers don't move in predictable straight lines. Drones aren't going to be able to loiter in place indefinitely just on the hope that a carrier might wander into range.
The Chinese are not stupid. Their A2/AD doctrine is based on large, expensive manned aircraft and fast missiles, not slow and weak little "drones".
Personally I oppose sending troops to the front in Ukraine, but for a different reason than others who oppose it: I believe that to send them to already fortified Russian positions is wasteful.
Consequently I believe that if the EU is to intervene, which I think is a very reasonable thing to do, it should be by imitiating the Russian approach of using aircraft as flying artillery-- i.e. to release missiles etc., against Russian positions in Ukraine, but I also believe that we should attack Russian natural gas pipelines, ammonia plants, nitric acid plants, ammunition plants with long-range weapons. I also believe that it's reasonable to send in ground troops to seize Russian and Belarusian territory in locations where it can be determined that Russia lacks artillery, tanks etc., and to in that way force troop movements, thus depleting the front in Ukraine and allowing Ukraine to basically roll it over.
I believe that this is possible for several reasons, among them that we Europeans are three times as many as the Russians. I believe that it is unlikely to lead to nuclear war because I believe that the Russians are rational and well aware that any nuclear use by them leads to a proportional nuclear use by 'us', whatever that means, and that the number of nuclear weapons in Russian control is irrelevant for the reason that they're gone after an exchange of a mere hundred or so, so that anything beyond that is superfluous.
I see no definite borders for EU expansion other than cultural.
There are some problems with Ukraine, there might be if there's too much corruption and oligarchy type stuff, so I don't want to absorb them immediately-- they need huge reforms, but I don't find them objectionable per se. I think they need to get smarter, get rid of their mafia etc., but it might be possible.
It's critical for the EU to prevent this kind of expansionist warfare on its borders.
Small DIY drones are only useful when no side has air superiority. Once you own the air, you can bomb and support ground troops a lot more efficiently.
The Rafale has claimed F-22 kills, but also consider that the competition here isn’t a straight up war against the United States but rather against Russia. As we’ve seen in the invasion of Ukraine, they don’t need advanced 6th generation fighters to handily best Russian forces using Soviet-era technology, and drones are FAR more significant in that kind of combat. Even if the F-35 was better at those types of missions, the high cost of the aircraft and support suggest that this might simply accelerate the shift away from human-piloted aircraft.
If your threat model did include a war within former NATO members, the F-35 is the worst possible choice so another way of thinking about this is that they should pick the best option which is actually available. That would mean things like swarm attacks and strikes on the airfields where those stealthy but extremely fragile planes are housed. Even if the public range is significantly low, they’d need a base closer than Greenland to strike European targets.
What exactly do you think are so special about American made products? The only reason that America’s allies have bought them in the past is because of Pax Americana. That’s about to end if not has ended already.
BAE Systems along with other European arms/aerospace manufacturers are perfectly capable of making competing products.
Which allies fought alongside in every conflict the US participated in? With the exception of the blunders in Iraq and Aghanistan where everybody jumped on the “lets conquer faraway countries” bandwagon.
In Syria the US bombs things at their will, same in Somalia. In all Latin America conflicts the US went at it alone.
Honestly, go and look it up yourself, you’re not engaging in this thread constructively. You’re simply parroting MAGA talking points. I didn’t say “every”, I said “mostly”.
In order to replicate this, you need to invade countries and conquer them to test out your equipment, soldiers discipline and whatnot.
I don't see EU countries starting to invade other countries around the globe to test out weapons systems and battlefield tactics. The US on the other hand, kind of did this continuously since WWW2 (to mention recent history).
Europe had no reason to spy on the US before, why shouldn't the EU produce a carbon copy of the F-35? There is already a plant making them in Germany. If the US is tearing up treaties then why can't the EU tear up their promise of not stealing military technology?
Not to pile on but you say we should buy the F-35 to go toe to toe against Russia…
America is currently doing everything for Russia! If we actually used the F35 against Russia right now Trump would probably immediately do everything in his power to
stop that, just like he’s exerting pressure everywhere else he can in Russias favour
Honestly I’ll personally be buying as little American as possible going forwards
Euro companies need to be moving off companies like Amazon swiftly, they’re under the boot of the new leadership. There’s a few years before even the current Russian leadership can change us rhetoric to be actively hostile to Europe, but it’s coming.
FWIW, given everything else that we've seen from Russia in this undeclared(!) war, I'm moderately confident the Russian nukes and delivery mechanisms are sub-par.
(Typing "sub" reminded me of the Kursk nuclear submarine that sank itself…)
It needs only a few to launch successfully to engulf Europe in flames.
So, even with subpar equipment, out of all of the 1700+ launch vehicles a few will still launch.
Some of the P(weapon failure) is constant: from what I hear, a certain fraction of Soviet and US systems (and presumably everyone else's) just don't work.
If that was all it was, then you would be correct.
But: some failures come with age, and require ongoing maintenance to retain function. For example, I expect all the tritium has decayed, and also that in many cases the money that was supposed to get spent replacing the tritium was instead spent on a fancy yacht or a football team or a seat in the UK's House of Lords etc.
And I don't know how good modern anti-missile weapons are, but I would expect them to have improved; conversely, despite Russia's talk about new hypersonic missiles, what they've shown hasn't been very impressive, and they've even used up some of their old nuclear-capable missiles while attacking Ukraine.
I'm happy to be relaxed about this, but only because I have no power — 90% chance some attempted hot war is actually all duds is great for me personally, 10% chance everything burns is unacceptably high for someone running a country.
Russia and China are regional powers and can't project military power very far, excluding nukes. To do that you need a credible blue water navy. China is close though, and definitely projecting its economic strength.
Europe (lets just say EU + UK) could be a superpower. However they lack political unity. And still want big daddy US to do the heavy lifting.
When Putin can't take back Kursk, it seems odd to call Russia a super power.
But yes, agree with you about China.
Putin wants people to think Russia is a super power, when it's instead a corrupted inefficient mafia state. Look at research or startups coming from there (not much) or it's economy - the country is not interesting any longer (Putin has damaged it that much). Except for Putin attacking Ukraine, and his nukes and troll farms.
If Pakistan starts threatening other countries with nuclear war, and tries to invade a neighbor but mostly fails, is it then suddenly a super power?
I wish the EU agreed with you. That would surely mean they would not want to go on a 800 billion Euro spend of my taxpayer money to deter an "irrelevant country".
If it's sustained, then yes. Again, it's mostly important to be less tempting than other areas if we're headed back to a world of great powers and spheres of influence.
Yes, that's why the U.S. wants to control Arctic trade routes from China to Europe.
The Ukraine war was "successful" in destroying the possibility of railways between the EU and China.
The EU, ever the good vassal, now ramps up the rhetoric against Russia which is exactly what Hegseth wanted in the open.
The EU is still playing the U.S. deep state script and it is very likely that all the Trump pressure and insults are carefully planned political theater.
If the above conjectures are wrong and Trump is serious about peace with Russia, then the EU needs to pivot quickly to China and at least maintain reasonable diplomatic relations with Russia.
> The EU is still playing the U.S. deep state script and it is very likely that all the Trump pressure and insults are carefully planned political theater.
I find that becoming exceedingly unlikely. Trust has been destroyed, there is no easy recovery from that.
So many odd things have been occurring in the past month that I don't know what to believe any longer.
First, ex-neocon Rubio admitted on the Megyn Kelly show that the world is now multi-polar. Even if he believes that, why would he say so unless it's for show.
Then there is Lindsey Graham. In 2016 he gave warlike speeches to the Azov Batallion:
Graham and probably Rubio are still neocons. Trump must be really powerful to keep all this under control.
Then there is the U.S. arms lobby, which is uncannily quiet even though they'll lose a ton of business when NATO becomes irrelevant. Then there are no reactions to Polish nuclear ambitions, which is weird unless the whole thing is scripted.
So there are two theories. Either Trump is carving up the world or he is acting.
Elon Musk threatens to spend millions against any republican who deviates from Trump’s policies. Without that threat, the republicans would speak up against this assault on American interest and values. I wonder more if Elon has been compromised than Trump. Or if Russia threaten to trigger the Kessler syndrome, destroying all of Elon’s aspirations of getting off this rock (I’m still skeptical if he’s telling the truth about that), and instructed him to stop the war.
No, thank you we are not idiots. Out fighters are just fine, as long as we don't have to fight US.
BTW you don't seem to understand military well - F22 is much better plane than F35, but abysmally complex to do and expensive, thats why the low numbers. F35 has way too many compromises ie for us navy.
Also, as Ukraine war shows fighter jets are not that important for waging war if situation is more like peer vs peer, and not US blowing shepherds and weddings into pieces. Sure, they lob a bomb or two, sometimes launch a rocket but all from as much distance as possible. What wins such wars these days is artillery, massive amount of infantry and millions of various drones.
given the extreme 'benefits' of autonomous weapons (cheap, can be produced in arbitrary numbers, easier logistics, fewer parents mourning their children in your country, vastly easier production), we should expect them to be fielded before they are really ready.
Id agree with ten years to never for a 1:1 100% replacement - but Im not sure that is the required threshold for drones to replace a development budget item for upgrading to an next x-gen manned fighter.
I mean, if any other country spent 700+ billion a year on corporate welfare to defence contractors they’d have some impressive tech too.
If nobody wants to buy any of that shit because of the knock-on effects of Trump’s self-sabotage and they start investing elsewhere, then those defence companies will sooner distance themselves from the US as well. Unless they’re in on whatever the administration is cooking up the money is still going to speak louder.
Or maybe Europeans, as "founding members", are able to support the planes on their own? I doubt it though. The engine alone is US made, ans that alone is probably unmaintainable without their support.