I remember certain US President warning the Europe this kind of thing may happen, some years ago. And some Europeans very independently and openly laughing at him. I wonder if they are still laughing. I also wonder whether their electorate still think they were defending their interests in the best way possible. I also wonder when and how exactly US forced the dependent Europe into rebuilding their energy structure in a way that led to the current conundrum.
I fully agree. We need a full decoupling from the US. We must protect our economy and our interests, through out every single American soldier from European soil and make sure that those brain-washing machinery Hollywood/Netflix are being banned and replaced.
We are in this mess because of the US. Let us not forget that they are not our friends, but our enemy.
PS: btw, given by what you are saying I assume you haven't seen russia's state tv channels last years which airing in a prime-time shows how they would like to strike EU countries with missiles...
>Do you not realize that the US is the only reason Russia doesn't steamroll all of Europe?
Do you not realise the US is the only reason Europe doesn't enjoy friendly relations with Russia and access to that colossal market for European goods and, in return, access to equally colossal supplies of cheap energy.
Wake up and smell the bloody coffee! The US is the direct or indirect cause of most of the conflict in the world today. You're like Oceania. Your entire economy and political system is based on there always having to be 'An Enemy". Today it's Russia, yesterday it was ISIS, the day before that it was North Korea, the day before that The Taliban, The day before that Iran... the day before that... and so on, ad nauseam. Who will it be tomorrow?
The US has been at 'war' with <someone> continually since the end of WWII --yet somehow you never seem to consider the merest possibility that the fact you're continually getting into fights with other people might j-u-s-t p-o-s-s-i-b-l-y be because it's actually you who are the 'Baddies'... and not [at one time or another] everyone else on the fucking planet!
No, the fundamental reason Europe doesn't enjoy friendly relations with Russia is because Europe is liberal and Russia is not. I'm not an American either. The US has enough of its own internal problems and their military actions aren't ones where millions of Americans settle on the territories they fought on so I don't buy the argument that their political or economic system is based on having an external enemy. It certainly wasn't that way before WW2 nor afterwards, especially given how big their domestic market is. The reason they have been consistently involved in international conflicts is primarily because they were violently against Communism spreading around the world. Most things stem from that. Take your examples, North Korea is a direct hold over from the Cold War. Taliban/ISIS is religious extremism that came about from Cold War conflicts. Iran is because they are a threat to America's ally in the Middle East, Israel, which was only created post WW2 and heavily involved in several Cold War conflicts.
>No, the fundamental reason Europe doesn't enjoy friendly relations with Russia is because Europe is liberal and Russia is not...
Are you for real? Europe [and its puppet-master the USA] enjoys cordial relations with some of the most odious regimes in the world because they're 'on our side'. It's kindergarten stuff and self-delusional to pretend western nations form their relations with other countries based on moral principles.
>I don't buy the argument that their political or economic system is based on having an external enemy. It certainly wasn't that way before WW2 nor afterwards..
Maybe you should do a bit of independent reading and thinking, before making such nonsensical statements:
> Do you not realise the US is the only reason Europe doesn't enjoy friendly relations with Russia
Is because Russia does not have friends. If you think buying his hydrocarbons and shutting up about him being fascist would make you Putin's friend - you've got some bad news coming. Putin doesn't want friends. He wants power. If he can use some useful idiots from the West (like certain German politicians) to gain more power - he will use them. The rest of the Germans are paying for it now.
> might j-u-s-t p-o-s-s-i-b-l-y be because it's actually you who are the 'Baddies'
We considered the possibility, and it's not true. Putin attacked Georgia in 2008, Putin attacked Ukraine in 2014, Putin is attacking Ukraine right now. It's that simple. There are evil people around, and sometimes evil people capture power in some countries. It happened in Germany. It happened in (half of) Korea. It happened in Iran. Now it happened in Russia.
> not [at one time or another] everyone else on the fucking planet!
Everyone else on the fucking planet did not invade Ukraine. Putin did.
2021 is the last year that idea had any leg. A "steamrolling" into Poland, even with a fully withdrawn US army, would be an harder feat than one into Ukraine...
Russian tactics would be completely different for that scenario. There would be a much more massive bombing campaign using the full might of their air force (which is clearly not what is happening in Ukraine) for one. I wouldn't rule out usage of tactical nuclear weapons either if they faced any difficulties.
> There would be a much more massive bombing campaign using the full might of their air force (which is clearly not what is happening in Ukraine)
Why? They've shelled indiscriminately civilian city centres, train stations with civilian evacuations, buildings where civilians have taken shelter. It's obvious they couldn't care less about civilian lives, what is stopping them from using their aviation?
Considering what we saw on the rare occasions they did use their aviation (phones with buttons used to coordinate and communicate, using physical landscapes and maps for orientation, pilots in not the best shape) their air force is probably as good as their army. That is, utterly shit, with terrible maintenance, no morale, missing equipment, etc etc etc.
What? It's Thales who produce Russia's R77M1 guidance systems and some of its avionics, and they are worst than MICAs (let's not even talk about Meteors). Russian pilots get on average less than 80 hours/year of real flights, standard in France in 140, including regular wargames against US raptors and superhornets at both Fox3 and Fox2 distance (some old videos are available on the internet of rafale f2 vs F22 raptor, it is fun to watch)(also, i write engagement distance in full letter because french standard for their rafale is confusing).
And not talking about the difference in Fox3 missiles (because Russia cannot compete), even Fox2 it's not that close, with a time to lock for MICA IM at least twice as short as Russia equivalent on the same plane (and MICAs avionics are better, so harder to evade).
But enough talk about missiles and air to air engagement. What about electronic warfare capabilities? Oh yeah, dependant on Thales designs. Also, do you expect a lot from country whose plane passive IFF isn't working? Yeah, that happened on a Su34 (so, not that old of a plane).
The S400 would prevent too much entries in Russian airspace (although we learned last year than EM disruption was enough to counter it, you still have to find it. I think S400 are better than what a lot of people now expect from Russian modern weaponry). I doubt however they would have anything other than Su57 left after two days of war against EU. And since they already lost two (or is it three?) in six months in ukraine, they only have thirteen left (including prototypes).
Also i'm not convinced of Russian nightime optics, i know they didn't hire Thales for those, but i think they should have considering it took two weeks to spot nighttime Mariupol approvisionment raids.
Do you not realise that the EU (yes, not Europe, sorry Moldova and Ukraine) has a mutual defense component and includes a nuclear power with a 24/7 nuclear submarine patrol? Nobody is steamrolling the EU.
Not to mention that the state of the Russian army is so poor it could barely steamroll Moldova.
Okay, I will retract my statement to say steamroll up to France (because I believe France would use nukes to defend France). I don't believe they would use nukes to defend other European countries unless they had American backing, you can see even now how weak Europe is regarding punishing Russia, and that's with America pushing them to do so. I will defer to my sibling comment on the state of the Russian army. One thing I actually forgot to mention is that Russia openly does subcritical nuclear weapons testing which as far as I know is not done by any Western nuclear weapons nation which relies almost solely on computer simulations. The US is also (at least publicly) playing catch up on various hypersonic cruise missile technology with Russia and China so I would definitely not risk underplaying their air force capabilities.
Emmanuel Macron, French president for the next 5 years, has already said that he's ready to share the responsibility and power of French nuclear power with the EU. He's been harping for stronger European integration and dedicated EU-wide defence collaboration and forces. French nuclear weapons are definitely on the table in any conflict involving the EU.
Yes the US government agrees, and has been urging European countries to take responsibility for their own defense instead of depending on the US security umbrella. And the EU probably should have done more to compromise on UK demands in order to prevent Brexit.
What? in 2012 Eu compromised on Every Single Point. Every points. Not as much as the UK wanted sometime, but to put the brexit on EU is disingenuous.
Also, the US government is really weird on EU security. Because while Trump pushed for higher defense spending, the military was in Belgium and Germany saying "See, you have to get new fighters carrying our bombs, and since the Viper is abandoned and we won't upgrade your F18 into superhornets, you will have to buy our F35". So Germany and Belgium at least will be paying an order of magnitude more in maintenance costs for at best the same air capabilities. But they did finance Lockheed, so all is good?
You are misrepresenting what happened with tactical aircraft purchases. Germany, Belgium, and several other countries voluntarily participate in the NATO nuclear sharing program. In order to continue with that they need a nuclear capable aircraft. The US Air Force was already paying to certify the F-35A as a nuclear bomber, so other NATO buyers get that essentially for free. They were free to purchase other aircraft and pay for nuclear certification (like they did previously with the Tornado) but chose not to do so.
The Lockheed-Martin F-16 Viper is still in active production and the Air Force is upgrading theirs with new radars so it's hardly abandoned. It is physically impossible to upgrade a legacy Boeing F/A-18 Hornet to an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet because the airframes are different, but new ones are also still in production. US allies are welcome to purchase either aircraft, but neither one is nuclear capable. Those aircraft are also considered less survivable against Russian air defenses than the F-35, so hardly the same capabilities at all.
How can the gas problem not be entirely blamed on the current leadership? I have not heard of too many elections in recent times. Though, UK did change their prime minister... But still the same party and parliament.
It's true speaking about long term leadership. German french and uk leaders (together with most others in west and central europe) were long nurturing russia and agreeing to be sit on the needle of its energy supplies. Now we have consequenses. Hangover so to say...