If Europe's military were so strong, why does the US need any involvement?
There's a reason even Zelensky described the EU militaries as weak, and believes a European army to be necessary.
Don't confuse spending with strength either: The UK, on paper, spends 2.3% of GDP on the military. That sounds good - until you realize they have only 136,000 personnel total. That's not going to defend the UK from anything - it can't even defend Ukraine for a year.
You are asking the wrong question (or at least, a wrong question). It's not "why does the US need any involvement", it's "Why has the US insisted on involvement for so long?" (e.g. during the 1980s when widespread sentiment in Europe was for the US to close its military bases, the US insisted on remaining).
The UK does not rely 136k people to defend itself from military risk. It relies on its nuclear arsenal, which while not as large as those of the USA or Russia, it quite the deterrent all by itself.
> The UK does not rely 136k people to defend itself from military risk. It relies on its nuclear arsenal, which while not as large as those of the USA or Russia, it quite the deterrent all by itself.
It's a deterrent from invading the British Isles, which would require a navy that only the US has, anyways.
It's not a deterrent from challenging the world order. The US nuclear arsenal is the only one in the West that, if it were deployed, would end human society on a global scale.
Russia has designed its nuclear forces and defense infrastructure around a war with the United States, a country with a much, much larger nuclear arsenal than the UK or France. There's a possibility that if Russia decided to use its tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine (which it has threatened before), and the UK or France responded in kind with strategic nuclear weapons, that enough of Russian nuclear forces could survive to completely wipe out those two nations while also having weapons in reserve.
Its "nuclear arsenal" consists of a single missile boat on patrol with about a dozen or so ICBMs (which could certainly mess with major Russian cities. But if a Russian fast-attack sub (of which they have quite a few) gets it, bye-bye "nuclear arsenal".
> Since 1998, when the UK decommissioned its tactical WE.177 bombs, the Trident has been the only operational nuclear weapons system in British service. The delivery system consists of four Vanguard-class submarines based at HMNB Clyde in Scotland. Each submarine is armed with up to sixteen Trident II missiles, each carrying warheads in up to eight multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). With at least one submarine always on patrol, the Vanguards perform a strategic deterrence role and also have a sub-strategic capability.
Yeah, it's the reverse of what's often pushed in the media. There have even been initiatives for autonomous EU security projects, with the US (I think even Trump at some point, despite what he says now about NATO) being against anything that would undermine NATO.
Basically, don't piss off Poland, you'll need to defeat about 500,000 soldiers, though do you really need to march on to France if you win against Germany? Even if you did, that's about 1/3 the US military, and nowhere near as well armed, or well trained, or well psychologically prepared. If you're Russia, about 1 million soldiers should do the trick; and that's not hard when you don't have moral qualms and 21 million military age men to throw at the problem; and (edit) possibly an additional few million from North Korea for purchase.
As for nuclear weapons; Russia can probably bet that using a nuclear weapon from inside France, or inside the UK, as a first strike, would be too controversial to even do. The government would probably be sued by human rights lawyers from inside itself for even trying; convinced that it's better to take the loss while remaining on the moral high ground. What's even the point, when NATO predicts they have less than 5% of the defenses required for the inevitable retaliation? https://www.ft.com/content/5953405f-d91a-4598-8b6b-6345452ca...
> (edit to reply): Russia isn't winning against Ukraine.
"Don't piss off Poland?!" There won't be a large scale war against the Eastern EU started by Russia that does not involve Poland. The EU has stronger mutual defense clause than NATO article 5+6 (of course, it doesn't have anything close to the military might of the combined NATO countries). Once there is an all out war, Finland would mobilize its army, threatening Russia's northern flank. The Baltic would be closed. The black sea would be closed. All out war would be terrible, but the deterrence is still too strong in my opinion, as the price would be too high.
The problem / question is what would the EU (or NATO) do, if Russia starts a small scale hybrid war against Estonia or Latvia. Creating a small "local" insurgency, that takes over a majority Russian speaking town on the border. If the military alliances do not react united in such a case they are done.
I think the critical question is what would the allies do (especially the ones with nuclear weapons) if Russia actually used one. There's a lot of treaties, words spoken and on paper but nobody really knows how people would react to the idea of partaking in a nuclear war.
If they dropped a nuke on e.g. Lithuania would the French do the same knowing that retaliation would come that could wipe out most of their people and country off the map? Would any country do that for someone else?
> Even if you did, that's about 1/3 the US military, and nowhere near as well armed, or well trained, or well psychologically prepared.
Nowhere near as well armed as the US. But I would argue perfectly well trained. But I laugh at your assertion that the French military is not as psychologically prepared for war.
The population of Russia was widely disputed even before the war(With most estimates placing it at below 100M), and now it's basically a guessing game.
"that's not hard when you don't have moral qualms and 21 million military age men to throw at the problem"
But do you really have them?
Putin seems really hesitant to start a new round of mobilization and refills his army with volunteers. Some of which are voluntolds, but the regime seems to be afraid of the Moscow/St.Petersburg street, so to say.
His grip on the Russian nation, especially after 3 years of endless bloody slog with almost nothing gained, does not seem to reach into the "give millions of recruits weapons and they will use them exactly as told and there is no risk that they could rebel" territory.
> If Europe's military were so strong, why does the US need any involvement?
Because Putin is all-in, willing to sacrife the lives of big parts of his population for this purpose. And this makes him a formidable enemy. Does it have to be more complicated than that?
If that is the first question you ask when someone needs help, I guess you will not have that many friends.
And it all amounts to a bag of beans. If it's so impressive they can support Ukraine and render irrelevant any contribution that the US might make? One wonders why Zelensky is in the US pleading for US help?
In the US he needs to convince one administration (and realistically, one guy). The EU is 27 governments, each one with way smaller budgets than the US.
Anyway, you might have missed it, but Zelensky is also regularly asking for help in Paris, Brussels, London, and Berlin.
But Europe is not at war. It is Ukraine that is. But they need help with equipment, and balancing their budget. This is what they are asking for, nothing else.
Much fewer than 500k soldiers are needed for training Ukrainians.
Europe certainly has the means to support Ukraine financially, if the political will is there.
But it’s incapable of providing alternatives to Starlink, Patriot or ATACMs. Especially not at the scale required to make a difference in Ukraine. The withdrawal of these systems would be disastrous for Ukraine.
Especially if the US opens Starlink for Russia but closes it for Ukraine.
ATAMCs could be somewhat mitigated with heavily increased medium range drone production.
The game of shooting down everything Russia sends was always a losing game. At some point you have to start addressing the source of the attacks - i.e. strike hard at the Russian infrastructure.
Europe produces alternatives to Patriot (Aster). And ATACMS are not crucial in any way, these days it is Ukrainian produced long range drones that do the most damage behind the lines.
Ukraine cannot win without manpower from either the EU or the US. That's the reality on the ground. No amount of equipment/weapons (conventional) is going to change that.
According to the Austrian military, there’s currently about 800k Ukrainian soldiers up against 700k Russian soldiers.
Because a substantial number of Ukrainian soldiers need to be present across the Belorussian border and elsewhere in the country, the Russians have a meaningful manpower advantage on the frontlines.
Remember Ukraine doesn't need to take Moscow to win. Russia is burning resources hard to keep the initiative and achieve Putin's war goals. All Ukraine needs to do is continue to bleed the Russian army and wait until Russia has a hard economic crunch.
Combined, the second military power in the world if you look at military budget.
It is as people totally forgot about it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highe...