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submitted 8 months ago by etuomaala@sopuli.xyz to c/world@lemmy.world
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[-] hector@lemmy.today 4 points 8 months ago

Europe has their own military gear they produce though. Everything we have they have a version, albeit slightly less advanced. They are way more advanced than Russia militarily. But yeah they haven't been investing in it because the US has the bases and the armies and navies doing all of that since the great war.

But they are not in that bad of a position. It is just they have bad leadership, like everyone else, and that bad leadership will lead a far right supported by Russia and the US to win elections sooner or later, then fix themselves in power and join the US and Russia in running fascist autocracies. Even if that far right in those countries doesn't know it yet. And the US and their factions of billionaires will be helping them.

So if Europe got good leadership offering popular reform they could easily hold their own. They won't though so are in a bad position. They are too busy surrendering to tech and ai, trying to haul the trojan horse inside the walls.

[-] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah, Europe has a slightly crumbier version of most of the normal military equipment that the US has. The problem is that they have like 5 of them and the US has about a thousand.

For example, Germany has a really good MBT, maybe even better than anything the US has, or at least better than most of what the US would actually field. Nerds will fall all over themselves to compare and tease out exactly which is better, but here is the thing that really matters:

Germany has about 300 of them. The US has 2,500 ready to deploy main battle tanks that might or might not be better than theirs (but are undoubtedly pretty close) and another 2,000 or so in reserves.

Europe has not prepared themselves for war against anyone, let alone a peer military. The US has.

[-] bufalo1973@piefed.social 3 points 8 months ago

Europe has not prepared for war because every time Europe wanted to prepare for war the US pushed in the other direction. No common army, no better weapons, no nuclear weapons, ... All that was anathema. De Gaulle was right and the rest of Europe should have listened to him since decades ago.

[-] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 1 points 8 months ago

Given that France developed and deployed their own nuclear weapons it kind of seems that option was available to the rest of Europe but they decided not to.

[-] bufalo1973@piefed.social 1 points 8 months ago

De Gaulle wanted a self-defense system for France. The rest were stupid and relied on the US.

this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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