Muscovy ‘Rus, in military affairs, punches well above its relative economic weight—plus it has nuclear weapons. And NATO is no longer a thing—The Holy One Who Is alone knows what bizarre s***show...
There is a third European army--that of Türkiye alone, with half a million active and a bit under 400,000 reserve, and a pretty good mid-tech defense industry. That's bigger than any single EU country, and indeed, the entire Viking alliance. I believe that Türkiye views its NATO membership as a useful insurance policy against a remote but frightening contingency--the Bear moving south, as it did for much of the 18th and 19th centuries. On the other hand, Türkiye is pretty much indifferent to the Bear's westward ambitions. Ukraine worries the Turks; Poland and the Balts do not.
Good points here, and an analysis new to me. My fear this may be too optimistic. A functioning alliance must have a fully coordinated military: unified command; similar weaponry; integrated communications; etc. I'm not confident either of the 2 potential Euro partnerships meet this criterion. I hope very much that they're moving in this direction, though.
"the Pentagon, State, and intel community will leak and lobby relentlessly if the U.S. is visibly abandoning allies under fire, even the key Trump-enablers in Congress are highly sensitive to “America is weak / America is unreliable” narratives, and business and media elites dislike anything that makes the U.S. look like a faithless partner."
This may still be true, but the longer Trump/Vance remains in power, the less true I fear it will become.
Europe needs time, but time's winged chariot is hurrying near.
In the Napoleonic Wars, the Russians and Brits were individually able to conduct successful operations, one on land and the other on sea (plus the guerrilla war in Spain). When Napoleon returned, there was a unified command under Wellington. All the officers spoke French (ironically enough). I don't know enough about munitions back then, so I can't speak to that.
In WWI the French and British were individually able to be responsible for particular sections of the front. Coordination existed at the top. Again, I don't know enough about munitions to speak to that, but my understanding is that each country had the industrial base to supply its own.
In WWII, there was famous cooperation at the top, and the Russians used mostly American weaponry. On the Western Front, there was unified command under Ike, and mostly American weapons.
The difference I see now is that the alliances don't individually have the industrial base to supply weapons. Nor could each country individually match the Russian Army, and having that many small segments of a front probably wouldn't work very well without unified command and probably compatible weapons. They need to integrate forces to achieve the same effect that the Great Powers were individually capable of in the 3 previous examples.
Summing up, history gives lots of examples of varying degrees of co-ordination.
Also, it’s odd to speak hypothetically about a war between Russia and Europe that is already happening, despite big disagreements within Europe. As regards industrial capacity Rheinmetall alone is producing more shells than the entire US, Ukraine is producing vast numbers of drones etc. So far, Russia hasn’t gained significant ground even though the European effort has been very restrained
Fair point that the war is already happening. I was thinking of a wider war -- say, Russia invades the Baltic states or Poland. That expands the front and makes it harder to defend in a coordinated fashion. But Ukraine has certainly performed nobly under conditions that are far from ideal.
When you say, "the attrition WWI style-assaults impose upon a force means that little of its combat experience becomes force-level learning," you address an important point, but I would argue that the experience of the interwar period provides limited support for your conclusion. The militaries of all of the states that survived WWI made very serious efforts to learn and incorporate its lessons. Germany did fairly well in some respects, albeit not well enough. France, which had borne a very heavy price from attrition warfare, did quite poorly, while Italy did worse yet. But the U.K., which also had suffered severely from attrition assaults, understood the real lessons of the war imperfectly but well enough to pave the road to victory in 1945; and similarly the United States. In the Soviet Union, successor to an empire which had shattered under the impact of the war, the army high command did reasonably well in understanding its lessons. (Finally Japan, which had been only peripherally involved but studied the war's lessons very intently, largely misunderstood them in a way that led to its defeat.) I think that in war as in most things, experience is what you make of it.
My head implodes when I try to contemplate what would happen if our European allies decided to offload their investments in US treasury bonds. Even just a little bit.
I've been making the same argument, but without the separation of Europe into two parts. There are certainly differences in emphasis, but they don't all go the same way. For example, Poland and the Baltics are much keener on keeping the US onside, even though that's obviously a fantasy. The French are much keener on a unified European army. And Germany alone is producing more artillery shells than the US.
As far as land war is concerned, Europe is now the world superpower, holding Russia at bay without putting forth more than a fraction of its power. The US can send armadas wherever Trump wants, but that's not a term with a happy history.
The EU needs its own nuke triad free of US- now mostly on French Uk subs. Poland and Germany will nuke up. They need to develop a centralized C3 which may be the hardest part.
There is a third European army--that of Türkiye alone, with half a million active and a bit under 400,000 reserve, and a pretty good mid-tech defense industry. That's bigger than any single EU country, and indeed, the entire Viking alliance. I believe that Türkiye views its NATO membership as a useful insurance policy against a remote but frightening contingency--the Bear moving south, as it did for much of the 18th and 19th centuries. On the other hand, Türkiye is pretty much indifferent to the Bear's westward ambitions. Ukraine worries the Turks; Poland and the Balts do not.
Good points here, and an analysis new to me. My fear this may be too optimistic. A functioning alliance must have a fully coordinated military: unified command; similar weaponry; integrated communications; etc. I'm not confident either of the 2 potential Euro partnerships meet this criterion. I hope very much that they're moving in this direction, though.
"the Pentagon, State, and intel community will leak and lobby relentlessly if the U.S. is visibly abandoning allies under fire, even the key Trump-enablers in Congress are highly sensitive to “America is weak / America is unreliable” narratives, and business and media elites dislike anything that makes the U.S. look like a faithless partner."
This may still be true, but the longer Trump/Vance remains in power, the less true I fear it will become.
Europe needs time, but time's winged chariot is hurrying near.
Yes…
" A functioning alliance must have a fully coordinated military" is this actually true? World wars? Napoleonic Wars? Ukraine right now?
In the Napoleonic Wars, the Russians and Brits were individually able to conduct successful operations, one on land and the other on sea (plus the guerrilla war in Spain). When Napoleon returned, there was a unified command under Wellington. All the officers spoke French (ironically enough). I don't know enough about munitions back then, so I can't speak to that.
In WWI the French and British were individually able to be responsible for particular sections of the front. Coordination existed at the top. Again, I don't know enough about munitions to speak to that, but my understanding is that each country had the industrial base to supply its own.
In WWII, there was famous cooperation at the top, and the Russians used mostly American weaponry. On the Western Front, there was unified command under Ike, and mostly American weapons.
The difference I see now is that the alliances don't individually have the industrial base to supply weapons. Nor could each country individually match the Russian Army, and having that many small segments of a front probably wouldn't work very well without unified command and probably compatible weapons. They need to integrate forces to achieve the same effect that the Great Powers were individually capable of in the 3 previous examples.
Summing up, history gives lots of examples of varying degrees of co-ordination.
Also, it’s odd to speak hypothetically about a war between Russia and Europe that is already happening, despite big disagreements within Europe. As regards industrial capacity Rheinmetall alone is producing more shells than the entire US, Ukraine is producing vast numbers of drones etc. So far, Russia hasn’t gained significant ground even though the European effort has been very restrained
Fair point that the war is already happening. I was thinking of a wider war -- say, Russia invades the Baltic states or Poland. That expands the front and makes it harder to defend in a coordinated fashion. But Ukraine has certainly performed nobly under conditions that are far from ideal.
When you say, "the attrition WWI style-assaults impose upon a force means that little of its combat experience becomes force-level learning," you address an important point, but I would argue that the experience of the interwar period provides limited support for your conclusion. The militaries of all of the states that survived WWI made very serious efforts to learn and incorporate its lessons. Germany did fairly well in some respects, albeit not well enough. France, which had borne a very heavy price from attrition warfare, did quite poorly, while Italy did worse yet. But the U.K., which also had suffered severely from attrition assaults, understood the real lessons of the war imperfectly but well enough to pave the road to victory in 1945; and similarly the United States. In the Soviet Union, successor to an empire which had shattered under the impact of the war, the army high command did reasonably well in understanding its lessons. (Finally Japan, which had been only peripherally involved but studied the war's lessons very intently, largely misunderstood them in a way that led to its defeat.) I think that in war as in most things, experience is what you make of it.
My head implodes when I try to contemplate what would happen if our European allies decided to offload their investments in US treasury bonds. Even just a little bit.
I've been making the same argument, but without the separation of Europe into two parts. There are certainly differences in emphasis, but they don't all go the same way. For example, Poland and the Baltics are much keener on keeping the US onside, even though that's obviously a fantasy. The French are much keener on a unified European army. And Germany alone is producing more artillery shells than the US.
As far as land war is concerned, Europe is now the world superpower, holding Russia at bay without putting forth more than a fraction of its power. The US can send armadas wherever Trump wants, but that's not a term with a happy history.
The EU needs its own nuke triad free of US- now mostly on French Uk subs. Poland and Germany will nuke up. They need to develop a centralized C3 which may be the hardest part.