The worst-case scenario is now a possible one: European troops fighting off an invasion largely alone.
It’s by no means clear the Europeans would succeed. Romanian and other European officials at the exercise in Cincu, about 260 kilometers (162 miles) north of Bucharest by road, voiced concerns about how long it would take for NATO allies to make it to the front.
French four-star General Philippe de Montenon said he’s confident Europe could prevail, even without the US on side. “The direction of history is a progressive disengagement of the United States from the European continent,” he said.
This is discussed too rarely. Does anybody know of a source that makes a reliable comparison?
Well, France has the second or third largest/most powerful individual Navy in the world, and Russia has severely diminished trained personnel, so unless China enters it would be a one sided massacre in Europe’s favor.
Probably why Russia has worked so hard on the south of Ukraine to secure the sea border even losing territory in the north.
The issue is when China enters, and whose side they will be on. Does Xi Jinpooh see more profit in helping his cabal of friendly dictators or would he just carve out a slice of the Russia Pie?
Why would the navy be relevant? The war is about controlling the area that cannot be reached by ships.
Nuclear submarine are part of the navy. So it’s an important asset, especially in the deterrence and strike game. We have good payload capabilities (all proportion garded) thanks to the navy. And projection force from our aircraft carrier is also a good asset.
If none of their ports work, I’d guess it would affect their war effort considerably. It also means stable supply lines by water and no worries about naval movements.
I can’t see China wanting to get involved in the war. Wars are expensive, and the outcome is not guaranteed.
Besides China has improving relations with Europe, what is the point in risking that?
China is invading like 4 territories every day of the week and they attempted to covertly build a partially underground military citt in Beijing 10x the size of the US Pentagon, in addition to being the origin country of the vast majority of cyberattacks.
They vetoed the only Israel Palestine ceasefire agreement that the US would agree to last year and endorsed the bloodthirsty Trump admin, openly promoting him with their TikTok platform.
They bankroll North Korea and Iran.
If War incarnated on earth he would be taking notes from Pooh Bear.
Only the former head of the US forces in NATO, Ben Hodges , has oftentimes said similar lines afaik, like here :
Europe should “quit whining” about the threats it faces and “act like the superpower” that it is, according to a former senior US army officer.
Generally, he’s quite confident about Europe defending itself.