How does that even matter? If (and that’s a huge fucking if) Russia uses nukes it doesn’t matter if they’re launching from Belarus or Hungary. But with the current status quo Putin has an ally in our midst that is paralyzing our alliance.

I’d rather they join Russia, it would relieve a huge burden on the EU and we would lose nothing of value.

Throw 🙏 Hungary 🙏 out 🙏

I don’t think xenophobia is even the root cause. There are studies on extremism that reach back decades that show a consistent racist potential of the German population at about 10%. Personally I’m convinced that most of the percentage on top of that for the AfD is people that feel abandoned or even betrayed by our political system. And looking at how the distribution of wealth and income has developed since the 90s, they’re not wrong to feel that way. People voting the extreme right are mostly those left behind in these statistics.

And up until this point, every party except the democratic far left has completely ignored this or resorted to victim blaming, telling the poor to just work harder. So these people vote the only party that tells them they will burn the whole system down. Let’s see if the ruling parties use their last bullet to remedy this.

From what’s I understand about the political landscape in the US, the situation is not too different there.

Gott strafe Orban!

There really is no alternative. History (especially in Europe) has proven a near infinite amount of times that peace through strength is the only language imperialistic dictatorships understand.

Appease them and they will see that as an encouragement to come for you.

Was surprised to see this article wasn’t written by Sergey Lavrov himself. It might as well have been.

What does China stand to gain by attacking Russia?

You should read these claims with the same amount of nuance you use on claims like “Russia runs out of tanks/missiles/shells”.

What they mean is “we can sustain a full-on, large scale offensive at optimal supply for two weeks, before we need to scale to a lower operational pace and stockpile material for our individual operations.”

No military ever has enough, Russia “ran out” a few days into their offense, and yet they’ve been fighting for years.

Idk man, we (as in NATO nations, except the US) ran out of ammunition during the air campaign against Libya. And that lasted mere days without any significant enemy pushback. There simply are no significant (deep) depots of ammunitions stockpiled here. Sure, we could probably start throwing helmets at the Russians after a week or so.

Eh, NATO high command exists just fine. Sure, it would be headed by the 2nd in command, but it works.

Most of the NATO command structure is incredibly US centric though, it doesn’t end with the SACEUR. It’s kind of unsettling considering our current relation with the US.

Regarding your last paragraph, I agree that airborne radar and satellite data are the most crucial factors we are lacking without the US.

America is already out of the question and I think most politicians in Europe are finally seeing that. But the problem runs much deeper still. With the US out of the picture, will Madrid declare war on Russia if they send little green men to a border village in Latvia?

That’s not at all comparable to the American economy, wtf dude.

Exactly.

There’s this old saying that goes something like: “The European Airforce could beat Russia any day of the week - as long as they don’t have to do it the next week as well.”

Meaning, the most pressing problem are our ammunition stockpiles. If you research that you’ll quickly see how bad the situation is in the EU currently. The Bundeswehr could, according to top generals, not stay in a fight for more than one or two weeks before running out of artillery shells, missiles and bombs.

Then there’s also the issue of lacking infrastructure, the absence of a unified command structure in Europe and with the withdrawal of the US, also a lack of strategic capabilities (awacs, satellite data, military intelligence, air tankers, heavy lift helicopters, …).

It is definitely impacted but you also need to consider how indoctrinated and thoroughly militarized the younger generations are at this point. Russia might not have good birth rates, but their children are forced to learn marching in formation early on (I think it was at kindergarten level) and practice with wooden rifle mockups.

Oh of course, I’m sure the US wouldn’t veto that. Good idea!

Everyone in this thread is so confidently incorrect.

Are we talking about the same European states that ran out of ammunition during a 5-day air campaign against Libya and had to borrow ammunition from the USAF? My brother in Christ, here in Germany the latest wargames the Bundeswehr did have concluded that our army can’t stay in a prolonged fight for more than a week.

The EU mutual defense clause is in fact slightly more binding but if you’re actually reading it (which I’m assuming you did since you posted it), it still only says that member states are required to give aid and assistance. I hope we are all aware how much diplomatic wiggle room this wording allows for.

And no, the EU wouldn’t stand a chance against the US military. But that’s a whole other topic.

Yeah, people downvoting me are just proving my point that there’s a lot of confusion about what Article 5 actually is.

They very clearly do not.

I don’t think the situation is that clear. Entering a war against the US would mean destruction for Denmark (and any country that joins via Article 5). I’m not convinced they would do that.

The way things are currently moving, I think it will be more like the following: there’s probably going to be an independence voting in Greenland - this has been in the works for a while now and every major party there is pro-independence. It will be a terrible idea to move forward with it under a Trump presidency but they will. After the ties with Denmark are severed, the US will immediately swoop in and occupy the now entirely defenseless land.

Canada is serious as well. But they know they’d have to fight a bloody war over it.