Originally, I live in the US now. While I’m all for EU countries breaking military ties with the US, no really that is a super important move, open warfare with American forces would be suicide. The US has been the lynchpin of NATO for decades, and is tied in to every layer of the EU military apparatus. There isn’t parity with the american military in any way with respect to this, and it’s the kind of strategic disadvantage that can’t be overcome without legislative reform and many years of buildup. At the moment, especially with trump helming this shithole, any government asking the US to vacate it’s bases will need to do so with the understanding that they only have economic resources to fall back on if the US just says “no”.
You are making an assumption that the US will not attack or threaten to attack to get concessions from the EU unless the EU asks them to withdraw.
I am not saying the EU should take action today, it should prepare as much as it can first, but it needs to have plans to do it even today because it could be forced to.
Open warfare with the US in Europe is not suicide despite the US military being significantly bigger and capable compared to EU armies. Invading across an ocean is hard, you need to be able to move significant forces in or nearby before hostilities start or face no resistance in the initial landing.
Which is why EU armies need to have plans to quickly overwhelm US forces already in the EU, it can be done, they are not significant at present. Of course if you are unwilling to do so they can simply demand to increase their presence making the problem more difficult in the future.
It also needs to make sure the US have as few allies as possible that could help them stage from against it. Thankfully the UK at the moment does not seem to embrace Trump’s foreign policy but that could change in the future.
This is also why adding Canada to the EU at this point, when the main concern is security, is foolish, we cannot protect Canada, we probably cannot prevent an occupation of Greenland or any weird islands ex-imperial powers have god-knows-where.
The EU needs to implement a lot of changes to guarantee it’s safety and independence, some will be hard (unpopular, expensive).
It needs to increase military spending, massively
It need to de-tangle EU military equipment from US dependencies, including US parts required for EU manufactured equipment. This could trigger a US reaction.
It needs to replace NATO structures for interoperability of EU armies with EU ones, replicating as much as possible(personnel, procedures, equipment)
It needs to make sure there are no outside loyalties in it’s armed forces which is going to be difficult after decades of NATO. Those are more dangerous than the existing US forces.
It should implement some kind of conscription/reservist training force to have a bigger trained overall force. This is in addition to increasing regular professional forces.
It needs to reduce US dependency in non-military sectors as well. Could also trigger a US reaction.
(It is late and I am tired, so I apologize if this comes accross as rude or similar. I’m really not trying to be.)
Invading across an ocean is hard, you need to be able to move significant forces in or nearby before hostilities start or face no resistance in the initial landing.
This isn’t WWII though, opposed landings aren’t something anyone still does. Besides that, in this hypothetical scenario everyone has nukes. It’s really just an exercise in how much aggression each side will tolerate before someone escalates to that point.
Look I’m not disagreeing with the broad sentiment that the EU needs to get it’s shit together and divest from the US militarily – the US has been practically begging for that since clinton, hell obama, biden and trump all warned against this exact fascist-takeover america-unreliable scenario. I also for sure am not assuming the US will not be the aggressor. I mean, we’re even threatening the EU with annexation right now. I seriously doubt it’ll get to that point, but it’s by no means ruled out.
Things like adding canada to the EU are excellent strategic moves, since it not only gives the EU an ally with many friendly airbases across the ocean but, waaaaay more importantly, it gives them economic strength with which to batter the US and bolster their own economies. This is an economic war, and the US probably won’t win it. Hoorayyy?
This isn’t WWII though, opposed landings aren’t something anyone still does. Besides that, in this hypothetical scenario everyone has nukes. It’s really just an exercise in how much aggression each side will tolerate before someone escalates to that point.
I am confused though, if you understand that the US cannot invade despite their superior military why do you think it’s suicide for the EU to take military action against the limited US forces in the EU’s own territory?
Look I’m not disagreeing with the broad sentiment that the EU needs to get it’s shit together and divest from the US militarily – the US has been practically begging for that since clinton, hell obama, biden and trump all warned against this exact fascist-takeover america-unreliable scenario. I also for sure am not assuming the US will not be the aggressor. I mean, we’re even threatening the EU with annexation right now. I seriously doubt it’ll get to that point, but it’s by no means ruled out.
The US has never before pushed for EU divestment from the US. Quite the opposite it has repeatedly pushed for more EU investment in military defense, a part of which would go to US industry. It has reduced it’s presence when the SU fell but it still maintained bases in Europe and while military action would not be in the table other forms of coercion would come into play if the EU demanded a complete US withdrawal from EU territory.
I am also confused about who you think Trump warned the EU against? His own America? He just wanted the EU to pay more to US industry.
Things like adding canada to the EU are excellent strategic moves, since it not only gives the EU an ally with many friendly airbases across the ocean but, waaaaay more importantly, it gives them economic strength with which to batter the US and bolster their own economies. This is an economic war, and the US probably won’t win it. Hoorayyy?
Adding Canada to the EU is not adding an ally to the EU it’s adding a member. It creates a security obligation which the EU cannot fulfill towards Canada. At the same time it could provoke the US to attack Canada. Of course if the US attacks Canada the EU should try and provide as much help as possible but at the moment or the near future that won’t really be much.
I do believe CETA is being provisionally applied reducing tariffs even if the arbitration stuff is not (nor should it really). There is no ‘economic’ war to be won, the US is putting arbitrary tariffs on anyone but Russia, they will obviously be hurt more than any of the individual economies they target.
Ah man… Point by point breakdowns are usually the death knell of a discussion. It just spirals into longer and longer posts with less and less substance. For example:
if you understand that the US cannot invade despite their superior military
Where did I say that the US can’t invade? Ukraine has shown that nuclear deterrence is an extremely complicated subject. Would France actually be willing to end the world to save the Dutch? Nobody knows!
I am also confused about who you think Trump warned the EU against? His own America? He just wanted the EU to pay more to US industry.
Yes exactly. Trump isn’t good at this. His arguments are too small to get his fat little body off the ground. Trump, of course, says them anyways. Trump doesn’t care what humans think.
It creates a security obligation which the EU cannot fulfill towards Canada.
What’s the problem? Canada is aware of this going into it, so is the EU. It’s clearly a move that bolsters economies and not the respective militaries, at least in the near term, which is what is currently under threat. Long term, economic and military partnership between the EU and canada is blah blah blah longwinded nobody cares blah
Quite the opposite it has repeatedly pushed for more EU investment in military defense, a part of which would go to US industry.
But but but… That’s divestment. That’s doing divestment.
Etc.
Isn’t that just… miserable? All I’m doing is picking your nits, and that doesn’t really further anything because at no point does it address your thesis. I’m just batting at your arguments like a fat cat who wants you to stop bonking into it with the mouse but is too lazy to actually move off the mousepad. It doesn’t add anything, except incentive for this to turn into another boring internet slap fight. Honestly this feels like either we’re agreeing but not realizing it, or you have no experience with the military at all but don’t want to admit that (and I really do not think it’s the second option!).
Okay, here, how about I say: “Current US forces in the EU are not and never have been an occupying force - they could be casually sidelined by parking a big truck in front of the gates and stopping the beer delivery” and you please try to believe me. Not even joking, like, you’re right and it’s 100% true, I promise, and I have not argued anything else at any point. The forces the US stations in Europe (with the possible exception of some of the air assets at German-hosted bases like Ramstein) have no significant conventional defensive ability, they’re all sigint, liaison and a guard for the nukes. They could be rolled over by a determined enough girlscout troop (probably not by the boyscouts, though…).
Everyone knows that.
If you cross cancel the nukes from both sides in this hypothetical scenario (because it’s no fun to speculate when the end state is “absolutely everyone dies forever”) you’re left with a coalition of economically and culturally extremely powerful countries that just utterly lack a response to realities like “seven carrier strike groups” or “more than a thousand F35s”. Any hypothetical US occupation of the EU would obviously devolve into the exact kind of guerilla/insurgent warfare the US absolutely sucks at, but that doesn’t matter if this lunatic admin decides to have ROEs that are really relaxed about things like ‘civilians’. You just cannot win a war of attrition with the US right now, it’s pretty doubtful even the other superpowers could (that’s why they’re going the election interference route…) and provoking one by attacking US tripwire bases would be suicidal.
I feel like I should point out here that I do not like this. I’m not proud about this shit, honestly I’m too busy worrying about the “my country is burning down around me and I haven’t even got a bucket with which to staunch the flames” thing. But, the good news is (not for me I admit) that any significant mobilization to invade the EU will trigger a civil war in the US. To say that the idea ‘is as popular as giving children syphilis’ is to do a disservice to hyperbole. So I guess take heart that they’d have to roll over a great many americans (including me) before they ever get off the mainland.
…
Well, okay, these fuckers would happily do that (honestly they’d probably consider it a bonus), but the tree of moral victory is watered with the blood of martyrs. And fertilized with the paste their corpses have been ground into. And probably guided on a trellis made from what few bones weren’t ground into powder.
…
Or something, idk. This is getting dumb. I just really hope there’ll never be a chance for me to be proven right.
The reason the US cannot (successfully) invade is not due to nuclear deterrence but the difficulty in bringing over enough heavy equipment (MBTs, artillery) if you don’t have a foothold (ports, airfields). Seven carrier groups are not going to be able to secure you that even if they amounted to more than a 1000 F-35s, which they don’t.
Canada cannot join the EU legally. It will take amendment of the treaties to remove the geographical requirement and still Hungary would veto the ascension anyways. You can scoff at this and argue that we should ignore the treaties and Hungary but this will weaken the EU as an institution. It already is obviously less cohesive than a nation state.
It’s also not necessary for Canada to join the EU for us to support them militarily. The issue is that we can’t really do so in the near future.
EU military spending was already not going 100% to US products, therefore not all of the increased spending benefiting US companies is not divestment, it’s actually investment. The US after all marketed the F-35 to EU members.
I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time. I do not think the best EU can do is rely on Americans waging a civil war on it’s behalf.
I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time.
(My point exactly. And, since I lack even a shred of self awareness, here have six more paragraphs! I really tried to keep them on just one topic, at least)
Disclaimer
I’ve had to rewrite this a couple times, because I keep veering into being excessively sarcastic and you really don’t deserve that. So, and with my complete and honest sincerity, I say this: I need you to know that your understanding here is very flawed. It’s that flaw that’s keeping you from being as abjectly terrified as every non-fascist US natsec dickhead is right now (this very much includes me). There’s a serious danger here, and it’s not that you’re going to personally kick off a war with the US, nor that I might not win an argument on lemmy, but that the imperialist powers currently salivating at the idea of extending their influence over EU countries (and this includes the USA) are eagerly attempting to exploit your ignorance of this subject to their own ends. As someone living through the hell of what that technique can do, I want you to be as prepared as possible to spot this kind of misinformation in the future. So please, please hear me out.
First, let me say that you are correct on several points - you cannot have a land invasion or launch an occupation with air and naval assets alone. You’re also 100% correct that the US Navy does not have 1,100 F-35 Lightning II Cs, that was not what I meant to imply (afaik there are only ~105 F35Cs). Now obviously, to occupy conquered ground, you have to… occupy, the ground. This is very simple thing which, unfortunately, boats are famously ill suited to. Planes are, also, just garbage at it. I will make no attempt to deny these patently obvious facts, which I happily will cede to you without contest. Admittedly, this is a serious problem for my hypothetical invading army to overcome. Because unfortunately, the easiest way to transport large numbers of that really cool military stuff we all love, like tanks and rockets and red-blooded American heroes with red bandanas on their heads and plot armor a mile thick, is inside big planes or on big boats.
So lets just… ignore that problem. It’s inconvenient.
A nuclear supercarrier is a massive strategic asset, both physically and metaphorically. It lets you project force over a huge area that your mainland based assets simply do not have and that is absolutely invaluable in the geopolitical world. It lets you power small cities for disaster relief. And they are the most densely packed logistical hubs ever conceived. That last thing is why they’re valuable, really. Obviously they can service, fuel, coordinate and re-arm their compliment of aircraft and that alone is amazingly useful, but see, in this hypothetical invasion scenario, the most useful thing they could do would be to just…
Sit there.
No, really. Park a strike group out in the middle of the atlantic, run a tube over to an oiler, and you can keep a flight of air tankers circling overhead 24/7. Think about that, seriously, because this is what I think you’ve failed to understand the implications of. The US doesn’t particularly have the hardest troops or some innate superiority at warfare, but they are so far beyond the logistical capacity of any other nation that it’s genuinely scary.
Putting a carrier out there, a long long way away from harm, isn’t glamorous. But by doing so it enables the mainland US air assets to launch directly on missions, without a need for a forward air base. We do this all the time, too - every mission flown by a B2 Spirit takes off and lands at Whiteman Airforce Base (ranked #1 for “airbases with the most mask-off names”). Any strategic bomber is the same. So with one carrier, suddenly all ~900 of those 5th generation stealth multirole aircraft can be deployed for anything from interdiction to close air support. The limit becomes how much meth the pilot can handle and how many bombs can be strapped to one of those damn things.
THAT is what makes the US military a threat. I had a bunch more, explaining how the IRF and CRG can set up an Expeditionary Airbase in 24hrs and then just drop in C5 galaxies and what are you gonna do from there? And a bit about how most of the EU member states still use Gulf War era anti-aircraft systems, and those got merc’d by the damn F117. And a reaaaally boring bit about how the US’s Strategic Airlift capability is super duper astounding (seriously, a C5 can haul two abrams at once) which has been removed in editing, you’re welcome.
But… I honestly don’t think I need any of that. That the US can project it’s mainland-based assets into any arbitrary theater is already unbelievable. That a LCAC can carry an abrams to shore, that 24hr expeditionary airbases include utilities and fast food restaurants, that there is no EU counter to the B52’s standoff payload delivery, that the US has a damn paradrop conference table? Those are all a pale second to the reality that the US can bomb every last scrap of infrastructure you have, level your whole town, and the pilots that did it will be going home to their cliche Missouri family a few hours later. It’s the refinement of banal evil to the point that combat becomes, you know, a job. There’s nothing else like it, and it should terrify the fuck out of you because it sure as hell does me.
(I’m just ignoring everything about canada (because I’m just too tired) and what divestment means (because holy fuck nobody cares, not you, not me, nobody))
Your post boils down to US has insanely more logistics capacity than anybody else and is more advanced than anybody else. Which I never disputed.
However, logistics are not measured against your oppositions logistics, they are measured against the logistics requirements of your task. A significant advantage in logistics can be counteracted by having to operate across an ocean vs overland. EU still needs to improve logistics but it does not have the same hard requirements (when we are discussing strictly the defense of continental EU).
An actual air tanker fleet would help, mostly with time on airborne rather than range, EU aircraft but it is an absolute necessity for the USAF and USN. A C5 grade air transport would also help but it is not necessary.
I will also address the invest/divest issue because it’s not a red herring. You have misrepresented USA’s push for more EU military spending as being motivated by a desire for EU independence from the US, it was motivated by US commercial interests.
Then we have a lot of small inaccuracies that together paint a misleading overall picture.
Carriers are massive force multipliers, they allow you to project air power (and light land power) in areas where you could not at all (so they multiply by infinity in some cases). This obviously comes at a premium and drawbacks.
The same amount of money spent on a land based airforce will yield significant more air power. A Nimitz would cost about 11 billion 2023 USD, an F35C costs ~100 million so you get around a 100 extra modern planes for a carrier. Also the F35A that is not carrier capable costs ~83 million USD so you could get buy four get one free, or more realistically cover (easily) land based logistics the carrier would provide. The cost of the escorts accordingly should go to land based SAM systems.
And of course all that airpower being on a single ship makes them much more vulnerable than being based even on a single air base, which can have groups of aircraft physically separated from each other and/or the runway and/or the ammo depots etc.
They also do not have dedicated air tankers, they can use buddy transfer systems with fighters but this cuts down on the fighters they can use for fighter task. Usually it’s the USAF that refuels navy and marines aircraft since they have the dedicated air tanker fleet.
It’s theoretically possible for the USAF to refuel fighters operating from continental USA to strike at Europe, after all they conduct ferry missions often. Of course in combat missions tankers need to hold back from the combat zone. In any case the F-35 were never intended to fight over the atlantic. This leaves the B-2 which is both stealth and meant to operate over oceans. It also has a payload to do significant damage, though there are 21 of them. While it’s certainly stealthier than F-117 it remains to be seen whether they can consistently penetrate inflict significant damage and get out to have coffee at Missouri.
The F-117’s only interactions with SAM was getting shot down by 1970s Soviet SAM in Serbia. In Gulf war the F-117 did not have loses to SAM but was only operating at night, Iraqi air defenses failed to shot down any type or aircraft at night, even the A-10 that practically was banned from daytime operations. SAMs were actually dealt with by F4/F16 SEAD/DEAD packages (during daytime). Needless to say Gulf era Iraqi SAM systems (and practices) were not up to contemporary Soviet or European standards and of course even less comparable to today’s EU SAM systems.
Yes, I am certain the IRF can build an expeditionary air base in hostile Europe, in 24 hours. One wonders why they would bother instead of conquering the rest of EU by themselves. It’s obviously not happening when facing enemy resistance which will have heavier equipment than an airborne troop.
You might just as well try to take over an existing airfield and land planes there but it’s also an impossible task. Anything from fighter jets, armor, artillery, mortars, manpads can spell disaster for your reinforcement and therefore you.
LCAC can carry an Abrams, thus USN can deliver 90 Abrams if all ships with LCACs were part of an assault. Impressive, but still not enough even if they all manage to land.
As for terror and evil and all that. Historically war has been a job, it’s not something new or special to Americans, if anything there is more romanticizing with all that fighting for freedom or even with vile ideologically rationalizations (racism/nazism).
If they US is not planning on using military force against the EU, they will simply withdraw from EU territory peacefully when asked.
Chaos will be when US troops attack us from withing while Russia attacks from the east.
Are you from the EU?
Originally, I live in the US now. While I’m all for EU countries breaking military ties with the US, no really that is a super important move, open warfare with American forces would be suicide. The US has been the lynchpin of NATO for decades, and is tied in to every layer of the EU military apparatus. There isn’t parity with the american military in any way with respect to this, and it’s the kind of strategic disadvantage that can’t be overcome without legislative reform and many years of buildup. At the moment, especially with trump helming this shithole, any government asking the US to vacate it’s bases will need to do so with the understanding that they only have economic resources to fall back on if the US just says “no”.
You are making an assumption that the US will not attack or threaten to attack to get concessions from the EU unless the EU asks them to withdraw.
I am not saying the EU should take action today, it should prepare as much as it can first, but it needs to have plans to do it even today because it could be forced to.
Open warfare with the US in Europe is not suicide despite the US military being significantly bigger and capable compared to EU armies. Invading across an ocean is hard, you need to be able to move significant forces in or nearby before hostilities start or face no resistance in the initial landing.
Which is why EU armies need to have plans to quickly overwhelm US forces already in the EU, it can be done, they are not significant at present. Of course if you are unwilling to do so they can simply demand to increase their presence making the problem more difficult in the future.
It also needs to make sure the US have as few allies as possible that could help them stage from against it. Thankfully the UK at the moment does not seem to embrace Trump’s foreign policy but that could change in the future.
This is also why adding Canada to the EU at this point, when the main concern is security, is foolish, we cannot protect Canada, we probably cannot prevent an occupation of Greenland or any weird islands ex-imperial powers have god-knows-where.
The EU needs to implement a lot of changes to guarantee it’s safety and independence, some will be hard (unpopular, expensive).
It needs to increase military spending, massively It need to de-tangle EU military equipment from US dependencies, including US parts required for EU manufactured equipment. This could trigger a US reaction. It needs to replace NATO structures for interoperability of EU armies with EU ones, replicating as much as possible(personnel, procedures, equipment) It needs to make sure there are no outside loyalties in it’s armed forces which is going to be difficult after decades of NATO. Those are more dangerous than the existing US forces. It should implement some kind of conscription/reservist training force to have a bigger trained overall force. This is in addition to increasing regular professional forces. It needs to reduce US dependency in non-military sectors as well. Could also trigger a US reaction.
(It is late and I am tired, so I apologize if this comes accross as rude or similar. I’m really not trying to be.)
This isn’t WWII though, opposed landings aren’t something anyone still does. Besides that, in this hypothetical scenario everyone has nukes. It’s really just an exercise in how much aggression each side will tolerate before someone escalates to that point.
Look I’m not disagreeing with the broad sentiment that the EU needs to get it’s shit together and divest from the US militarily – the US has been practically begging for that since clinton, hell obama, biden and trump all warned against this exact fascist-takeover america-unreliable scenario. I also for sure am not assuming the US will not be the aggressor. I mean, we’re even threatening the EU with annexation right now. I seriously doubt it’ll get to that point, but it’s by no means ruled out.
Things like adding canada to the EU are excellent strategic moves, since it not only gives the EU an ally with many friendly airbases across the ocean but, waaaaay more importantly, it gives them economic strength with which to batter the US and bolster their own economies. This is an economic war, and the US probably won’t win it. Hoorayyy?
I am confused though, if you understand that the US cannot invade despite their superior military why do you think it’s suicide for the EU to take military action against the limited US forces in the EU’s own territory?
The US has never before pushed for EU divestment from the US. Quite the opposite it has repeatedly pushed for more EU investment in military defense, a part of which would go to US industry. It has reduced it’s presence when the SU fell but it still maintained bases in Europe and while military action would not be in the table other forms of coercion would come into play if the EU demanded a complete US withdrawal from EU territory.
I am also confused about who you think Trump warned the EU against? His own America? He just wanted the EU to pay more to US industry.
Adding Canada to the EU is not adding an ally to the EU it’s adding a member. It creates a security obligation which the EU cannot fulfill towards Canada. At the same time it could provoke the US to attack Canada. Of course if the US attacks Canada the EU should try and provide as much help as possible but at the moment or the near future that won’t really be much.
I do believe CETA is being provisionally applied reducing tariffs even if the arbitration stuff is not (nor should it really). There is no ‘economic’ war to be won, the US is putting arbitrary tariffs on anyone but Russia, they will obviously be hurt more than any of the individual economies they target.
Ah man… Point by point breakdowns are usually the death knell of a discussion. It just spirals into longer and longer posts with less and less substance. For example:
Where did I say that the US can’t invade? Ukraine has shown that nuclear deterrence is an extremely complicated subject. Would France actually be willing to end the world to save the Dutch? Nobody knows!
Yes exactly. Trump isn’t good at this. His arguments are too small to get his fat little body off the ground. Trump, of course, says them anyways. Trump doesn’t care what humans think.
What’s the problem? Canada is aware of this going into it, so is the EU. It’s clearly a move that bolsters economies and not the respective militaries, at least in the near term, which is what is currently under threat. Long term, economic and military partnership between the EU and canada is blah blah blah longwinded nobody cares blah
But but but… That’s divestment. That’s doing divestment.
Etc.
Isn’t that just… miserable? All I’m doing is picking your nits, and that doesn’t really further anything because at no point does it address your thesis. I’m just batting at your arguments like a fat cat who wants you to stop bonking into it with the mouse but is too lazy to actually move off the mousepad. It doesn’t add anything, except incentive for this to turn into another boring internet slap fight. Honestly this feels like either we’re agreeing but not realizing it, or you have no experience with the military at all but don’t want to admit that (and I really do not think it’s the second option!).
Okay, here, how about I say: “Current US forces in the EU are not and never have been an occupying force - they could be casually sidelined by parking a big truck in front of the gates and stopping the beer delivery” and you please try to believe me. Not even joking, like, you’re right and it’s 100% true, I promise, and I have not argued anything else at any point. The forces the US stations in Europe (with the possible exception of some of the air assets at German-hosted bases like Ramstein) have no significant conventional defensive ability, they’re all sigint, liaison and a guard for the nukes. They could be rolled over by a determined enough girlscout troop (probably not by the boyscouts, though…).
Everyone knows that.
If you cross cancel the nukes from both sides in this hypothetical scenario (because it’s no fun to speculate when the end state is “absolutely everyone dies forever”) you’re left with a coalition of economically and culturally extremely powerful countries that just utterly lack a response to realities like “seven carrier strike groups” or “more than a thousand F35s”. Any hypothetical US occupation of the EU would obviously devolve into the exact kind of guerilla/insurgent warfare the US absolutely sucks at, but that doesn’t matter if this lunatic admin decides to have ROEs that are really relaxed about things like ‘civilians’. You just cannot win a war of attrition with the US right now, it’s pretty doubtful even the other superpowers could (that’s why they’re going the election interference route…) and provoking one by attacking US tripwire bases would be suicidal.
I feel like I should point out here that I do not like this. I’m not proud about this shit, honestly I’m too busy worrying about the “my country is burning down around me and I haven’t even got a bucket with which to staunch the flames” thing. But, the good news is (not for me I admit) that any significant mobilization to invade the EU will trigger a civil war in the US. To say that the idea ‘is as popular as giving children syphilis’ is to do a disservice to hyperbole. So I guess take heart that they’d have to roll over a great many americans (including me) before they ever get off the mainland.
…
Well, okay, these fuckers would happily do that (honestly they’d probably consider it a bonus), but the tree of moral victory is watered with the blood of martyrs. And fertilized with the paste their corpses have been ground into. And probably guided on a trellis made from what few bones weren’t ground into powder.
…
Or something, idk. This is getting dumb. I just really hope there’ll never be a chance for me to be proven right.
The reason the US cannot (successfully) invade is not due to nuclear deterrence but the difficulty in bringing over enough heavy equipment (MBTs, artillery) if you don’t have a foothold (ports, airfields). Seven carrier groups are not going to be able to secure you that even if they amounted to more than a 1000 F-35s, which they don’t.
Canada cannot join the EU legally. It will take amendment of the treaties to remove the geographical requirement and still Hungary would veto the ascension anyways. You can scoff at this and argue that we should ignore the treaties and Hungary but this will weaken the EU as an institution. It already is obviously less cohesive than a nation state.
It’s also not necessary for Canada to join the EU for us to support them militarily. The issue is that we can’t really do so in the near future.
EU military spending was already not going 100% to US products, therefore not all of the increased spending benefiting US companies is not divestment, it’s actually investment. The US after all marketed the F-35 to EU members.
I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time. I do not think the best EU can do is rely on Americans waging a civil war on it’s behalf.
Apologies, lemmy is having a day. One moment while I sort this out…
(My point exactly. And, since I lack even a shred of self awareness, here have six more paragraphs! I really tried to keep them on just one topic, at least)
Disclaimer
I’ve had to rewrite this a couple times, because I keep veering into being excessively sarcastic and you really don’t deserve that. So, and with my complete and honest sincerity, I say this: I need you to know that your understanding here is very flawed. It’s that flaw that’s keeping you from being as abjectly terrified as every non-fascist US natsec dickhead is right now (this very much includes me). There’s a serious danger here, and it’s not that you’re going to personally kick off a war with the US, nor that I might not win an argument on lemmy, but that the imperialist powers currently salivating at the idea of extending their influence over EU countries (and this includes the USA) are eagerly attempting to exploit your ignorance of this subject to their own ends. As someone living through the hell of what that technique can do, I want you to be as prepared as possible to spot this kind of misinformation in the future. So please, please hear me out.
First, let me say that you are correct on several points - you cannot have a land invasion or launch an occupation with air and naval assets alone. You’re also 100% correct that the US Navy does not have 1,100 F-35 Lightning II Cs, that was not what I meant to imply (afaik there are only ~105 F35Cs). Now obviously, to occupy conquered ground, you have to… occupy, the ground. This is very simple thing which, unfortunately, boats are famously ill suited to. Planes are, also, just garbage at it. I will make no attempt to deny these patently obvious facts, which I happily will cede to you without contest. Admittedly, this is a serious problem for my hypothetical invading army to overcome. Because unfortunately, the easiest way to transport large numbers of that really cool military stuff we all love, like tanks and rockets and red-blooded American heroes with red bandanas on their heads and plot armor a mile thick, is inside big planes or on big boats.
So lets just… ignore that problem. It’s inconvenient.
A nuclear supercarrier is a massive strategic asset, both physically and metaphorically. It lets you project force over a huge area that your mainland based assets simply do not have and that is absolutely invaluable in the geopolitical world. It lets you power small cities for disaster relief. And they are the most densely packed logistical hubs ever conceived. That last thing is why they’re valuable, really. Obviously they can service, fuel, coordinate and re-arm their compliment of aircraft and that alone is amazingly useful, but see, in this hypothetical invasion scenario, the most useful thing they could do would be to just…
Sit there.
No, really. Park a strike group out in the middle of the atlantic, run a tube over to an oiler, and you can keep a flight of air tankers circling overhead 24/7. Think about that, seriously, because this is what I think you’ve failed to understand the implications of. The US doesn’t particularly have the hardest troops or some innate superiority at warfare, but they are so far beyond the logistical capacity of any other nation that it’s genuinely scary.
Putting a carrier out there, a long long way away from harm, isn’t glamorous. But by doing so it enables the mainland US air assets to launch directly on missions, without a need for a forward air base. We do this all the time, too - every mission flown by a B2 Spirit takes off and lands at Whiteman Airforce Base (ranked #1 for “airbases with the most mask-off names”). Any strategic bomber is the same. So with one carrier, suddenly all ~900 of those 5th generation stealth multirole aircraft can be deployed for anything from interdiction to close air support. The limit becomes how much meth the pilot can handle and how many bombs can be strapped to one of those damn things.
THAT is what makes the US military a threat. I had a bunch more, explaining how the IRF and CRG can set up an Expeditionary Airbase in 24hrs and then just drop in C5 galaxies and what are you gonna do from there? And a bit about how most of the EU member states still use Gulf War era anti-aircraft systems, and those got merc’d by the damn F117. And a reaaaally boring bit about how the US’s Strategic Airlift capability is super duper astounding (seriously, a C5 can haul two abrams at once) which has been removed in editing, you’re welcome.
But… I honestly don’t think I need any of that. That the US can project it’s mainland-based assets into any arbitrary theater is already unbelievable. That a LCAC can carry an abrams to shore, that 24hr expeditionary airbases include utilities and fast food restaurants, that there is no EU counter to the B52’s standoff payload delivery, that the US has a damn paradrop conference table? Those are all a pale second to the reality that the US can bomb every last scrap of infrastructure you have, level your whole town, and the pilots that did it will be going home to their cliche Missouri family a few hours later. It’s the refinement of banal evil to the point that combat becomes, you know, a job. There’s nothing else like it, and it should terrify the fuck out of you because it sure as hell does me.
(I’m just ignoring everything about canada (because I’m just too tired) and what divestment means (because holy fuck nobody cares, not you, not me, nobody))
Your post boils down to US has insanely more logistics capacity than anybody else and is more advanced than anybody else. Which I never disputed.
However, logistics are not measured against your oppositions logistics, they are measured against the logistics requirements of your task. A significant advantage in logistics can be counteracted by having to operate across an ocean vs overland. EU still needs to improve logistics but it does not have the same hard requirements (when we are discussing strictly the defense of continental EU).
An actual air tanker fleet would help, mostly with time on airborne rather than range, EU aircraft but it is an absolute necessity for the USAF and USN. A C5 grade air transport would also help but it is not necessary.
I will also address the invest/divest issue because it’s not a red herring. You have misrepresented USA’s push for more EU military spending as being motivated by a desire for EU independence from the US, it was motivated by US commercial interests.
Then we have a lot of small inaccuracies that together paint a misleading overall picture.
Carriers are massive force multipliers, they allow you to project air power (and light land power) in areas where you could not at all (so they multiply by infinity in some cases). This obviously comes at a premium and drawbacks.
The same amount of money spent on a land based airforce will yield significant more air power. A Nimitz would cost about 11 billion 2023 USD, an F35C costs ~100 million so you get around a 100 extra modern planes for a carrier. Also the F35A that is not carrier capable costs ~83 million USD so you could get buy four get one free, or more realistically cover (easily) land based logistics the carrier would provide. The cost of the escorts accordingly should go to land based SAM systems.
And of course all that airpower being on a single ship makes them much more vulnerable than being based even on a single air base, which can have groups of aircraft physically separated from each other and/or the runway and/or the ammo depots etc.
They also do not have dedicated air tankers, they can use buddy transfer systems with fighters but this cuts down on the fighters they can use for fighter task. Usually it’s the USAF that refuels navy and marines aircraft since they have the dedicated air tanker fleet.
It’s theoretically possible for the USAF to refuel fighters operating from continental USA to strike at Europe, after all they conduct ferry missions often. Of course in combat missions tankers need to hold back from the combat zone. In any case the F-35 were never intended to fight over the atlantic. This leaves the B-2 which is both stealth and meant to operate over oceans. It also has a payload to do significant damage, though there are 21 of them. While it’s certainly stealthier than F-117 it remains to be seen whether they can consistently penetrate inflict significant damage and get out to have coffee at Missouri.
The F-117’s only interactions with SAM was getting shot down by 1970s Soviet SAM in Serbia. In Gulf war the F-117 did not have loses to SAM but was only operating at night, Iraqi air defenses failed to shot down any type or aircraft at night, even the A-10 that practically was banned from daytime operations. SAMs were actually dealt with by F4/F16 SEAD/DEAD packages (during daytime). Needless to say Gulf era Iraqi SAM systems (and practices) were not up to contemporary Soviet or European standards and of course even less comparable to today’s EU SAM systems.
Yes, I am certain the IRF can build an expeditionary air base in hostile Europe, in 24 hours. One wonders why they would bother instead of conquering the rest of EU by themselves. It’s obviously not happening when facing enemy resistance which will have heavier equipment than an airborne troop.
You might just as well try to take over an existing airfield and land planes there but it’s also an impossible task. Anything from fighter jets, armor, artillery, mortars, manpads can spell disaster for your reinforcement and therefore you.
LCAC can carry an Abrams, thus USN can deliver 90 Abrams if all ships with LCACs were part of an assault. Impressive, but still not enough even if they all manage to land.
As for terror and evil and all that. Historically war has been a job, it’s not something new or special to Americans, if anything there is more romanticizing with all that fighting for freedom or even with vile ideologically rationalizations (racism/nazism).
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