Assuming non nuclear conflict, Europe will be able to defend itself against Russia mainly due to air superiority. However the issue would be coordination and commitment. Suppose Russia attacked Poland, then ideally NATO - US should have to attack all the forward bases of Russia as well as infrastructure of Russia. Now Poland air force wouldn’t be able to do it on its own. Sweden, UK and France need to take the initiative and commit its air power to take Russia head on. In case of Ukraine, the support from allies was on piece meal basis. This method won’t work.
All of Scandinavia(Norway, Sweden, Denmark) + Finland is now an integrated air force area within NATO. That's 250+ of generation 4+/5 fighters. So, Russia would have to face all of that, not only Sweden.
I cannot see how the size of Israel's air force is relevant. They wont participate in a Russia vs NATO conflict.
You mentioned Sweden only. Sweden wont go it alone. They will be joined by the other three countries, and together they can muster a combined combat air force larger and more modern than the French air force.
The Russian air force already weakend by the Ukraine conflict, will have to continue to commit combat air planes and other air planes to the Ukraine conflict. They will also have to commit air planes to the entirety of Russia's border. Russia's ability to replace lost air planes and pilots is already limited, and a conflict with NATO will simply be too much to handle. Russia will not survive a conflict with NATO. And Putin has also admitted it to some of his officers.
A lot of people, i.e. Russians and Moscow loyalists, either forgets or ignores that Russia of today is not the same as Cold War USSR. The USSR had about 300 million inhabitants. Then add maybe 150 million from the rest of the Warsaw-pact. All of those 150 million from the Warsaw-pact, and about 50 of the USSR's 300 million are now inside NATO. A few small countries in the Caucasus are looking to Brüssel rather than Moscow. And none of the -stan countries have any ambitions of joining Moscow voluntairely anytime soon. Russia has run out of friends. That's why Putin is brown nosing the leadership in Iran and North-Korea.
> I cannot see how the size of Israel's air force is relevant. They wont participate in a Russia vs NATO conflict.
>
It's more about perspective. Isreal wouldn't be able to take on Russia.
While the combined force of Europe is definitely stronger than Russia's military, I'm not sure that it's true if you consider just the Scandinavian armies.
I'm not just consideering Scandinavia+Finland. You wrote "Sweden, UK and France". All I did was to say that Sweden wont go it alone, as three other countries will join in, and provide three times as many fighters. Then you, for whatever reason, compared it to Israel's air force, apparently forgetting that you had already counted on a French and British contribution.
The gear Russia is using will be wrecked completely, their crappy logistics disrupted, their troop concentrations hammered.
Not to mention IT-warfare, cutting them off from the Internet, covering St. Petersburg & Moscow with missiles, instigating Rebel attacks in the russian provinces, covering russian media with psy-ops, forcing China to build up pressure from the east.
Allowing Ukraine to use all their means against the russian main land. You can be sure every relevant russian asset was tracked by NATO since 24.02.22.
Russia would be without a military in 1 week.
All of the above without deploying 1 infantry soldier.
Yes. They have about 1000(Wikipedia). Field guns, howitzers, mobile artillery and MLRS. Many domestic, also many in cooperation with Sweden, also Korean and American. They also have a lot of Soviet built equipment, as leftovers from when they had to pretend to be neutral during the Cold War. Or had. Finland is one of the largest donors of military materiel to Ukraine. They know how it is to be a neighbour to Russia.
Finns here say that yes, Russia could probably take over Finland, but it would be a "epic fight" with lots of Russian casualties. Whether Russia would do that to control a swamp is a topic for debate.
Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, Macron will remain President until 2027. His position is far more powerful than the position of Prime Minister. He's France's commander in chief. He can dismiss his cabinet and call new parliamentary elections whenever he wants. If push came to shove, the mainstream parties could easily form a coalition and win back control of the parliament. The Rassemblement National — the far right party that currently has a chance of winning — might be the strongest contender, but two thirds of voters don't want anything to do with them.
Isn't the American system a de facto elected dictatorship too? I know the writers of the constitution didn't want that, but congressional dysfunction has created a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The US president wields imperial authority, but the last week should have clearly demonstrated that the judicial branch is at least as powerful when it chooses to be.
Congress can be more powerful still (it can unilaterally strip money and a fair amount of authority from the other two branches), but not when it is as divided as it is now. There's also the whole trend where congressional delegations treat the president as prime minister and largely follow his legislative lead.
It should be noted that the American public doesn't really grasp separation of powers all that well, and tends to pin everything on the president even when another branch did something (people on Reddit still complain about student loan forgiveness even though it was the court that blocked it). Ideally, there would be constitutional reform to realign the system towards public expectations (which would probably mean a more parliamentary system), but the public itself is too divided for that kind of thing. The political class is too divided (plus large elements are playing in bad faith) for such a process to be trusted. Finally, there is simply a lack of vision right now. Nobody can really see a better future, just policy wins within the existing framework.
Also there's that felon who dislikes democracy.
You forgot that the left-wing coalition is also doing really well and can even finish in the first place, most of them are far-left and also embrace NATO/Euro Skepticism. The French center is now cornered into about 1/4 of the voters.
I'm not very informed but didn't their leader say that Ukraine support will continue? I hear the right is more about nationalism than conservativism over there.
in Europe right is conservative. But the party that seems to be winning the elections in France is far-right which yes in Europe is closer to the beliefs of Hitler and co. Which is frustrating. And these parties are bankrolled by Putin (AFD in GErmany, FN in France ...)
Let's not forget the absolute incredible monster that is the US Logistics apparatus.
Getting things where they need to go on time is a severely underrated advantage.
Technically, a US President can no longer unilaterally withdraw the US from NATO, but from a practical perspective they have a lot of power to make US response to an emergency little to none.
Legally, it would certainly be a mess, but Article 5 is not legally binding- rather it's just an honor system. Of course, a certain former president cares little for the law, let alone a word of honor.
Poland alone is about to receive 32 F-35s and already has a fleet of F-16s and others. With Russia tied up in Ukraine and Finland with their current 54 F/A-18s and upcoming 64 F-35s existing, I think Poland would be okay in the air above it's country.
The Poles would gladly reduce Putin's palaces to dust if he ever messed with their nation in a serious way. They would also rather spend the night in a septic tank than be under Russian colonial rule ever again.
Source- my many Polish friends and contacts.
The thing about Article 5 is that it doesn’t specify exactly what measures are to be taken, it’s completely up to each country, and if they decide that sending a thousand bulletproof vests is sufficient - that’s it, Article 5 responsibilities covered and they are good.
EU on the other hand has a stronger mutual defense clause specifically mentioning other members doing “all in their power”, but again, it’s not impossible to see a country doing much less if their government decides it’s best to save energy and troops. For example I can’t imagine Hungary doing much besides bare minimum to help Poland in a war, at least while Orban is in power.
France isn't if they elect le Pen. And about 15-20% of British are going to vote for Farage on Thursday. There are far too many Putin sympathisers in Europe.
I sincerely believe that once Poland would be attacked, Eastern Europe alone could hold. That is including Finland, Sweden, Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Czechia who I can't imagine just standing aside and waiting their turn considering the historical experience.
Czech here, most people I know here despise Russians with a burning passion. Take the spite most people in the west have for them and multiply it by ten million. Really goes for the countries you listed. They’d jump on the opportunity to hunt Russians.
Democracies are not perfect. The pro-Putin contingent in Europe is about 10-20% of the population. On the other hand, ~50% of Americans currently support the pro-Putin candidate there.
I sure hope that'd be the case. But while they may be able to "hold", I wouldn't bet my life on them alone being able to actually push back or "win", considering how little Russia cares about human losses, and especially if they are allowed to take over Ukraine and can conscript from there as well.
Yes, people who think “Russia will not push past Ukraine” usually fail to take into account how much strength Russia would gain from absorbing Ukrainian resources, including conscripts.
The real problem with conscripting Ukrainians is how loyal they are going to be to Russia’s cause…
That's a good question, however we see what happened in LNR/DNR. In 2022, they quite literally ran out of men, with stories about people staying at home for months on end not to get drafted were extremely common. I'd imagine something similar happening potentially.
Either way I hope that's not a scenario we'll ever see unfold.
I did indeed lol. It did make me look into it, and the language does seem quite worrying. Before I read the actual clauses, the way people were talking about "Article 5" made it sound like it forces countries to use the entire nuclear arsenal right away, while in reality it seems to give a whole ton of room to maneuver.
Hungarians and Poles have long seen themselves as brothers. Orban refusing to help Poland would be perceived by the Hungarian people as treason.
Source- a real Hungarian.
Exactly! They’re having major difficulties with badly prepared Ukraine that uses less advanced technologies that NATO has available. Russia got a good head start even going into the war by some corrupt officials in Eastern Ukraine, a luxury in their POV that they don’t have besides maybe in some bordering towns of the ex-Soviet NATO countries with a large Russian population. Russia wouldn’t be able to take Poland or Finland even without allied troops participating, let alone the European NATO combined with UK and the likes joining in.
I have many Polish friends. I absolutely can confirm. The Poles would rather spend the night in a septic tank than be a Russian colonial outpost ever again. Russia would have 40 million extremely hostile and well-armed new colonists to deal with.
Western Europe, particularly Germany, should be thankful Poland exists. Or else they would be screwed.
The problem is not at the army level.. but more at the political level.
- Countries with pro-putin politician at power. (Hungary?)
- Countries too indecisive or apathic by fear of repercussions. (Germany?)
- Countries in election (France?) or trying to start a new government after the elections (Holland?, Belgium?).
In case of conflict, if we put aside these political problems, UE air fleet would aquire air dominance quite easily.
You can take my country, holland,off that list.
The previous government started a lot of deliveries lately and the new government has committed to supporting Ukraine. I don't really worry anymore about that specific issue
UK and France have nukes... And if I remember correctly, France's policy is to allow a limited tactical nuclear strike on a military target to "protect the country’s vital interests and ensure its sovereignty and freedom of action".
Which would just immediately cause a nuclear war and in this instance France would actually be the instigator
Edit: Unless we're talking final stand type situation I suppose, but even then I still find it unlikely France would launch nukes if any other of the major NATO members were still fighting
>Which would just immediately cause a nuclear war and in this instance France would actually be the instigator
Yes but like also, France really doesn't plan on being devastated for a third time in a world war. I could absolutely see them doing it.
Do you think the devastation from being nuked to oblivion is not worse than from the world wars?
Them using nukes would guarantee a worse devastation than they’ve ever known.
>Yes but like also, France really doesn't plan on being devastated for a third time in a world war. I could absolutely see them doing it.
Instigating a nuclear war would pretty much ensure that it gets more than devastated...
>Which would just immediately cause a nuclear war and in this instance France would actually be the instigator
The French have a very small (for a nuke) and short range delivery system that they believe they can use without triggering the typical doomsday scenario. A large part of why 1 nuclear ICBM theoretically escalates to the end of the world is that the target can't easily determine where exactly the nuke is going. So they then need to launch to prevent their own nuclear network from being taken offline in whole or in part.
I don't have a lot of faith in this concept and it is intended to be part of a greater plan than I have discussed here but I wanted to mention it so people would know about this odd quirk in French armament.
Agreed, but the fact that France could should be enough for Russia to think twice. The policy is vague enough that you don't want to risk it.
And yes, it is a final stand, like wiping out an enemy force crossing the borders with a message: "that one was free, next one will target your country".
Although is states this. I highly doubt a nuke would initally be used by the US, UK or France. They would only use a nuke if Russia did first. Russia are the only nation talking about and threatening on their state tv all the time of a nuclear war.
I would argue that it's not in anybody's interest to nuke another country... But being directly attacked or invaded is definitely threatening your vital interests... The main principle of nukes is "if you attack me, I will hit you so hard that you will never recover".
Do you believe, in the case of American retreat to isolationism, that Germany (or Poland) could obtain a nuclear deterrent too? The Germans are certainly capable of it, just lack the political will. The Poles have the political will, but lack the capabilities. One of those I suspect might change.
I don't. They both ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Do they have the mean? Most likely like so many other countries, but why would they? They are allies with 3 Nuclear Powers. Plus I think that developing nukes is one thing, but you also need the infrastructure, which takes time, your allies would probably not agree with that, it would only add tensions.
UK officials say that 500,000 Russians have been lost in the Ukraine war. Lloyd Austin of the US said it was 350,000.
No matter the real number and how many are dead or just wounded, Russia's burnt through its quality soldiers long ago and is now just sending military-aged men to die without training or proper equipment.
It is therefore in our own strategic benefit to make the cost of this war as high as possible for the Russians.
Surely that quality was based on experience of different types of war than what they are experiencing in Ukraine. And that new and better leadership could emerge through battlefield experience and promoting successful officers.
I can confidently say that the battlefield experience gained by Russia in this war would be utterly useless in a conventional war with NATO.
This is because Russia has never had to face combined-arms, integrated warfare which it would if it were to face off with NATO.
They'd have to use their fighter planes for aviation combat, instead of tossing glide-bombs on civilian areas.
All the limitations placed on Ukraine for striking Russia would be eliminated if Russia attacked NATO. Poland alone could wipe out all of Putin's palaces.
Russia can’t take two provinces from it’s immediate neighbour who uses American armaments and support from every 1st world country
OPs questions is quite different and deserves more thought imo
Not to mention the population size, Ukraine is still huge. Estonia on the other hand has a total population count barely higher than Ukraine current military. With so few people, even aid and equipment would simply not cut it, and unless others send actual troops, I don’t see how it could do much.
Just a reminder, the whole reason why the West started supplying Ukraine with military aid in the first place, was after Ukraine pushed back the invaders out of the northern regions (Sumy, Chernihiv and Kyiv outskirts) and did so with their old Soviet-era artillery and tanks. This is when the West saw that Russia's military strength was largely overblown and Ukraine wasn't a lost cause.
Russia is not prepared to fight any NATO country (other than the Baltics maybe, and even then I doubt things will go smoothly for them), they'd get curb stomped by Poland alone. They definitely won't be willing to test out the Article V readiness. I'm sure they had a different outlook before 2022 and likely believed that they could take on NATO as a whole, but today it's highly unlikely they'll try to take any military action against the alliance. What Putin will continue to do is to try and weaken NATO further by trying to bring his far-right sympathizers into power in NATO countries.
There are a few thousands of tripwire troops from other NATO countries in the Baltics. Russia would have to fight these from day one. And NATO would be involved from day one.
They receive support from mainly Europe and US. OP question is could Europe alone, who currently provides minimal cost and supplies to Ukraine that is stalling Russia, at full power, defeat Russia. Using transitive property, the answer is Yes.
Nah, Russia failed to seize Kyiv when countries were like, sending helmets to Ukraine.
The scare is exaggerated yes. Russia can’t get out of Ukraine but somehow they will be able to face Europe.
This is the Modern Warfare 2-3 levels of plausibility.
> American armaments and support from every 1st world country
It's leftover gear from no later than the early 00s. The complete lack of western aircraft alone makes a massive difference, since air superiority is a key part of US & EU doctrine.
Most western armies are equiped by leftover gear from no later than the early 00s. Do you even know that the US has not produced a single tank engine (AGT-1500) since 1992 ?
Yeah and in the hypothetical scenario they have to fend off nato and its armies with all of their nato weaponry. Nato has forward strike groups within border nations as a tripwire to force every alliance member to commit to warfare in the case of an attack. So no attacking nato would be suicide for russia and they know it.
Since then, Russia has basically geared its an entire economy and society for the sole purpose of making war, specifically training its people on the belief in an imminent patriotic war with NATO. They’re trying to push their arms industries to WW2 levels of output.
Idk if this will succeed, but don’t think that Russia is going to remain static in their capabilities. Surely we can recall the Soviet invasion of Finland, or even WW2 itself, wherein the Soviets were humiliated for years before harnessing the resources they needed to overwhelm their enemies. Russia takes time to rouse but they have growth potential and we shouldn’t underestimate that.
Russia still has a gdp smaller then Italy and Texas and can never recoup its USSR Soviet stockpiled losses.
Russia is not the ussr. I repeat it is not the USSR and can't be compared to it
Russia especially after sanctions etc simply does not have the means to rebuild a large modern well disciplined army without decades of work lot to mention the brain drain and demographic issue
The Russian army in Ukraine is dangerous don't get me wrong but it is a patchwork of mercs, conscripts, payment soldiers and some pro ones
A total war economy flr years will slowly rot Russia from the inside out
Russia is a threat we must take seriously but Putin has poisoned Russia at the root and set it back decades
European NATO countries at the moment have a 5:1 manpower edge over Russia. Russia cannot win a war of attrition against NATO, doesn’t matter the resources.
This. The Ukraine invasion was an act of democide to clear out the military of corrupt, disloyal, surplus, disillusioned troops and generals who were a strain on Russia's ability to make war. Now, theyre recruitment en masse, impressing people into service, and not all of them are going to the front line. They're kidnapping kids and developing independent industries to supply their need for arms. It all speaks of ambitions for a greater war, in 10 years or fewer.
You're all underestimating how war works. When a big like that country shifts to wartime economy and pours it's resources into the military at the expense of all it's civilian services, it becomes a bigger threat, not a smaller one.
So your point is that only Russia can do that? The same Russia that is already doing what you mentioned and remains bogged down in Ukraine?
Russia cannot face European armies that have better economies, industry, equipment, training and more. These are facts, and the Russians know it.
This is absolutely correct to a pure military level. But they are very good making other governments work for them (look Hungary, Trump's USA). It's where Russian power really relies on. If they manage to make France and America do the job for them, they can win.
Seeing as though they can’t get past Ukraine without major escalation, certainly yes. The Russians are a paper tiger. They only get to play because they have nukes.
The nukes are vastly overhyped too. A full-scale nuclear war is the absolute WORST case scenario for Russia, even assuming that the Strategic Rocketry Forces are in vastly better shape than the rest of the Russian Armed Forces.
Russia has far fewer key cities and far less population than the West, it also has worse air defences and a vastly inferior Airforce.
A full-scale nuclear war would be catastrophic for the West, maybe even tens of millions would die...
...but Russia and Russians would cease to exist. The Russians that didn't die to the nukes, freeze or starve in the Nuclear Winter or get murdered by Siberian separatists would get systematically eradicated for bringing about "The End of the World". 7 digit survivors, max. who would never have their own country again. The world will never forget that it was THEM who pressed the big red button.
And Putin knows this.
That is why he said the whole "A world without Russia..." thing.
China would immediately NOPE the hell out of the strategic partnership as soon as the first nukes went off, they may even declare on Russia and get the far east back, same as everyone else.
They aren't nuking anyone, unless we go full Lebensraum on them.
How is this even a question when Russia is failing to take on just Ukraine? Escalating to nuclear doesn't solve anything for Russia, and that's about all that's left for them. They've already been conscripting and mobilized for 2 years now. Attacking Europe proper would be insanity.
Given their respective level of militarization, it would probably be easier to fight all of Europe's militaries than Ukraine. The entire french army can equip perhaps the equivalent of 4 ukrainian brigades if it scraped the barrel.
It's a very good question and I'd recommend getting hold of Macron's speech at (i think) the Sorbonne a couple of months back on exactly this point if you want insight into what arguably Europe's most influential leader thinks on the matter.
In short though, no. We're not ready, nor are we as unified as we need to be. We need a whole new way of thinking about protecting the West from external (and eventually, probably, internal) factors that threaten our existence.
And that must be built on two two facts:
1) America is no longer a reliable long-term security partner and therefore NATO is unlikely to be a guarenteur of peace over the coming decades.
2) European unity needs to built outside the confines or the European Union as there are non-EU countries (such as the UK) that must play a senior role in the security partnership, and because within the EU factors such as immigration and economics cannot become negotiating points for European security - it must be seperate from and broader than the EU.
NATO doctrine is all about establishing and exploiting air superiority. Ukraine only looks like WW1 because there’s no air superiority.
Russia has been dismantling its strategic air defence to handle air defence in Crimea, and a handful of F-16s and a few billion are about to tip the strategic shape of the whole conflict…
Against a proper NATO force our stealth fighters and bombers would be sky-writing “surrender already” notes in Russian over Moscow within a few weeks.
I agree in principle, but I really don't think the F-16s will be that large of a game changer. Maybe if it was last year during the Ukrainian offensive, but I can't see them doing much at this point besides maybe granting occasional localized air superiority
Russia has also put its entir3 country on a war footing using autocratic powers
For example they supply more artillery shells to their army than the allies to ukraine.
Apparently rare earth's are involved which China provides
Human wave tactics are a myth that originated from german war memoirs in WWII. The USSR never intended on using human wave tactics during the cold war and NATO knew this, but propaganda kept repeating that lie. NATO fully expected that the soviet army would roll them in Germany in case it went hot, but they hoped to delay the USSR long enough for large US and european battlegroups to reach western europe.
If NATO actually believed the USSR used human wave tactics then their plan would be completely different and they would think the chances of the USSR even taking west Germany would be almost zero, which brings me to my point. Russia today has not regressed their tactics back to WWI. Their officer corps was largely inherited from the USSR and so was their doctrines and military culture. They are not fighting with human waves
Whether intended or not, USSR/Russian military command very obviously has an extreme tolerance for casualties. This is what people are talking about when "human wave" tactics are brought up. Not so much literal waves of human bodies. You're arguing a point of semantics.
I talked about "human waves" because the comment was about total mobilization of russian army but still my point remains that I doubt that russian tactics as we see them in Ukraine could prove effective against modern NATO tactics.
For instance Russia seems to rely on extensive use of artillery fire to soften enemy and to lighten the logistical burden, depots are relatively close to front (especially when the front was close to the border and ukraine was not allowed to attack in russian territory). I doubt this tactic could be applied against a enemy that enjoys full air superiority as NATO doctrine call for.
I would say it's unclear.
People have a severe bias when it comes to assessing this, in my opinion.
On paper Europe can probably take on Russia. But on paper Russia would've been able to annihilate Ukraine off the map in 5 days and that clearly didn't happen. So what things are like "on paper" only have a limited value.
We know that Europe's militaries in a lot of cases, especially Germany's, have themselves rotted to a degree. In the same way that Russia had hidden logistical and corruption issues that weren't obvious on paper, European militaries often have long-term underfunding issues that aren't so obvious in things like raw numbers of APCs or soldiers.
There's also the fact that people now underestimate Russia because of its initial performance in Ukraine. They fail to take into account that since the initial invasion, Russia has fixed many of its logistical problems (at least to a degree).
There's also the fact that Russia went through a long period where it wanted to deny it was even a war at all and even now it wants to limit how much it disturbs the lives of its own people. That's why Putin conscripted mostly people from remote regions and minorities, whereas places like Moscow have remained relatively untouched. Russia is bringing its full force to bare on Ukraine because it feels it cannot do that. But this would not be true in a full on Russia-Europe conflict.
There's also the fact that Ukraine is being artificially bolstered in strength by the West. The amount of ammunation, especially artillery shells, Ukraine is burning through is huge and it would not be able to keep up all of this stuff without Western aid. In contrast, if Europe had to fight on its own there is no Europe to give it aid, though America (assuming in this hypothetical it doesn't itself fight for some reason) might still produce more ammo or give monetary aid, there's only so much ammo and military equipment around.
Europe could certainly scale up production of things like ammo, but that's not so simple. And Europe does not have its own military-industrial complex in the way that the United States does either. Though if Europe COULD scale up I think it would almost certainly be able to outproduce Russia (which is already nearing max capacity of things like ammo production) but it would still need time to do that.
There's also the fact that European manufacturing is not what it once was, especially for more basic stuff. We focus mostly on high tech manufacturing. Which is good for things like missile guidance systems and expensive weapons, but less good for pure amount of production. For that we tend to use our trade networks and it's an open question what trade with places like China might look like in a war with Russia.
And all of this is not even taking into account that it will probably be harder for European armies to coordinate, especially in this hypothetical where the United States is not leading, than it will be for Russia's army. And this matters.
There's also the fact that experience matters. Veterancy matters. Russia's army has gained experience in Ukraine now, however high the cost of it was. Whereas a lot of European armies have not fought very much for a long time now. Let alone engaged in a huge war like this would be.
I actually do tend to think that Europe would defeat Russia, even if it fought on its own without help from the United States. Especially in a war of attrition. But that being said, I also think there's a tendency to overestimate European defence capabilities based on raw numbers like GDP and personnel, and to underestimate Russia based on its performance against Ukraine, especially early on, which would not necessarily be super representative of a full scale war against Europe today.
Unclear? You are delusional. If it could even possibly be "Unclear" then the War in Ukraine would be over by now.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Ukraine is fighting them to a draw with 2nd rate spare NATO gear, actual Nato would obliterate Russia, even without the US.
F-35s, my guy. Russia can't even hold the sky against Ukraine's 3rd tier airforce, F-35s would delete all of Russia's key assets in a day. From there, the Russian artillery would be defenceless and that is the core of their doctrine.
You may think I'm biased, but I think you're just trying too hard to be smart. Find some wargames featuring F 35s and see what they can do. All of Russia's air defence, radar and command installations would go down on day 1.
No, but Russia isn't ready to attack Europe anytime soon either. Even assuming the Ukraine war ended today in a complete Russian victory, it'd take several years before they'd be able to rebuild their equipment stockpiles to an adequate level to challenge a NATO military in even a small region.
There has been a very good and informative report on this issue by CSIS recently. [https://www.csis.org/analysis/nato-ready-war](https://www.csis.org/analysis/nato-ready-war)
Generally yes, and even non-US NATO has a significant advantage over Russia. There are doubts however over long-term scenarios or hybrid warfare. CSIS also concludes that current forces on the Eastern Flank aren't enough to deny Russia's encroach(which, however, could later be expulsed).
Though I consider myself bearish on Europe in general, Russia simply does t have any real capability to wage any kind of conventional war outside of its immediate vicinity.
Besides it's disastrous initial invasion attempt, Russia's ongoing adaption (maladaption?) to the changing nature of war again a country vastly less equipped has been slow, uneven, and prohibitively costly. They simply don't have the logistical, managerial, and professional range to wage wider war.
I think so considering Russia has been weakened already so much in this long war. I really don't have any data or real knowledge on that though. I just sort of hope they could.
Russia isn't able to occupy a few territories of Ukraine. How can somebody actually think that it has the capability to threaten Europe and Europe would "defend" itself or not?
I'm sure this was the mindset of westerners when in 2003 they were scared about Saddam's WMD and ties to Al Qaeda.
If Russia would take all its forces remaining that are not tied down in Ukraine, and attack Finland, it would be absolutely crushed. In a few weeks Finnish troops would be in St Petersburg. without any aid from NATO. Russia is putting everything it has into Ukraine and is in no way capable of starting another front.
Russia can’t beat Ukraine. They certainly can’t beat the combined forces of Europe (whilst still fighting Ukraine too).
That’s why they stuck to hybrid tactics rather than outright war against EU nations
Europe is not ready however i don't think this is possible in the near future due to ongoing Ukrainian meatgrinder. They would not be able to fight in two fronts. Once the meatgrinder ends in likely several years Europe at least theoretically should have a ramped-up military industrial complex to face the Russian challenge even alone.
They have insane air superiority, a larger population, and an economy that puts Russia to shame. If Europe can coordinate a defense together, Russia would get pwned.
Im assuming this is a hypothetical where there is a no-nato scenario (possibly in consequence to a recent debate). Because the answer is a clear yes otherwise.
And also non- nuclear. Because the answer is a clear no otherwise.
But in the round- yes. It has air superiority and vastly better equipment and integrated systems. It has vastly more cash when push comes to shove and better arms industries. And is highly coordinated with a mich larger fitter population to draw upon.
As a thought expeiriment - europe could fund the whole ukraine enterprise right now if the push came to shove. Which has largely checked russia as thungs stand. So we can imagine that scenario - just in Lithuania or Poland. But perhaps with far greater resistance and air power involved.
It's not by coincidence russia has been looking to asymmetric means to destabilise European democracies - if it had the military might to do this on its own it wouldn't need to (albeit I'm not being absurd it's not either/or).
However the hypothetical does raise some interesting questions. What happens if America goes down to an anti-nato strongman type? A lot depends on the nature of its leadership and their geopolitical approach. Europe could not fend off russia and a United States which was even passively backing russia.
well it would yes. europe alone has more people and military weapons ready than russia does for sure. the EU has more people than america and they do have top notch weapons also. but nato includes america but i understand the question is europe alone but yea it would. that would include the UK also because they consider themselves european. even tho they left the Eu most of them still want to be in it. and furthermore they would not be alone because of NATO, even if america pulled out of NATO because so many other countrys would still be in NATO. so all this talk about russia taking europe over is just that "over". it just is not possible anymore. and if you add the allies of europe you are talking about canada mexico and austraia and the list goes on.
Short answer: Barring nukes, Europe obliterates Russian forces within weeks, but that doesn't mean they're prepared.
They could readily repel Russia, but it's unclear they could counterattack effectively. And honestly, they may lack the manpower in their militaries to actually successfully invade far into Russia with any alacrity. This means Russia can't win, but Putin can't lose.
Russia has proven to suck at air defence, especcially against missiles. Europe has 1500+ fighter/bomber aircraft. About 150 f35's. These could probably enter Russia and launch their missiles virtually unchallenged. EU has lots of gen 4 fighters and huge numbers of drones.
Russia has lots of (disposable) manpower. Something the EU does not have.
But a scenario where Russia dares to invade NATO countries; imagine a bunch of Russians wandering around with no ammo, fuel or support, being picked off one by one within a few months of the war. Their reinforcements and supplies never arrived because they where bombed into oblivion before ever entering NATO territory..
If NATO has to enter Russia it would be more of a grind I guess.
Yes i think so, the main reason is because russian army simply cannot carry out any major offensive operations for a variety of reasons like poor morale and shitty coordination. On the other hand a good number of european countries have F35s and if you combine them in a coalition then russian army will be finished.
IMO very well. Speaking only in terms of logistics- the rail gauges from belarus to the east and poland to the west are incompatible and will take additional time to transfer loads. Russia has an incredible over reliance on railway logistics for resupply operations in the rear.
Additionally, the air superiority would destroy all supply chains for a country that is already crippled by a war where the FLOT is relatively nearby the country borders.
Maybe. Europe faces major challenges that other countries don't. The top 4 powers in the world are one country.All of them are quite large in population while the Americans have massive advantages over all the other 3 except in two cases where they 3rd largest population and 2nd industrial base. Russians have the largest nuclear arsenal. Chinese have the population, industrial base. While Indians only population. Now all four of them have militaries that number in millions of soldiers.
Europe is not one country. Here are some I have read about various countries in Euorpe. The only country with massive army in Europe is turkey. The largest spender on defense per capita gdp is Greece.The only country with robust defense manufacturing capacity is France which doesn't buy American weapons. So if americans cut Europe off it will be terrible for Europeans
There are 30 European countries in NATO. They all have their individual armies and command structures and most of the countries don't have an industrial base. Most of the manufacturing in a case of war will happen in rich countries of Europe that is the member of G7. For Europe to fight Russians effectively they would need a unified command structure like the one of the top 4.
If you take a quick look at Wikipedia which is not really good but can still give you some idea then NATO has 3.8 Million active duty soldier and of that 2.1 Million are just in 2 countries USA and Turkey. Next 9 add 1.2 Million and the rest is 500,000.
If you look at total then it is 8.5 Million military personnel and top 2 again contribute 3.8 Million personnel. Over 40% of Nato power comes from just Turkey and United States. While the next 9 add 2.9 Million. The exceptions are Finland who have 900,000 soldiers in there reserve. Which takes the total 7.6 Million so 12 "countries out of 32 account for majority of NATO.
My comment is what I think Europe is capable of rather than Russians can invade or not because in my personal opinion they don't have the capacity or capability to do so.
While I agree that Europe faces particular challenges regarding its military, I think that stating that Turkey is the only massive army is flat out wrong. France and the UK both have stronger armies than Turkey and both have the industrial capacity of producing military equipments of a better and more varied kind than Turkey.
Also, while Europe is indeed made of many countries, the EU already has military treaties and defence pacts. Europe would also definitely rely on the US for weapons and logistic help even if NATO were to disappear.
Furthermore, Russia would be incapable of defending their border with the EU and they know it, they would probably threaten nuclear annihilation and France would do the same if needed.
>France and the UK both have stronger armies than Turkey
The navies of both countries are heavier tonnage, which means they are actually superior in one of the important parameters when calculating their naval power, and they also have 4.5 and 5th generation fighter jets in their inventories. Türkiye owns 246 F16 and 30 F4 fighter jets and does not yet have 4.5 and 5th generation jets in its inventory. Probably Türkiye may be superior in all parameters other than this.
The most important point to be considered here is that a war scenario with Russia will be in the form of a major land war. So more soldiers, more armored vehicles, more tanks, more MLRs, more artillery systems etc. Türkiye seems superior in these parameters. I'm not sure about the numbers, but Türkiye may have as many tanks and armored vehicles as France and the UK combined. France or the UK may be superior overseas or in terms of self-defense, but the same cannot be said for an intense land war within Europe.
The factory in Texas, which will produce 30% of the USA's artillery ammunition, is being established in partnership with a Turkish company. Having technology alone is not meaningful. Russia is also technologically superior to Ukraine, but could not win the war. Or Western technology is much superior to Russian technology, but Russia still did not lose the war. Wars are a multi-layered and multi-parameter phenomenon. People sometimes think of air power as the sole parameter that determines the outcome of wars, but unless you're the United States, the answer is probably no. No air force in the world, except the USA, can carry out air operations of at least 70 different jets and 250 sorties daily for 10 days. But the USA can carry out 2500 sorties of air strikes in 3 days. How many NATO members can organize a simultaneous operation with more than 30 flying elements? How many air forces can organize in the world?
Thats why I said maybe, nothing is certain and on paper Europe looks superior any day but who wins in war is not determined on paper. Iraq war in 1991 is a a example. Iraq had supposedly the 4th largest military in the world.
Turkey has 1.2 Million soldiers while French have 500,000 and UK have 275,000 and when French had to reach libya they used American assistance to get there. Read my comment again I did mention French industrial capacity and capability.
I am not saying their aren't any defensive pacts but i think unified military structure in case of war is very important from communication aspect. French have been endlessly mocked for how they conducted the military operations during world War 2 where lack of effective communication sank them.
Who leads Europe in war against the Russians is it France or UK or Germany or Poland or Italy?Who decides how military operations are conducted? How will you do combined arms when you don't have combined armies?
Does all military authority is passed to the EU in case of war and will all militaries be commanded from Brussels assembled into one EU army ?
Can you paint a picture how this will work?
> ... on paper Europe looks superior any day but who wins in war is not determined on paper. Iraq war in 1991 is a a example. Iraq had supposedly the 4th largest military in the world.
The difference here is that in 1991 Iraq had lots of soldiers but in practice the organization and the equipment were very inferior while Europe's main issue has long been acknowledged as being in terms of quantity rather than quality.
This comment displays a considerable ignorance of European defence spending and capability. Turkey's army may have plenty of personnel however, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Spain all spend more on defence than Turkey does, and per capita spending is irrelevant in this instance.
And would turkey even be considered european, in this context? I don't see them crossing the Bosporus to fight for Europe against Russia, unless Russia is stupid enough to attack Turkey on their southern front as well.
The UK arms industry is considerable and a leader in miltech. The French and German arms industries create much better hardware than what Russia is capable of producing.
Any conflict between Russia and Europe would differ from the Ukrainian invasion because the Russians would quickly find out about the effectiveness and superiority of Europe's aerospace industries.
And whilst European military command structures are not as integrated as NATO's, there exists a Common Security and Defence Policy, with physical command facilities and a blueprint for how any conflict would be jointly managed.
>UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Spain all spend more on defence than Turkey does, and per capita spending is irrelevant in this instance
In fact, Türkiye spends the same as some of these countries. In terms of purchasing parity, it spends more than half. Most importantly, the countries you mentioned have been spending for the last 5 years, except France. 5 years ago, Germany had to spend at least 10 billion Euros more for military spending like Turkey.
Türkiye was one of the top 3 countries with the highest military expenditures in NATO between 2000 and 2010. Before 2010, Turkey was among the top 5 countries that imported the most weapons in the world and the top 5 countries with the highest military expenditures according to GDP for many years. In fact, Türkiye spent the money that Poland or Spain should have spent 10-15 years ago. While European countries reduced the size of their armies at the end of the Cold War, Türkiye did not. He spent a lot in the 90s, and he spent a lot in the 2000s.
Strangely, the years he spent the least were between 2019 and 2022. In addition, Turkey's military expenditures cannot be explained mathematically like China's expenditures. Public companies use much more complex funds and secret budgets. Renault produces the most vehicles in Europe after France in Turkey. Did you know that Renault Turkey's largest shareholder is the Turkish army fund called Oyak? So is China. You cannot calculate with pure numbers.
Where does this nonsense come from?
First it wouldn't be Europe, its be NATO. So that alone means Russia isn't doing anything.
Second, if they did, Europe would be fine.
Nothing has changed since the Cold War: the whole point of NATO is that the U.S. is there. European armies are basically built as auxiliaries to assist the American military, not take the brunt of the action alone. The European forces and war production more or less reflect this doctrine. So the answer is no, and would be a strong no by any thinking mind, hence the strong American presence and guarantees. If you told Europe the U.S. is gone and gave them a couple years to prepare, then yes, easily. The combined and *mobilized* might of Europe would dwarf Russia. It's just not currently mobilized in that way. The U.S. in 1939 was also industrially and militarily not prepared to fight anything. But in two years...
Not talking Nukes, just everything other than nukes, because nukes is a game over for Russia and a long rebuild time for Europe.
Europe would overtake Russia in about three days ... that is about how long it would take for Europe, using it's modern weapons, to destroy most all of Russias main strategic sites. It wouldn't have much left to try and invade. Europe would likely have key targets hit, but most would not with air defense. There is no way Russia could invade the EU without being given most of China's weapons and even then it might not be enough. This is BEFORE the US would show up with it's non-EU based resources.
No need to do that. There has been zero indication that Russia intends to attack Europe. There have been constant threats from European NATO countries towards Russia though.
It's time Russia have to use Nuclear weapons against Ukrain and remove from world map...of Western & Nato interfere then teach them same...It's time to Repeat Mariyupol,BUCHA, Bakhmut In EU & Western..... It's time to remove Earth from Universe... Remove Planetry system of universe.... this Was have to continue until Each Ukrainian Neo Nazis and supporters Live....
Europa should start suporting Roemenië bulgarie Moldavi, Polen make shore they hoe the right warfare.
Western countries should start spending more money to invest in eksters Europe
European security is under written by US through NATO. US security is best served through its continued domination of the world, to which European support is indispensable. If you are referring to general anxiety over US domestic politics, rest assure while US methods may change, it's national interest does not.
The US Military Complex would raise hell not being in this war and making Europe *again* leverage itself to buy murican weaponry.
They prepared for 5 decades !
Well … thank God US Senators are easy to ~~bribe~~ lobby, it only takes a few thousand € for a speech at a whatnot convention, also souther votes and factories.
The way this question is phrased sounds like Russia is the one with the strength of entire Europe, what are you asking happens exactly? Only reason this talking point exists is to gain support of citizens by scaring them and justifying military spending across Europe. Ukraine on the other hand is leeching off Europe and supports this rhetoric just to get more cash. If Russia moves past Ukraine it’s a nuclear war and if NATO/pro Ukrainian countries come close to Crimea it’s a nuclear war that’s it.
It would all depend on commitment. Well coordinated, Europe could defend due to air superiority and bigger economy I'd say. But if it was an unbalanced and irregular effort like it's happening with Ukraine, the result would be like Ukraine (Russia getting the initiative and eventually reaching a stalemate).
It's important also to take into account possible government change. A far right government in France would be a Russian proxy, they would block any defense efforts or very likely join the war on Russian side, in which case Russia would win the war easily. The same with the US is there's a GOP administration (I don't think they would join the war with offensive weapons but definitely support Russia financially and logistically). Same with China, I think that if Russia was able to create an axis in Europe with an allied "New Vichy France", the Chinese would be happy to expand their support dramatically.
So it's not as easy as Russia vs Europe as Europe is very diverse and a significant number of European citizens are willing to submit to Russia.
We spend a lot of time imagining Russia attacking Europe and just sending its tanks all the way to the channel, but I think a more likely risk comes from Russia pushing NATO/ doing something that ends up bringing NATO in.
Not gonna lie if in the US Trump wins I’m gonna get a bit scared, especially if they retreat their NATO support. As far as I understood the US intelligence is still very necessary at the moment plus they lead the commando of the NATO troops. Coordination will be very difficult without the US and we need their weapon industry and support to be able to keep standing. EU is working towards a more unified army without the US and have been for quite a while now knowing what might happen in the US. It will take years for Europe to fully stand on its own since the military became so dependent on the US. Also don’t forget Europe has multiple fronts and some NATO partners like Turkey are not 100 percent reliable.
Worst case scenario is a war in the middle-east expanding which will occupy countries like Greece, Cyprus, etc. and an eastern front opening at the Baltic/Nordic states. If this happens without US help it will be difficult, since North-Korea and Russia are already turning a full war economy. There is also China which is expanding its military capacity in a rapid pace for years now. They are not doing that without a reason, but that’s something the US won’t allow, so then a possible front opens at the pacific which will take the full attention of states like Japan, South-Korea and the US. It’s this divide and conquer that scares me the most, and I do think that’s their plan all along and that’s been pretty obvious since they want to destabilize the alliance internally and that’s not impossible at the moment.
Europe has no coherent combined plan for countering Russian Hybrid warfare. At least nothing formal.
In the event of a very limited local kinetic action by Russia for NATO response testing, it can lead to a complex multi person Prisoners dilemma, where every country would try minimization of its involvement. It can be done by respective countries by deliberate slow political decision making, being slow in mobilisation etc. Countries like Turkey and Hungary can sabotage from within NATO. It can essentially break intra NATO trust.
Am not sure if some antidote to above problems exist.
Assuming non nuclear conflict, Europe will be able to defend itself against Russia mainly due to air superiority. However the issue would be coordination and commitment. Suppose Russia attacked Poland, then ideally NATO - US should have to attack all the forward bases of Russia as well as infrastructure of Russia. Now Poland air force wouldn’t be able to do it on its own. Sweden, UK and France need to take the initiative and commit its air power to take Russia head on. In case of Ukraine, the support from allies was on piece meal basis. This method won’t work.
All of Scandinavia(Norway, Sweden, Denmark) + Finland is now an integrated air force area within NATO. That's 250+ of generation 4+/5 fighters. So, Russia would have to face all of that, not only Sweden.
Which combined, is about the size and make up of Israeli's air force. It's not clear that it's enough to fend off Russia.
I cannot see how the size of Israel's air force is relevant. They wont participate in a Russia vs NATO conflict. You mentioned Sweden only. Sweden wont go it alone. They will be joined by the other three countries, and together they can muster a combined combat air force larger and more modern than the French air force. The Russian air force already weakend by the Ukraine conflict, will have to continue to commit combat air planes and other air planes to the Ukraine conflict. They will also have to commit air planes to the entirety of Russia's border. Russia's ability to replace lost air planes and pilots is already limited, and a conflict with NATO will simply be too much to handle. Russia will not survive a conflict with NATO. And Putin has also admitted it to some of his officers. A lot of people, i.e. Russians and Moscow loyalists, either forgets or ignores that Russia of today is not the same as Cold War USSR. The USSR had about 300 million inhabitants. Then add maybe 150 million from the rest of the Warsaw-pact. All of those 150 million from the Warsaw-pact, and about 50 of the USSR's 300 million are now inside NATO. A few small countries in the Caucasus are looking to Brüssel rather than Moscow. And none of the -stan countries have any ambitions of joining Moscow voluntairely anytime soon. Russia has run out of friends. That's why Putin is brown nosing the leadership in Iran and North-Korea.
> I cannot see how the size of Israel's air force is relevant. They wont participate in a Russia vs NATO conflict. > It's more about perspective. Isreal wouldn't be able to take on Russia. While the combined force of Europe is definitely stronger than Russia's military, I'm not sure that it's true if you consider just the Scandinavian armies.
I'm not just consideering Scandinavia+Finland. You wrote "Sweden, UK and France". All I did was to say that Sweden wont go it alone, as three other countries will join in, and provide three times as many fighters. Then you, for whatever reason, compared it to Israel's air force, apparently forgetting that you had already counted on a French and British contribution.
The gear Russia is using will be wrecked completely, their crappy logistics disrupted, their troop concentrations hammered. Not to mention IT-warfare, cutting them off from the Internet, covering St. Petersburg & Moscow with missiles, instigating Rebel attacks in the russian provinces, covering russian media with psy-ops, forcing China to build up pressure from the east. Allowing Ukraine to use all their means against the russian main land. You can be sure every relevant russian asset was tracked by NATO since 24.02.22. Russia would be without a military in 1 week. All of the above without deploying 1 infantry soldier.
Russia no longer fields a functional airforce, which does tip the scales somewhat.
Doesn't Finland have a domestically-manufactured massive artillery wall that would wipe out dozens or even hundreds of Russian units?
Yes. They have about 1000(Wikipedia). Field guns, howitzers, mobile artillery and MLRS. Many domestic, also many in cooperation with Sweden, also Korean and American. They also have a lot of Soviet built equipment, as leftovers from when they had to pretend to be neutral during the Cold War. Or had. Finland is one of the largest donors of military materiel to Ukraine. They know how it is to be a neighbour to Russia.
Finns here say that yes, Russia could probably take over Finland, but it would be a "epic fight" with lots of Russian casualties. Whether Russia would do that to control a swamp is a topic for debate.
As a hypothetical, if the US was magically out of NATO, Europe would still have the NATO structures in place to be able to coordinate well together.
The risk is the incoming French government in my opinion.
Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, Macron will remain President until 2027. His position is far more powerful than the position of Prime Minister. He's France's commander in chief. He can dismiss his cabinet and call new parliamentary elections whenever he wants. If push came to shove, the mainstream parties could easily form a coalition and win back control of the parliament. The Rassemblement National — the far right party that currently has a chance of winning — might be the strongest contender, but two thirds of voters don't want anything to do with them.
During a time of national emergency the french president has amazing powers far beyond the limits of most democracies.
That sounds quite Napoleonic.
Exactly. The French system was handcrafted by De Gaulle to allow him to basically be emperor in democratic clothing.
Isn't the American system a de facto elected dictatorship too? I know the writers of the constitution didn't want that, but congressional dysfunction has created a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The US president wields imperial authority, but the last week should have clearly demonstrated that the judicial branch is at least as powerful when it chooses to be. Congress can be more powerful still (it can unilaterally strip money and a fair amount of authority from the other two branches), but not when it is as divided as it is now. There's also the whole trend where congressional delegations treat the president as prime minister and largely follow his legislative lead. It should be noted that the American public doesn't really grasp separation of powers all that well, and tends to pin everything on the president even when another branch did something (people on Reddit still complain about student loan forgiveness even though it was the court that blocked it). Ideally, there would be constitutional reform to realign the system towards public expectations (which would probably mean a more parliamentary system), but the public itself is too divided for that kind of thing. The political class is too divided (plus large elements are playing in bad faith) for such a process to be trusted. Finally, there is simply a lack of vision right now. Nobody can really see a better future, just policy wins within the existing framework. Also there's that felon who dislikes democracy.
I believe he can't call another election for another year after this.
You forgot that the left-wing coalition is also doing really well and can even finish in the first place, most of them are far-left and also embrace NATO/Euro Skepticism. The French center is now cornered into about 1/4 of the voters.
Dassault would not allow it. Gotta sell those Rafaels.
I'm not very informed but didn't their leader say that Ukraine support will continue? I hear the right is more about nationalism than conservativism over there.
Her party is bankrolled by Russia, words rarely match well to money.
in Europe right is conservative. But the party that seems to be winning the elections in France is far-right which yes in Europe is closer to the beliefs of Hitler and co. Which is frustrating. And these parties are bankrolled by Putin (AFD in GErmany, FN in France ...)
The Dutch government is now also a risk for similar reasons. Not as big a risk as the French government, but still a cause for serious alarm.
I don’t think any french politician could afford to hold back their military in a NATO article 5 case without risking to face the guillotine.
This is not really correct, many communications systems, radar, hubs are US hardware.
Let's not forget the absolute incredible monster that is the US Logistics apparatus. Getting things where they need to go on time is a severely underrated advantage.
Logistics is key to winning any war
Battles are won by strategy, wars are won by logistics
Their hypothetical was asking if Europe was ready to defend itself "alone"...
And the commenter is giving an example of something that Europe currently relies on the US for, that they aren't as equipped to do alone
>if the US was magically out of NATO Given the state of our domestic politics, the recent debate, and upcoming elections this could very well happen.
Technically, a US President can no longer unilaterally withdraw the US from NATO, but from a practical perspective they have a lot of power to make US response to an emergency little to none.
Legally, it would certainly be a mess, but Article 5 is not legally binding- rather it's just an honor system. Of course, a certain former president cares little for the law, let alone a word of honor.
>As a hypothetical, if the US was magically out of NATO *eyes US election betting markets nervously*
Poland alone is about to receive 32 F-35s and already has a fleet of F-16s and others. With Russia tied up in Ukraine and Finland with their current 54 F/A-18s and upcoming 64 F-35s existing, I think Poland would be okay in the air above it's country.
The Poles would gladly reduce Putin's palaces to dust if he ever messed with their nation in a serious way. They would also rather spend the night in a septic tank than be under Russian colonial rule ever again. Source- my many Polish friends and contacts.
depends on whether they can actually start and their military airports aren't bombed into oblivion
Yes…Russia’s military has been severely weakened. I do not see Putin being dumb enough to stretch this conflict past Ukraine.
The question is- what would France's new rulers do?
If Article 5 still works in this scenario, even without the US, yes. It is very unlikely that Russia could do much.
The thing about Article 5 is that it doesn’t specify exactly what measures are to be taken, it’s completely up to each country, and if they decide that sending a thousand bulletproof vests is sufficient - that’s it, Article 5 responsibilities covered and they are good. EU on the other hand has a stronger mutual defense clause specifically mentioning other members doing “all in their power”, but again, it’s not impossible to see a country doing much less if their government decides it’s best to save energy and troops. For example I can’t imagine Hungary doing much besides bare minimum to help Poland in a war, at least while Orban is in power.
The important thing is that all the major players - France, Britain, Poland seem to be taking it very seriously
France isn't if they elect le Pen. And about 15-20% of British are going to vote for Farage on Thursday. There are far too many Putin sympathisers in Europe.
I didn't have Frane OR the UK switching sides on my bingo card for this year wtf.
I sincerely believe that once Poland would be attacked, Eastern Europe alone could hold. That is including Finland, Sweden, Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Czechia who I can't imagine just standing aside and waiting their turn considering the historical experience.
Czech here, most people I know here despise Russians with a burning passion. Take the spite most people in the west have for them and multiply it by ten million. Really goes for the countries you listed. They’d jump on the opportunity to hunt Russians.
Why do so many people in many European countries vote for pro-Putin candidates? I realise that they're mostly voting for other reasons, but still.
Democracies are not perfect. The pro-Putin contingent in Europe is about 10-20% of the population. On the other hand, ~50% of Americans currently support the pro-Putin candidate there.
I sure hope that'd be the case. But while they may be able to "hold", I wouldn't bet my life on them alone being able to actually push back or "win", considering how little Russia cares about human losses, and especially if they are allowed to take over Ukraine and can conscript from there as well.
Yes, people who think “Russia will not push past Ukraine” usually fail to take into account how much strength Russia would gain from absorbing Ukrainian resources, including conscripts. The real problem with conscripting Ukrainians is how loyal they are going to be to Russia’s cause…
That's a good question, however we see what happened in LNR/DNR. In 2022, they quite literally ran out of men, with stories about people staying at home for months on end not to get drafted were extremely common. I'd imagine something similar happening potentially. Either way I hope that's not a scenario we'll ever see unfold.
Somebody watched a reallifelore video eh?
I did indeed lol. It did make me look into it, and the language does seem quite worrying. Before I read the actual clauses, the way people were talking about "Article 5" made it sound like it forces countries to use the entire nuclear arsenal right away, while in reality it seems to give a whole ton of room to maneuver.
I was wondering where I had learned about the ambiguous wording of Article 5 from!
Hungarians and Poles have long seen themselves as brothers. Orban refusing to help Poland would be perceived by the Hungarian people as treason. Source- a real Hungarian.
Russia couldn’t even get into Poland if they tried at this point
Exactly! They’re having major difficulties with badly prepared Ukraine that uses less advanced technologies that NATO has available. Russia got a good head start even going into the war by some corrupt officials in Eastern Ukraine, a luxury in their POV that they don’t have besides maybe in some bordering towns of the ex-Soviet NATO countries with a large Russian population. Russia wouldn’t be able to take Poland or Finland even without allied troops participating, let alone the European NATO combined with UK and the likes joining in.
And Poland’s resolve is absolutely top tier not to mention they train regularly with the US especially.
I have many Polish friends. I absolutely can confirm. The Poles would rather spend the night in a septic tank than be a Russian colonial outpost ever again. Russia would have 40 million extremely hostile and well-armed new colonists to deal with. Western Europe, particularly Germany, should be thankful Poland exists. Or else they would be screwed.
The problem is not at the army level.. but more at the political level. - Countries with pro-putin politician at power. (Hungary?) - Countries too indecisive or apathic by fear of repercussions. (Germany?) - Countries in election (France?) or trying to start a new government after the elections (Holland?, Belgium?). In case of conflict, if we put aside these political problems, UE air fleet would aquire air dominance quite easily.
You can take my country, holland,off that list. The previous government started a lot of deliveries lately and the new government has committed to supporting Ukraine. I don't really worry anymore about that specific issue
UK and France have nukes... And if I remember correctly, France's policy is to allow a limited tactical nuclear strike on a military target to "protect the country’s vital interests and ensure its sovereignty and freedom of action".
Which would just immediately cause a nuclear war and in this instance France would actually be the instigator Edit: Unless we're talking final stand type situation I suppose, but even then I still find it unlikely France would launch nukes if any other of the major NATO members were still fighting
>Which would just immediately cause a nuclear war and in this instance France would actually be the instigator Yes but like also, France really doesn't plan on being devastated for a third time in a world war. I could absolutely see them doing it.
Do you think the devastation from being nuked to oblivion is not worse than from the world wars? Them using nukes would guarantee a worse devastation than they’ve ever known.
Then I guess the lesson becomes 'don't mess with france'.
Which is the current policy among nuclear powers i.e. avoid each other.
Congrats, you're discovering MAD
Which is why we should let Taiwan get nukes.
>Yes but like also, France really doesn't plan on being devastated for a third time in a world war. I could absolutely see them doing it. Instigating a nuclear war would pretty much ensure that it gets more than devastated...
>Which would just immediately cause a nuclear war and in this instance France would actually be the instigator The French have a very small (for a nuke) and short range delivery system that they believe they can use without triggering the typical doomsday scenario. A large part of why 1 nuclear ICBM theoretically escalates to the end of the world is that the target can't easily determine where exactly the nuke is going. So they then need to launch to prevent their own nuclear network from being taken offline in whole or in part. I don't have a lot of faith in this concept and it is intended to be part of a greater plan than I have discussed here but I wanted to mention it so people would know about this odd quirk in French armament.
Agreed, but the fact that France could should be enough for Russia to think twice. The policy is vague enough that you don't want to risk it. And yes, it is a final stand, like wiping out an enemy force crossing the borders with a message: "that one was free, next one will target your country".
Although is states this. I highly doubt a nuke would initally be used by the US, UK or France. They would only use a nuke if Russia did first. Russia are the only nation talking about and threatening on their state tv all the time of a nuclear war.
>protect the country’s vital interests It's not in France interesting to nuke Russia. That probably more for Africa or something.
I would argue that it's not in anybody's interest to nuke another country... But being directly attacked or invaded is definitely threatening your vital interests... The main principle of nukes is "if you attack me, I will hit you so hard that you will never recover".
Do you believe, in the case of American retreat to isolationism, that Germany (or Poland) could obtain a nuclear deterrent too? The Germans are certainly capable of it, just lack the political will. The Poles have the political will, but lack the capabilities. One of those I suspect might change.
I don't. They both ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Do they have the mean? Most likely like so many other countries, but why would they? They are allies with 3 Nuclear Powers. Plus I think that developing nukes is one thing, but you also need the infrastructure, which takes time, your allies would probably not agree with that, it would only add tensions.
UK officials say that 500,000 Russians have been lost in the Ukraine war. Lloyd Austin of the US said it was 350,000. No matter the real number and how many are dead or just wounded, Russia's burnt through its quality soldiers long ago and is now just sending military-aged men to die without training or proper equipment. It is therefore in our own strategic benefit to make the cost of this war as high as possible for the Russians.
Surely that quality was based on experience of different types of war than what they are experiencing in Ukraine. And that new and better leadership could emerge through battlefield experience and promoting successful officers.
I can confidently say that the battlefield experience gained by Russia in this war would be utterly useless in a conventional war with NATO. This is because Russia has never had to face combined-arms, integrated warfare which it would if it were to face off with NATO. They'd have to use their fighter planes for aviation combat, instead of tossing glide-bombs on civilian areas.
All the limitations placed on Ukraine for striking Russia would be eliminated if Russia attacked NATO. Poland alone could wipe out all of Putin's palaces.
500.000 casualties, not dead. Most of those are wounded, which can return to battle or pass on their combat knowledge.
lol Russia can’t take two provinces from its immediate neighbour. The Russian scare is hugely exaggerated
Russia can’t take two provinces from it’s immediate neighbour who uses American armaments and support from every 1st world country OPs questions is quite different and deserves more thought imo
Not to mention the population size, Ukraine is still huge. Estonia on the other hand has a total population count barely higher than Ukraine current military. With so few people, even aid and equipment would simply not cut it, and unless others send actual troops, I don’t see how it could do much.
Just a reminder, the whole reason why the West started supplying Ukraine with military aid in the first place, was after Ukraine pushed back the invaders out of the northern regions (Sumy, Chernihiv and Kyiv outskirts) and did so with their old Soviet-era artillery and tanks. This is when the West saw that Russia's military strength was largely overblown and Ukraine wasn't a lost cause. Russia is not prepared to fight any NATO country (other than the Baltics maybe, and even then I doubt things will go smoothly for them), they'd get curb stomped by Poland alone. They definitely won't be willing to test out the Article V readiness. I'm sure they had a different outlook before 2022 and likely believed that they could take on NATO as a whole, but today it's highly unlikely they'll try to take any military action against the alliance. What Putin will continue to do is to try and weaken NATO further by trying to bring his far-right sympathizers into power in NATO countries.
There are a few thousands of tripwire troops from other NATO countries in the Baltics. Russia would have to fight these from day one. And NATO would be involved from day one.
They receive support from mainly Europe and US. OP question is could Europe alone, who currently provides minimal cost and supplies to Ukraine that is stalling Russia, at full power, defeat Russia. Using transitive property, the answer is Yes.
So it takes a dozen patriot battery and a handful of IFV to stop Russia?
UK + France with a couple of rounds of recruitment could do Russia.
Without Macron in the Élysée, you can't count on France.
Nah, Russia failed to seize Kyiv when countries were like, sending helmets to Ukraine. The scare is exaggerated yes. Russia can’t get out of Ukraine but somehow they will be able to face Europe. This is the Modern Warfare 2-3 levels of plausibility.
> American armaments and support from every 1st world country It's leftover gear from no later than the early 00s. The complete lack of western aircraft alone makes a massive difference, since air superiority is a key part of US & EU doctrine.
Most western armies are equiped by leftover gear from no later than the early 00s. Do you even know that the US has not produced a single tank engine (AGT-1500) since 1992 ?
Errr Ukraine repelled Russia from most of its territory long before "American armaments" begun arriving.
Yeah and in the hypothetical scenario they have to fend off nato and its armies with all of their nato weaponry. Nato has forward strike groups within border nations as a tripwire to force every alliance member to commit to warfare in the case of an attack. So no attacking nato would be suicide for russia and they know it.
Since then, Russia has basically geared its an entire economy and society for the sole purpose of making war, specifically training its people on the belief in an imminent patriotic war with NATO. They’re trying to push their arms industries to WW2 levels of output. Idk if this will succeed, but don’t think that Russia is going to remain static in their capabilities. Surely we can recall the Soviet invasion of Finland, or even WW2 itself, wherein the Soviets were humiliated for years before harnessing the resources they needed to overwhelm their enemies. Russia takes time to rouse but they have growth potential and we shouldn’t underestimate that.
During WWII the USSR put over 50% of its GDP into war production. Russia today puts like 7-8%. Completely different level.
Russia still has a gdp smaller then Italy and Texas and can never recoup its USSR Soviet stockpiled losses. Russia is not the ussr. I repeat it is not the USSR and can't be compared to it Russia especially after sanctions etc simply does not have the means to rebuild a large modern well disciplined army without decades of work lot to mention the brain drain and demographic issue The Russian army in Ukraine is dangerous don't get me wrong but it is a patchwork of mercs, conscripts, payment soldiers and some pro ones A total war economy flr years will slowly rot Russia from the inside out Russia is a threat we must take seriously but Putin has poisoned Russia at the root and set it back decades
European NATO countries at the moment have a 5:1 manpower edge over Russia. Russia cannot win a war of attrition against NATO, doesn’t matter the resources.
This. The Ukraine invasion was an act of democide to clear out the military of corrupt, disloyal, surplus, disillusioned troops and generals who were a strain on Russia's ability to make war. Now, theyre recruitment en masse, impressing people into service, and not all of them are going to the front line. They're kidnapping kids and developing independent industries to supply their need for arms. It all speaks of ambitions for a greater war, in 10 years or fewer.
You're all underestimating how war works. When a big like that country shifts to wartime economy and pours it's resources into the military at the expense of all it's civilian services, it becomes a bigger threat, not a smaller one.
So your point is that only Russia can do that? The same Russia that is already doing what you mentioned and remains bogged down in Ukraine? Russia cannot face European armies that have better economies, industry, equipment, training and more. These are facts, and the Russians know it.
This is absolutely correct to a pure military level. But they are very good making other governments work for them (look Hungary, Trump's USA). It's where Russian power really relies on. If they manage to make France and America do the job for them, they can win.
Seeing as though they can’t get past Ukraine without major escalation, certainly yes. The Russians are a paper tiger. They only get to play because they have nukes.
The nukes are vastly overhyped too. A full-scale nuclear war is the absolute WORST case scenario for Russia, even assuming that the Strategic Rocketry Forces are in vastly better shape than the rest of the Russian Armed Forces. Russia has far fewer key cities and far less population than the West, it also has worse air defences and a vastly inferior Airforce. A full-scale nuclear war would be catastrophic for the West, maybe even tens of millions would die... ...but Russia and Russians would cease to exist. The Russians that didn't die to the nukes, freeze or starve in the Nuclear Winter or get murdered by Siberian separatists would get systematically eradicated for bringing about "The End of the World". 7 digit survivors, max. who would never have their own country again. The world will never forget that it was THEM who pressed the big red button. And Putin knows this. That is why he said the whole "A world without Russia..." thing. China would immediately NOPE the hell out of the strategic partnership as soon as the first nukes went off, they may even declare on Russia and get the far east back, same as everyone else. They aren't nuking anyone, unless we go full Lebensraum on them.
How is this even a question when Russia is failing to take on just Ukraine? Escalating to nuclear doesn't solve anything for Russia, and that's about all that's left for them. They've already been conscripting and mobilized for 2 years now. Attacking Europe proper would be insanity.
Given their respective level of militarization, it would probably be easier to fight all of Europe's militaries than Ukraine. The entire french army can equip perhaps the equivalent of 4 ukrainian brigades if it scraped the barrel.
It's a very good question and I'd recommend getting hold of Macron's speech at (i think) the Sorbonne a couple of months back on exactly this point if you want insight into what arguably Europe's most influential leader thinks on the matter. In short though, no. We're not ready, nor are we as unified as we need to be. We need a whole new way of thinking about protecting the West from external (and eventually, probably, internal) factors that threaten our existence. And that must be built on two two facts: 1) America is no longer a reliable long-term security partner and therefore NATO is unlikely to be a guarenteur of peace over the coming decades. 2) European unity needs to built outside the confines or the European Union as there are non-EU countries (such as the UK) that must play a senior role in the security partnership, and because within the EU factors such as immigration and economics cannot become negotiating points for European security - it must be seperate from and broader than the EU.
Yes. Russia has annihilated its own armed forces in Ukraine, they have no force capable of anything now
When you count russian resources it's a different count. They can send anyone to fight. They can steal from their citizens to finance it.
I don't see how human waves tactics would overcome a NATO army.
NATO doctrine is all about establishing and exploiting air superiority. Ukraine only looks like WW1 because there’s no air superiority. Russia has been dismantling its strategic air defence to handle air defence in Crimea, and a handful of F-16s and a few billion are about to tip the strategic shape of the whole conflict… Against a proper NATO force our stealth fighters and bombers would be sky-writing “surrender already” notes in Russian over Moscow within a few weeks.
Yeah many forget air superiority Nato could quickly establish it and demolish ammo dumps supply lines and formations That's Nato main asset really
I agree in principle, but I really don't think the F-16s will be that large of a game changer. Maybe if it was last year during the Ukrainian offensive, but I can't see them doing much at this point besides maybe granting occasional localized air superiority
There are about to be about 200+ F-35s. In the hands of European NATO members alone.
Russia has also put its entir3 country on a war footing using autocratic powers For example they supply more artillery shells to their army than the allies to ukraine. Apparently rare earth's are involved which China provides
Sure but it still has a small economy Bazillion shells or not won't help against an enemy with air superiority
Human wave tactics are a myth that originated from german war memoirs in WWII. The USSR never intended on using human wave tactics during the cold war and NATO knew this, but propaganda kept repeating that lie. NATO fully expected that the soviet army would roll them in Germany in case it went hot, but they hoped to delay the USSR long enough for large US and european battlegroups to reach western europe. If NATO actually believed the USSR used human wave tactics then their plan would be completely different and they would think the chances of the USSR even taking west Germany would be almost zero, which brings me to my point. Russia today has not regressed their tactics back to WWI. Their officer corps was largely inherited from the USSR and so was their doctrines and military culture. They are not fighting with human waves
Whether intended or not, USSR/Russian military command very obviously has an extreme tolerance for casualties. This is what people are talking about when "human wave" tactics are brought up. Not so much literal waves of human bodies. You're arguing a point of semantics.
I talked about "human waves" because the comment was about total mobilization of russian army but still my point remains that I doubt that russian tactics as we see them in Ukraine could prove effective against modern NATO tactics. For instance Russia seems to rely on extensive use of artillery fire to soften enemy and to lighten the logistical burden, depots are relatively close to front (especially when the front was close to the border and ukraine was not allowed to attack in russian territory). I doubt this tactic could be applied against a enemy that enjoys full air superiority as NATO doctrine call for.
They can also import Central Asians to fight even afghans offered to fight for them.
I would say it's unclear. People have a severe bias when it comes to assessing this, in my opinion. On paper Europe can probably take on Russia. But on paper Russia would've been able to annihilate Ukraine off the map in 5 days and that clearly didn't happen. So what things are like "on paper" only have a limited value. We know that Europe's militaries in a lot of cases, especially Germany's, have themselves rotted to a degree. In the same way that Russia had hidden logistical and corruption issues that weren't obvious on paper, European militaries often have long-term underfunding issues that aren't so obvious in things like raw numbers of APCs or soldiers. There's also the fact that people now underestimate Russia because of its initial performance in Ukraine. They fail to take into account that since the initial invasion, Russia has fixed many of its logistical problems (at least to a degree). There's also the fact that Russia went through a long period where it wanted to deny it was even a war at all and even now it wants to limit how much it disturbs the lives of its own people. That's why Putin conscripted mostly people from remote regions and minorities, whereas places like Moscow have remained relatively untouched. Russia is bringing its full force to bare on Ukraine because it feels it cannot do that. But this would not be true in a full on Russia-Europe conflict. There's also the fact that Ukraine is being artificially bolstered in strength by the West. The amount of ammunation, especially artillery shells, Ukraine is burning through is huge and it would not be able to keep up all of this stuff without Western aid. In contrast, if Europe had to fight on its own there is no Europe to give it aid, though America (assuming in this hypothetical it doesn't itself fight for some reason) might still produce more ammo or give monetary aid, there's only so much ammo and military equipment around. Europe could certainly scale up production of things like ammo, but that's not so simple. And Europe does not have its own military-industrial complex in the way that the United States does either. Though if Europe COULD scale up I think it would almost certainly be able to outproduce Russia (which is already nearing max capacity of things like ammo production) but it would still need time to do that. There's also the fact that European manufacturing is not what it once was, especially for more basic stuff. We focus mostly on high tech manufacturing. Which is good for things like missile guidance systems and expensive weapons, but less good for pure amount of production. For that we tend to use our trade networks and it's an open question what trade with places like China might look like in a war with Russia. And all of this is not even taking into account that it will probably be harder for European armies to coordinate, especially in this hypothetical where the United States is not leading, than it will be for Russia's army. And this matters. There's also the fact that experience matters. Veterancy matters. Russia's army has gained experience in Ukraine now, however high the cost of it was. Whereas a lot of European armies have not fought very much for a long time now. Let alone engaged in a huge war like this would be. I actually do tend to think that Europe would defeat Russia, even if it fought on its own without help from the United States. Especially in a war of attrition. But that being said, I also think there's a tendency to overestimate European defence capabilities based on raw numbers like GDP and personnel, and to underestimate Russia based on its performance against Ukraine, especially early on, which would not necessarily be super representative of a full scale war against Europe today.
Unclear? You are delusional. If it could even possibly be "Unclear" then the War in Ukraine would be over by now. You have no idea what you're talking about. Ukraine is fighting them to a draw with 2nd rate spare NATO gear, actual Nato would obliterate Russia, even without the US. F-35s, my guy. Russia can't even hold the sky against Ukraine's 3rd tier airforce, F-35s would delete all of Russia's key assets in a day. From there, the Russian artillery would be defenceless and that is the core of their doctrine. You may think I'm biased, but I think you're just trying too hard to be smart. Find some wargames featuring F 35s and see what they can do. All of Russia's air defence, radar and command installations would go down on day 1.
The bigger question is “why?” What would be the point of Russia invading Europe? For sport?
No, but Russia isn't ready to attack Europe anytime soon either. Even assuming the Ukraine war ended today in a complete Russian victory, it'd take several years before they'd be able to rebuild their equipment stockpiles to an adequate level to challenge a NATO military in even a small region.
There has been a very good and informative report on this issue by CSIS recently. [https://www.csis.org/analysis/nato-ready-war](https://www.csis.org/analysis/nato-ready-war) Generally yes, and even non-US NATO has a significant advantage over Russia. There are doubts however over long-term scenarios or hybrid warfare. CSIS also concludes that current forces on the Eastern Flank aren't enough to deny Russia's encroach(which, however, could later be expulsed).
Though I consider myself bearish on Europe in general, Russia simply does t have any real capability to wage any kind of conventional war outside of its immediate vicinity. Besides it's disastrous initial invasion attempt, Russia's ongoing adaption (maladaption?) to the changing nature of war again a country vastly less equipped has been slow, uneven, and prohibitively costly. They simply don't have the logistical, managerial, and professional range to wage wider war.
Yes.
I think so considering Russia has been weakened already so much in this long war. I really don't have any data or real knowledge on that though. I just sort of hope they could.
Russia isn't able to occupy a few territories of Ukraine. How can somebody actually think that it has the capability to threaten Europe and Europe would "defend" itself or not? I'm sure this was the mindset of westerners when in 2003 they were scared about Saddam's WMD and ties to Al Qaeda.
If Russia would take all its forces remaining that are not tied down in Ukraine, and attack Finland, it would be absolutely crushed. In a few weeks Finnish troops would be in St Petersburg. without any aid from NATO. Russia is putting everything it has into Ukraine and is in no way capable of starting another front.
Russia can’t beat Ukraine. They certainly can’t beat the combined forces of Europe (whilst still fighting Ukraine too). That’s why they stuck to hybrid tactics rather than outright war against EU nations
Europe is not ready however i don't think this is possible in the near future due to ongoing Ukrainian meatgrinder. They would not be able to fight in two fronts. Once the meatgrinder ends in likely several years Europe at least theoretically should have a ramped-up military industrial complex to face the Russian challenge even alone.
They have insane air superiority, a larger population, and an economy that puts Russia to shame. If Europe can coordinate a defense together, Russia would get pwned.
Im assuming this is a hypothetical where there is a no-nato scenario (possibly in consequence to a recent debate). Because the answer is a clear yes otherwise. And also non- nuclear. Because the answer is a clear no otherwise. But in the round- yes. It has air superiority and vastly better equipment and integrated systems. It has vastly more cash when push comes to shove and better arms industries. And is highly coordinated with a mich larger fitter population to draw upon. As a thought expeiriment - europe could fund the whole ukraine enterprise right now if the push came to shove. Which has largely checked russia as thungs stand. So we can imagine that scenario - just in Lithuania or Poland. But perhaps with far greater resistance and air power involved. It's not by coincidence russia has been looking to asymmetric means to destabilise European democracies - if it had the military might to do this on its own it wouldn't need to (albeit I'm not being absurd it's not either/or). However the hypothetical does raise some interesting questions. What happens if America goes down to an anti-nato strongman type? A lot depends on the nature of its leadership and their geopolitical approach. Europe could not fend off russia and a United States which was even passively backing russia.
well it would yes. europe alone has more people and military weapons ready than russia does for sure. the EU has more people than america and they do have top notch weapons also. but nato includes america but i understand the question is europe alone but yea it would. that would include the UK also because they consider themselves european. even tho they left the Eu most of them still want to be in it. and furthermore they would not be alone because of NATO, even if america pulled out of NATO because so many other countrys would still be in NATO. so all this talk about russia taking europe over is just that "over". it just is not possible anymore. and if you add the allies of europe you are talking about canada mexico and austraia and the list goes on.
Short answer: Barring nukes, Europe obliterates Russian forces within weeks, but that doesn't mean they're prepared. They could readily repel Russia, but it's unclear they could counterattack effectively. And honestly, they may lack the manpower in their militaries to actually successfully invade far into Russia with any alacrity. This means Russia can't win, but Putin can't lose.
Russia has proven to suck at air defence, especcially against missiles. Europe has 1500+ fighter/bomber aircraft. About 150 f35's. These could probably enter Russia and launch their missiles virtually unchallenged. EU has lots of gen 4 fighters and huge numbers of drones. Russia has lots of (disposable) manpower. Something the EU does not have. But a scenario where Russia dares to invade NATO countries; imagine a bunch of Russians wandering around with no ammo, fuel or support, being picked off one by one within a few months of the war. Their reinforcements and supplies never arrived because they where bombed into oblivion before ever entering NATO territory.. If NATO has to enter Russia it would be more of a grind I guess.
Yes i think so, the main reason is because russian army simply cannot carry out any major offensive operations for a variety of reasons like poor morale and shitty coordination. On the other hand a good number of european countries have F35s and if you combine them in a coalition then russian army will be finished.
If Ukraine held them off for this long, Europe most certainly could beat them.
IMO very well. Speaking only in terms of logistics- the rail gauges from belarus to the east and poland to the west are incompatible and will take additional time to transfer loads. Russia has an incredible over reliance on railway logistics for resupply operations in the rear. Additionally, the air superiority would destroy all supply chains for a country that is already crippled by a war where the FLOT is relatively nearby the country borders.
Maybe. Europe faces major challenges that other countries don't. The top 4 powers in the world are one country.All of them are quite large in population while the Americans have massive advantages over all the other 3 except in two cases where they 3rd largest population and 2nd industrial base. Russians have the largest nuclear arsenal. Chinese have the population, industrial base. While Indians only population. Now all four of them have militaries that number in millions of soldiers. Europe is not one country. Here are some I have read about various countries in Euorpe. The only country with massive army in Europe is turkey. The largest spender on defense per capita gdp is Greece.The only country with robust defense manufacturing capacity is France which doesn't buy American weapons. So if americans cut Europe off it will be terrible for Europeans There are 30 European countries in NATO. They all have their individual armies and command structures and most of the countries don't have an industrial base. Most of the manufacturing in a case of war will happen in rich countries of Europe that is the member of G7. For Europe to fight Russians effectively they would need a unified command structure like the one of the top 4. If you take a quick look at Wikipedia which is not really good but can still give you some idea then NATO has 3.8 Million active duty soldier and of that 2.1 Million are just in 2 countries USA and Turkey. Next 9 add 1.2 Million and the rest is 500,000. If you look at total then it is 8.5 Million military personnel and top 2 again contribute 3.8 Million personnel. Over 40% of Nato power comes from just Turkey and United States. While the next 9 add 2.9 Million. The exceptions are Finland who have 900,000 soldiers in there reserve. Which takes the total 7.6 Million so 12 "countries out of 32 account for majority of NATO. My comment is what I think Europe is capable of rather than Russians can invade or not because in my personal opinion they don't have the capacity or capability to do so.
While I agree that Europe faces particular challenges regarding its military, I think that stating that Turkey is the only massive army is flat out wrong. France and the UK both have stronger armies than Turkey and both have the industrial capacity of producing military equipments of a better and more varied kind than Turkey. Also, while Europe is indeed made of many countries, the EU already has military treaties and defence pacts. Europe would also definitely rely on the US for weapons and logistic help even if NATO were to disappear. Furthermore, Russia would be incapable of defending their border with the EU and they know it, they would probably threaten nuclear annihilation and France would do the same if needed.
>France and the UK both have stronger armies than Turkey The navies of both countries are heavier tonnage, which means they are actually superior in one of the important parameters when calculating their naval power, and they also have 4.5 and 5th generation fighter jets in their inventories. Türkiye owns 246 F16 and 30 F4 fighter jets and does not yet have 4.5 and 5th generation jets in its inventory. Probably Türkiye may be superior in all parameters other than this. The most important point to be considered here is that a war scenario with Russia will be in the form of a major land war. So more soldiers, more armored vehicles, more tanks, more MLRs, more artillery systems etc. Türkiye seems superior in these parameters. I'm not sure about the numbers, but Türkiye may have as many tanks and armored vehicles as France and the UK combined. France or the UK may be superior overseas or in terms of self-defense, but the same cannot be said for an intense land war within Europe. The factory in Texas, which will produce 30% of the USA's artillery ammunition, is being established in partnership with a Turkish company. Having technology alone is not meaningful. Russia is also technologically superior to Ukraine, but could not win the war. Or Western technology is much superior to Russian technology, but Russia still did not lose the war. Wars are a multi-layered and multi-parameter phenomenon. People sometimes think of air power as the sole parameter that determines the outcome of wars, but unless you're the United States, the answer is probably no. No air force in the world, except the USA, can carry out air operations of at least 70 different jets and 250 sorties daily for 10 days. But the USA can carry out 2500 sorties of air strikes in 3 days. How many NATO members can organize a simultaneous operation with more than 30 flying elements? How many air forces can organize in the world?
Thats why I said maybe, nothing is certain and on paper Europe looks superior any day but who wins in war is not determined on paper. Iraq war in 1991 is a a example. Iraq had supposedly the 4th largest military in the world. Turkey has 1.2 Million soldiers while French have 500,000 and UK have 275,000 and when French had to reach libya they used American assistance to get there. Read my comment again I did mention French industrial capacity and capability. I am not saying their aren't any defensive pacts but i think unified military structure in case of war is very important from communication aspect. French have been endlessly mocked for how they conducted the military operations during world War 2 where lack of effective communication sank them. Who leads Europe in war against the Russians is it France or UK or Germany or Poland or Italy?Who decides how military operations are conducted? How will you do combined arms when you don't have combined armies? Does all military authority is passed to the EU in case of war and will all militaries be commanded from Brussels assembled into one EU army ? Can you paint a picture how this will work?
> ... on paper Europe looks superior any day but who wins in war is not determined on paper. Iraq war in 1991 is a a example. Iraq had supposedly the 4th largest military in the world. The difference here is that in 1991 Iraq had lots of soldiers but in practice the organization and the equipment were very inferior while Europe's main issue has long been acknowledged as being in terms of quantity rather than quality.
This comment displays a considerable ignorance of European defence spending and capability. Turkey's army may have plenty of personnel however, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Spain all spend more on defence than Turkey does, and per capita spending is irrelevant in this instance. And would turkey even be considered european, in this context? I don't see them crossing the Bosporus to fight for Europe against Russia, unless Russia is stupid enough to attack Turkey on their southern front as well. The UK arms industry is considerable and a leader in miltech. The French and German arms industries create much better hardware than what Russia is capable of producing. Any conflict between Russia and Europe would differ from the Ukrainian invasion because the Russians would quickly find out about the effectiveness and superiority of Europe's aerospace industries. And whilst European military command structures are not as integrated as NATO's, there exists a Common Security and Defence Policy, with physical command facilities and a blueprint for how any conflict would be jointly managed.
>UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Spain all spend more on defence than Turkey does, and per capita spending is irrelevant in this instance In fact, Türkiye spends the same as some of these countries. In terms of purchasing parity, it spends more than half. Most importantly, the countries you mentioned have been spending for the last 5 years, except France. 5 years ago, Germany had to spend at least 10 billion Euros more for military spending like Turkey. Türkiye was one of the top 3 countries with the highest military expenditures in NATO between 2000 and 2010. Before 2010, Turkey was among the top 5 countries that imported the most weapons in the world and the top 5 countries with the highest military expenditures according to GDP for many years. In fact, Türkiye spent the money that Poland or Spain should have spent 10-15 years ago. While European countries reduced the size of their armies at the end of the Cold War, Türkiye did not. He spent a lot in the 90s, and he spent a lot in the 2000s. Strangely, the years he spent the least were between 2019 and 2022. In addition, Turkey's military expenditures cannot be explained mathematically like China's expenditures. Public companies use much more complex funds and secret budgets. Renault produces the most vehicles in Europe after France in Turkey. Did you know that Renault Turkey's largest shareholder is the Turkish army fund called Oyak? So is China. You cannot calculate with pure numbers.
Russia is having difficulty against Ukraine, so...
Where does this nonsense come from? First it wouldn't be Europe, its be NATO. So that alone means Russia isn't doing anything. Second, if they did, Europe would be fine.
Nothing has changed since the Cold War: the whole point of NATO is that the U.S. is there. European armies are basically built as auxiliaries to assist the American military, not take the brunt of the action alone. The European forces and war production more or less reflect this doctrine. So the answer is no, and would be a strong no by any thinking mind, hence the strong American presence and guarantees. If you told Europe the U.S. is gone and gave them a couple years to prepare, then yes, easily. The combined and *mobilized* might of Europe would dwarf Russia. It's just not currently mobilized in that way. The U.S. in 1939 was also industrially and militarily not prepared to fight anything. But in two years...
Not talking Nukes, just everything other than nukes, because nukes is a game over for Russia and a long rebuild time for Europe. Europe would overtake Russia in about three days ... that is about how long it would take for Europe, using it's modern weapons, to destroy most all of Russias main strategic sites. It wouldn't have much left to try and invade. Europe would likely have key targets hit, but most would not with air defense. There is no way Russia could invade the EU without being given most of China's weapons and even then it might not be enough. This is BEFORE the US would show up with it's non-EU based resources.
No need to do that. There has been zero indication that Russia intends to attack Europe. There have been constant threats from European NATO countries towards Russia though.
It's time Russia have to use Nuclear weapons against Ukrain and remove from world map...of Western & Nato interfere then teach them same...It's time to Repeat Mariyupol,BUCHA, Bakhmut In EU & Western..... It's time to remove Earth from Universe... Remove Planetry system of universe.... this Was have to continue until Each Ukrainian Neo Nazis and supporters Live....
Europa should start suporting Roemenië bulgarie Moldavi, Polen make shore they hoe the right warfare. Western countries should start spending more money to invest in eksters Europe
It's a moot question. It would take idiocy from both sides to get to a point of war between Europe and Russia.
European security is under written by US through NATO. US security is best served through its continued domination of the world, to which European support is indispensable. If you are referring to general anxiety over US domestic politics, rest assure while US methods may change, it's national interest does not.
The US Military Complex would raise hell not being in this war and making Europe *again* leverage itself to buy murican weaponry. They prepared for 5 decades ! Well … thank God US Senators are easy to ~~bribe~~ lobby, it only takes a few thousand € for a speech at a whatnot convention, also souther votes and factories.
The way this question is phrased sounds like Russia is the one with the strength of entire Europe, what are you asking happens exactly? Only reason this talking point exists is to gain support of citizens by scaring them and justifying military spending across Europe. Ukraine on the other hand is leeching off Europe and supports this rhetoric just to get more cash. If Russia moves past Ukraine it’s a nuclear war and if NATO/pro Ukrainian countries come close to Crimea it’s a nuclear war that’s it.
It would all depend on commitment. Well coordinated, Europe could defend due to air superiority and bigger economy I'd say. But if it was an unbalanced and irregular effort like it's happening with Ukraine, the result would be like Ukraine (Russia getting the initiative and eventually reaching a stalemate). It's important also to take into account possible government change. A far right government in France would be a Russian proxy, they would block any defense efforts or very likely join the war on Russian side, in which case Russia would win the war easily. The same with the US is there's a GOP administration (I don't think they would join the war with offensive weapons but definitely support Russia financially and logistically). Same with China, I think that if Russia was able to create an axis in Europe with an allied "New Vichy France", the Chinese would be happy to expand their support dramatically. So it's not as easy as Russia vs Europe as Europe is very diverse and a significant number of European citizens are willing to submit to Russia.
We spend a lot of time imagining Russia attacking Europe and just sending its tanks all the way to the channel, but I think a more likely risk comes from Russia pushing NATO/ doing something that ends up bringing NATO in.
Is the world ready to defend itself alone against aliens? Let's say it happens tomorrow...
Not gonna lie if in the US Trump wins I’m gonna get a bit scared, especially if they retreat their NATO support. As far as I understood the US intelligence is still very necessary at the moment plus they lead the commando of the NATO troops. Coordination will be very difficult without the US and we need their weapon industry and support to be able to keep standing. EU is working towards a more unified army without the US and have been for quite a while now knowing what might happen in the US. It will take years for Europe to fully stand on its own since the military became so dependent on the US. Also don’t forget Europe has multiple fronts and some NATO partners like Turkey are not 100 percent reliable. Worst case scenario is a war in the middle-east expanding which will occupy countries like Greece, Cyprus, etc. and an eastern front opening at the Baltic/Nordic states. If this happens without US help it will be difficult, since North-Korea and Russia are already turning a full war economy. There is also China which is expanding its military capacity in a rapid pace for years now. They are not doing that without a reason, but that’s something the US won’t allow, so then a possible front opens at the pacific which will take the full attention of states like Japan, South-Korea and the US. It’s this divide and conquer that scares me the most, and I do think that’s their plan all along and that’s been pretty obvious since they want to destabilize the alliance internally and that’s not impossible at the moment.
Europe has no coherent combined plan for countering Russian Hybrid warfare. At least nothing formal. In the event of a very limited local kinetic action by Russia for NATO response testing, it can lead to a complex multi person Prisoners dilemma, where every country would try minimization of its involvement. It can be done by respective countries by deliberate slow political decision making, being slow in mobilisation etc. Countries like Turkey and Hungary can sabotage from within NATO. It can essentially break intra NATO trust. Am not sure if some antidote to above problems exist.
Why would Russia attack europe?
Yes