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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2360 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 9, 2025

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Do you think that Europe is able to rearm itself? So far the track record of Brussels is abysmal when it comes to show something for big projects. So my bet is on nothing will happen.

I'm more optimistic about country or bloc-level rearming (i.e. something like the Nordics + Baltics + Poland) then I am about it happening at the EU level. I'm no expert but I'd imagine the political incentives are too diverse between the member states for there to be any sort of unified approach. I'd be surprised if Spain or Italy want to make the same sacrifices as Estonia or Finland when they're at approximately zero risk of invasion. It's also unclear whether countries that are prepared to spend the necessary resources want to contribute them to what might start looking more like Macron's Neo-French empire than a military union equally committed to everyone's interests. We'll have to see.

In terms of production, likely yes. That's the least concerning part IMO.

Politics is a much bigger question. The possible internal instability, as well as the ability to withstand external attacks of political or hybrid nature. Second to that, manpower issues, and the societal implications of the possible solutions for those. After that, I'd say various enablers (satellites etc) which Europe depends on the US for.

By repurposing existing factories (the Germans are looking at converting a lot of major factories VW and other auto manufacturers don’t need anymore) and building new ones they can scale up production pretty fast. The issue is whether you just want a more powerful NATO-integrated army or one actually capable of operating on its own. As I understand it there are many functions like satellites and communications, air to air refueling etc where they’re fully reliant on the US.

Warfronts released a pretty good video summarizing the current NATO military asset situation.
TL;DR: NATO/Europe is actually fine in most respects and even significantly outnumbers Russia in terms of navy. The critical bottleneck are artillery shells. Artillery is responsible for ~70-80% of casualties in the current war for Ukraine, to give you an idea of its importance.
There are multiple factories currently in construction but it'll be years before they're ready and producing in the necessary numbers.

Artillery is responsible for ~70-80% of casualties in the current war for Ukraine, to give you an idea of its importance.

True in terms of running totals since the beginning of the war, but as of now both sides are claiming 50%+ of casualties going forward are from drones.

Certain European countries might, but I seriously doubt “Europe” will arm “itself” anytime soon. Without overwhelming American power to bind the continent it’s clear that European countries have wildly different interests. Besides the threat isn’t really that serious as modern Russia isn’t a particularly strong or aggressive country. Besides European countries already spend quite a bit on defense. The main bottleneck is a lack of fighting spirit and social cohesion.

I would agree that Russia is less powerful than sometimes believed, but claiming it’s not particularly aggressive is quite a take.

Soviet Union was a military behemoth that expressed constant interest in taking over Europe and Asia as well as projecting power into Africa and Latin America. A very substantial chunk of western intellectual classes and almost entirety of the new world third world leaders were sympathetic to its ideology to some degree. It was ruled by people who were capable of sanctioning deaths on the order of tens of millions and had almost total political control of their population.

NATO existed to defend the remaining tiny stretch of capitalist Europe against this.

In comparison what’s Russia? A rump state that staged a couple half failed interventions in its generally pretty messed up barely seceded neighbours, and spent the last 3 decades trying to integrate with neoliberal global markets.

England, Italy, France, Germany or even Turkey feels no serious threat from modern Russia. Therefore the “alliance” just lingers on as a braindead useless entity.

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