[alephnerd]

But in the 1990s, militaries like West Germany, Canada, etc remained competitive and helped balance the load.

There's no reason Germany (and in reality it's only Germany that's the laggard) can't rebuild their conventional fighting capacities to help load balance again.

It's just German instraginence because of their fanatical opposition to deficits that is hampering their ability to do so.

> increase risk of nuclear war without NATO (Japan, South Korea, Europe, etc would acquire nukes without USA guarantees)

As I wrote below, that is highly unlikely in much of Europe, as most European states (except the UK and France) lack the capabilities to develop credible nuclear delivery systems like ballistic missiles or nuclear submarines.

[thecopy]

>There's no reason Germany (and in reality it's only Germany that's the laggard) can't rebuild their conventional fighting capacities to help load balance again.

They could, yes. But would they need to if Russia is weak? The current strategy from USA seems to be to appease Russia, give them what they want and weaken security guarantees. The point im trying to make is that there is another way here which i beleive nets the West (both USA and Europe – USA's natural ally) more benefits than gearing up for war (aka the Peace Dividend).

>lack the capabilities to develop credible nuclear delivery systems

Is this the case? I think Sweden were months away from testing their nuclear bombs when they were conviced to dismantle the system in return for protection from USA's nuclear umbrella and were in process of producing supersonic nuclear bomber in the 1950s. They still produce today world class submarines, develops and build their own fighter jets.

I would think that Europe has knowledge and skillset. I mean, North Korea managed.

[alephnerd]

> The point im trying to make is that there is another way here which i beleive nets the West (both USA and Europe – USA's natural ally)

And this is the crux of the issue. It's hubris to assume Europe is our natural ally and should always be our top priority.

In the US, our Pacific allies (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand) are a higher priority than our European ones.

As can be seen in US Military Deployments (the majority of US Armed Forces personnel is deployed in the Pacific) along with economic relations (APAC trade is larger than EU trade)

For the US, China is the primary adversary to worry about, not Russia. Why should European states assume the US has an obligation to always support Europe? At least France and UK have historically tried to maintain some strategic autonomy, and Eastern NATO states like Poland, Romania, and Turkiye have continued to build domestic defense capacity.

And unlike most European countries, our Asian allies (SK, JP, TW) have continued to build fairly competitive domestic defense industries. Japan and South Korea can manufacture their own ballistic missiles, tanks, submarines, airframes, heavy artillery, etc. Only France has a similar diversity of domestic defense R&D and manufacturing capacity in Europe.

> more benefits than gearing up for war (aka the Peace Dividend).

It's Europe that gets the peace dividend. Not the US. We still need to the capacity to fight a two continent war. That's a bum deal.

> I would think that Europe has knowledge and skillset.

Europe as a continent, sure. But in reality, it's a number of individuals states working on their own domestic production, procurement, and supporting their domestic champions.

France will continue to protect Thales Group, Arianne Group, Dassault Group, etc, just like how Germany continues to back Rheinmetall, ThysennKrupp, Eurofighter, etc.

There is no ability to unify production and procurement without also undermining domestic industries and jobs.

France's Ariane Group will never transfer their Medium Range Ballistic Missiles technology to a German company - they don't want to help a potential competitor.

This same thing happened with the Eurofighter project, with France deciding to back Dassault instead.

[thecopy]

>Why should European states assume the US has an obligation to always support Europe?

Well, it agreed to:

>In 1994, Ukraine agreed to transfer these weapons to Russia and became a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, in exchange for assurances from Russia, the United States and United Kingdom to respect the Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.

I don't necessarily disgree with the central thesis of your comment and your perspectices, but i think there is a more fruitful balance to be had than what i see as completee capitulation to Russia and the abandonment of Europe (after almost a century of collaboration and investment).

At some point one need to ask oneself: what am i defending?

[alephnerd]

I agree that we in the US need to continue defending the Budapest Memorandum and helping Ukraine where possible.

That said, individual European nations have had over a decade to re-arm and further help Ukraine (even before the 2022 invasion), but it ended up primarily being US, UK, Canada, and Turkiye providing support and training for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

European states are starting to step up, but using Trump as a punching bag to distract from the very real issue of Central Europe's pigheaded lack of preparedness is foolish.

We are starting to see these changes now with Starmer and Macron's announcements, but plenty of individual European states are not viewing this crisis seriously enough, as Poland's Donald Tusk pointed out today [0]

[0] - https://tvn24.pl/polska/szczyt-w-paryzu-donald-tusk-przed-wy...

[rasz]

Donald Tusk also said today there is no option of sending Polands army to Ukraine because "Polish army is for defending Poland borders", its like he forgot what happened in 1939 :|

[alephnerd]

Appears to be because of Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarus:

"Poland simply doesn’t have the additional capacity to send troops to Ukraine,” said a senior Polish official who spoke on condition of anonymity, noting the country has long borders with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia-allied Belarus, which need to be reinforced with Polish forces. “The French are far away so they can send soldiers to Ukraine; we’re close so we cannot.” [0]

The biggest hurdle that caused the current emergency talks to fail appears to be Germany and Scandinavia (as usual).

[0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-leader-donald-trump-...

[thecopy]

Agreed