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.

archive

  • HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 hours ago

    Thankfully Russia can’t afford to stretch themselves much more. I implore them to try something it shouldn’t take much to fuck them at this point.

  • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 hours ago

    it would really be something else if they fought them off successfully and the united states looked like pussies and assholes

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    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.

    Those two things are not synonymous.

    Romanian military are concerned it would take allies time to get to the front (I.e. it would take time for NATO to mobilise in the event of an unanticipated invasion of Romania). However firstly that doesn’t mean victory wouldn’t be ultimately achieved (allied forces had a bad time of it during the first part of the second world war, but ultimately were victorious) and secondly it assumes that Russia would be able to rally its forces (what forces) and initiate a surprise invasion despite Europe heavily monitoring Russian military activity. Which all seems unlikely.

    I’m also unclear about why 260 km is considered an insurmountable distance. In an emergency that distance could be covered in a couple of hours, (I’m assuming that liberation forces and not required to obey the speed limit) presumably everyone would be going the other way in any case.

  • TheFrirish@jlai.lu
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    16 hours ago

    Let the comments here be a friendly reminder to people that they should block and boycott the .ml instance

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      I love how it occurs so naturally that by the time I come into a post that talks about Russia and Ukraine, half the posts are already limited and I can’t expand threads because people replying are ones I’ve already blocked in other posts for being absolutely developmentally challenged.

    • Xartle@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      I missed the drama. This was the first Lemmy account I made. Is this server overrun with bots now?

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          I love you got three angy downvotes for explaining this.

          I’m sad there isn’t an appropriate gif of an “angry tankie” shaking his fist.

        • Maldreamer@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          Not really, .ml stands for Mali domain. And just because someone believes in Marxist principle or communism isn’t a issue. Personally for me why I am wary of .ml domain is because often I do see people posting obvious Chinese and North Korean propoganda with shady source and wild claims and their refusal to accept criticism of China or other communist past and present regimes. Also they get really defensive and assume you are pro west or pro imperialism when you happen to criticize china for something and then their whole argument would be bashing the west when both are to fault.

          • favoredponcho@lemmy.zip
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            11 hours ago

            The devs for Lemmy are Marxists and they setup lemmy.ml as the first lemmy instance. They chose .ml because for them it stands for Marxist-Leninist, despite what ICANN officially regards it as.

            Also, like you point out. The instance pushes a lot of bizarre propaganda and dissent is often met with bans. From my observations, criticism of Russia or China can get you banned, presumably because these countries have a history of communism. Also, they even defend Putin and justify the invasion of Ukraine.

            In my view, it’s one thing to be communist. It’s another to align yourself with the worst examples of it. Many communists distance themselves from the CCP and USSR, arguing that these were not real examples of communism. But, these folks in .ml seem to be defenders of it.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    That’s not really how NATO works, but I can understand the sentiment of imagining the USA refusing to enact the articles upon a member being attacked.

    • khepri@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      I didn’t think it was the sort of thing that could be refused? Aren’t things like Article 5 basically a ride-or-die pact that obligates member nations to come to eachother’s defense? At least in my understanding, being a part of NATO at all legally requires each nation to consider an attack against any one of them as an attack on all of them. It specifically isn’t a “if you feel like it” rule, because that doesn’t have the scary MAD implications of Article 5.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I think I didn’t really articulate it correctly, I am saying I sympathize with the French and other EU Generals for planning like this.

      • Typotyper@sh.itjust.works
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        6 hours ago

        If the US fails to honor NATO’s Article 5 then the rest of the world will worry the US won’t honor their defence packs.

        Japan Taiwan Philippines South Korea

        Nuclear proliferation will follow

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Japan Taiwan Philippines South Korea

          Are client states under the occupation of the US military. They aren’t worried the US might fall to act. They’re worried the US might act to remove their leaders and replace them with more pliant ones.

          Nuclear proliferation will follow

          Why would an occupied territory hosting US nuclear weapons build their own nuclear arsenal?

          Why would the US allow them to do so?

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            2 hours ago

            Why would an occupied territory hosting US nuclear weapons build their own nuclear arsenal?

            Many of them already do have nuclear weapons of their own. Also the US wouldn’t have any say in whether or not they produce nuclear weapons they could announce their preference but they have no ability to enforce it.

      • Zron@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        And how exactly would they force the United States to do anything?

        “Join Us or we’ll start a two front war to make you join us” is hardly a convincing argument.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          2 hours ago

          Why would Europe engage in a two front war with the United States when it could instead just ignore the United States?

        • khepri@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Hey if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you can’t force the US to respect a treaty it’s signed, ever. It’s kinda our thing since the very beginning.

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          The US military is highly distributed throughout the world. Other countries can stop allowing us to have bases on their soil and it will significantly weaken our military posture. They dont need to invade the US to do this.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Aren’t things like Article 5 basically a ride-or-die pact that obligates member nations to come to eachother’s defense?

        They aren’t self enforcing. Someone at the Pentagon actually has to give the order to mobilize

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          It would be better if the U.S. just waits a minute sees shat happens, and then congress votes to declare war and the executive branch would have to act based upon their vote or would be directly disobeying the legislature again. Congress declares war. Not the executive branch. And in the end we are the only country to enact article 5 in history, when 9/11 happened and NATO countries answered the call even though many probably did not wish too.

          The thing here would be that unless Russis initiates the attack, it wouldn’t trigger article 5 and congress could just ignore it.

          And a lot of people would like to ignore it even with the long term pitfalls, because all they care about is themselves and right this very second

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            Congress declares war. Not the executive branch

            Congress authorized enormous discretion to the president under the NDAA and AUMF. There’s no actual need to declare war in the modern era.

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              Other than the part about it forcing the executive branch to act and holding all of them responsible for not upholding the laws written by the legislature. But congress wouldn’t likely do it.

        • khepri@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Well I know this is getting well away from the point here, but Congress declares war, not the President.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            Congress declares war, not the President.

            Congress has already authorized the President to deploy military units at the president’s discretion, per the AUMF which renews biannually under the NDAA

            • khepri@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              For sure, what I’m saying is that, if Article 5 gets invoked, Congress at least has the theoretical option to make a declaration of war. They’ve done it 11 times in US history so far, and I’d have to imagine that Article 5 being invoked would be about the strongest possible reason to make it 12.

  • plyth@feddit.org
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    19 hours ago

    French four-star General Philippe de Montenon said he’s confident Europe could prevail, even without the US on side.

    This is discussed too rarely. Does anybody know of a source that makes a reliable comparison?

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      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?

      • plyth@feddit.org
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        21 minutes ago

        Why would the navy be relevant? The war is about controlling the area that cannot be reached by ships.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        2 hours ago

        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?

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          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.

    • Riddick3001@lemmy.worldOP
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      16 hours ago

      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.

    • Aljernon@lemmy.today
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      Some of those kinds of comments are typically from terminally online Marxist-Leninists.

    • Riddick3001@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 day ago

      Such is life currently: hyperbolic questions in ironic comments like " have you proof about Ruzz agression, because the West…" etc.

      Smh, about the contrast between their potential to embrace a grand selfdeception and the arrogant stubbornness to look away from the invasive destruction and killings Shahed drones cause on a daily bases for more than a thousand days.

  • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    NATO/EU needs to start moving resources more into place. This will cause putin to have to move troops out of Ukraine to balance.

    • Aljernon@lemmy.today
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      18 hours ago

      Even along the Ukrainian border, the Russian troops guarding the frontier are their least capable units full of troops typically serving their 1 year conscription. Putin knows that NATO lacks the capacity for a Sneak Attack. Unless Poland orders full mobilization, the Russians won’t move more than token forces to the border.

      • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        NATO won’t attack, but putin is paranoid. I doubt he’d be able to ignore a buildup of NATO troops on his doorstep. And NATO needs to deploy hordes of drones and drone defenses as practice anyway.

  • CleoCommunist@lemmy.ml
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    17 hours ago

    Why do we fucking still Need to use military confrontation for everything?

    Fr in this modern world with phones, internet and much more, why do we have to confront by sending young people in a year grinder?

    I am ashamed of my species

    • khepri@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Well because no amount of “phones internet and much more” is going to stop a foreign invading soldier with a gun from taking your shit and killing you, would be the very short answer.

      • CleoCommunist@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        Apperently yall havent got this isnt a realistic thing but a call on how war isnt that good you know?

        • khepri@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          ok, well if the point you were trying to make is “war isnt that good you know?” then hard agree from me, but that’s a serious motte-and-baily retreat from your original words wondering why we still sometimes need armed confrontation even in today’s world.

          • CleoCommunist@lemmy.ml
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            6 hours ago

            Aremed confrontation as in military, especially if the people dont want to be there fighting, Isnt good.

            Unfortunately with some governments you cant treat in peace and the people Will Need to arm themselves and do stuff.

            I still Think that in any case there should be the leasts deaths possibile

            • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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              2 hours ago

              No one is arguing otherwise.

              But your original question is why do we still need the military when we have smartphones, and of course the answer is because the existence of smartphones does not dissuade the likes of Putin, because why would it?

    • Alaik@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      The funny thing is Russia should know full well how effective psyops are. They’re installing friendly far right assholes abusing the senility of boomers. They legitimately have a ton of countries on the path to destroy themselves. They could just… wait a decade and win.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        5 hours ago

        They could just… wait a decade and win.

        Is Putin going to be alive in a decade? He doesn’t give a shit about Russia, he only cares about his own glory. What good is controlling the world after he’s dead? He’d rather control Ukraine now and let the entire country crumble after he’s dead.

      • plyth@feddit.org
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        15 hours ago

        Russia should know full well … countries on the path to destroy themselves … wait a decade and win.

        There is a growing division of the AfD in Germany between eastern and western oriented politicians. I am not sure if Russia can rely on controlling those parties in 10 years.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          2 hours ago

          That’s because the hard rights world philosophy is based on hate. They invariably turn on each other. Hard right political parties are always in a transient state of existence.

    • Twongo [she/her]@lemmy.ml
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      11 hours ago

      UH OH - you did a ‘leftism’ in the warmongering liberal instance. you get sentenced to several downvotes and a brainwashed accusation!

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 hour ago

        Warmongering in this case being defined as discussing the possibility of another nation state attacking them.

        • Twongo [she/her]@lemmy.ml
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          53 minutes ago

          the situation in ukraine did not happen in a vacuum. there are reasons why russia decided to invade.

          there is no logical explaination why russia would want to attack NATO and trigger article 5.

          but hey as long as the fear exists we can watch line go up in rheinmetall, saab & dassault stocks so the capital of a stagnating empire can save itself.

      • khepri@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        What a wild thing to say about supporting a sovereign nation in defending its borders.

      • CleoCommunist@lemmy.ml
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        10 hours ago

        Haaai :3 i already saw you a couple times herw on lemmy.

        Yeah btw these fuckers are everywhere .

        Ik Surprised no One told me to go kms yet

  • join@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Is there any credible material proof that Russia is preparing for an invasion of Europe???

    They are just barely capable of winning a slow war of attrition against Ukraine, how can you make a credible argument they could achieve any war aims against all of Europe?

    You can’t even argue they can take one country at a time, the entire border is riddled with NATO tripwire troops, guaranteeing the direct involvement of each major European military from the get-go.

    Is this just fearmongering to drum up support for more military Keynesianism?

    • Jimbel@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      Russia is already attacking EU/NATO with their hybrid war. Russia is pushing all these far right movements in europe and usa. They also attacked critical infrastrucure e.g. the internet cables and send their drones into europe. Also Russia send killers into europe to kill certain individuals e.g. in Berlin the “Tiergarten killer”. Russia needs to feel that it can no longer do this without consequence. Europe needs to walk the talk.

    • falseWhite@lemmy.world
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      They already have invaded Europe. For the second time in the last decade.

      Fyi, Ukraine is in Europe.

      Fuck USA for abandoning it’s allies, the whole world is realising they cannot be trusted.

      The EU is doing the right thing by arming up.

      • join@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        They have invaded Ukraine, a country that is not in NATO nor in the EU, this article is talking about a war with all the European member states of NATO. I think my wording was clear.

        And considering rearmament, do you know what the security dilemma is, and what that means for the security of everyone in Europe?

        • massacre@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Ukraine is still in Europe no matter how you spin it. Russia has also invaded NATO aligned airspace, cut infrastructure lines in the ocean, likely blew up a critical fuel pipeline, continues aggressive cyber warfare, bombed a railway in Poland, and pays for bots and misinformation campaigns and supports right wing fascism in the US and EU. They rattle their nuclear sabre constantly and have also had illegal incursions across borders like Finland… Tell us again how Russia isn’t a nascent threat to all Europeans after invading a sovereign country twice, downing passenger jets and sending proxy ships for covert unconventional warfare? The EU is under attack already and at least Poland is awake to it.

            • Saryn@lemmy.world
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              17 hours ago

              Not accoridng to them. They rightfully consider themselves Euroasian, and a growing number of Europeans see them that way too.

              • doben@lemmy.wtf
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                17 hours ago

                So, it’s still in Europe. What’s your point, other then division? Stop with this us/them shit, stop supporting warmongering narratives. Geography is not interested in this bullshit and you shouldn’t be, either.

                • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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                  16 hours ago

                  Russia is currently attacking a sovereign state, murdering civilians and abducting children. Defense against that is hardly warmongering. Europe did not push for it to be us/them, it was Russians who made themselves the morally corrupt ‘them’ by killing people in Europe.

    • WanderingThoughts@europe.pub
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      It also causes resources to go to the eu’s defense instead of Ukraine’s offense so it’s in Putin’s interest to spread the rumors.

      • Aljernon@lemmy.today
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        18 hours ago

        Europe made the decision to massively increase their military capacity when the Invasion occured in 2022. New rumors have no affect on a decision that was already made.

  • jazzkoalapaws@ttrpg.network
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    It’s kind of funny how the West is getting beat by its own game.

    We only care about the money.

    Edit: Apparently this reality upsets a lot of you.

    • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Your second sentence is completly true. But your 1st sentence is unclear. How is the west getting beat? And how is it by it’s own game?

      • jazzkoalapaws@ttrpg.network
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        2 days ago

        The West will only do what it believes will make its rulers the most amount of money.

        If Americans think it’s more profitable for their rulers to avoid supporting NATO, then that’s what they’re going to do.