Does europe stand a chance if Russia or America invades?

[Allenseiei]

A better question to be answered first is why EU has no interest in maintaining a huge army in the first place:

1. The EU and US need eachother, the US will never take any hostilities to their most important allies.
2. The EU does not have a numerous standing army but many countries do have advanced armaments. Not having a huge standing army means that you can focus more production capabilities towards creating prosperity. Having huge production capabilities like EU has gives it a huge potential in switching products, being able to massproduce insane amounts of weaponry while the existing military delay invasions. However, they prefer to sit behind the US without having to change any policies. Anything rewarding war machines have very bad PR in EU.
A disadvantage might be lack of experienced troops though.
3. The world has changed. Right now wars between trade partners are never profitable, so its normal for countries in the EU or japan to bet on the fact that its extremely unlikely for wars between developed countries to emerge.
4. The US sees EU as a shield against russia, middle east and China. Why would they want to abandon that?

P.S. Also countries, like Germany, do have limiations due to treaty constraints.

[Xires]

How is that even possible? Does nobody in EU care about a strong trained funded army?

The EU was meant to be a economic alliance not a military one...that is what NATO was supposed to be for. NATO however isn't even keeping their part of the deal when it comes to how much they are supposed to spend on their military every year GDP wise. Trump brought that up and now that he is President elect he will be in a position to push the Europeans to honor their deal. The problem with NATO is it has no force projection and does not have the ability to sustain a large war. that is why the US IS the power house behind NATO and why the US actually pays for 70% of the costs to NATO despite their being 28 country's that are apart of it.

When Russia started pushing it weight around it was just after Europe had finally gotten the US to start dwindling down its military in Europe. We had just taken out the last of our battletanks in Europe when only a few months later we received requests from Europe to bring them back and then some...

The EU army is very very very small and they have ZERO battletanks. This was found to be a huge problem when we had war games in Poland earlier this year.
The Europeans thought that their wouldn't be anyone else who could go up against NATO so long as the US paid the tab and the soviet union was dead. They have found out that Russia is not dead and this goes back to the Romney Obama campaigns of 2012 when Obama laughed at Romney for saying that the Russians would be our next problem. Obama even made a joke saying "The 80's called...they want their foreign policy back" and like always...Obama was wrong.

Each European Army was supposed to maintain a certain readyness and standard and they haven't done it because they thought that large wars could no longer happen and they are very much wrong. The Russians and the Chinese are the wests future foes...not so much militarily but economically.

Having a strong military is KEY in the world stage and Europe forgot that.

[Mavett]

How is that even possible? Does nobody in EU care about a strong trained funded army?

They only care about not exceeding their 2% of GDP on defense spending (most barely scratch the 1%).

[Xires]

There's no way in hell an US-Russian combination force could take Europe in this day and age, France alone would send them packing.

You've got to be joking...lol France? You realize the US just sent a TON of ammunition to supply Europe's forces right? You people can't even supply your own forces with the ammo to fight. Also a battle hardended US military with far more capability's and forces would ghetto stomp Europe into the dirt. Come on back down to reality now...lol

[jimboa24]

There's no way in hell an US-Russian combination force could take Europe in this day and age, France alone would send them packing.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

...oh wait, you were serious?

in that case, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[Deleted]

How is that even possible? Does nobody in EU care about a strong trained funded army?

Because the EU is not a nation.

[Xires]

Because the EU is not a nation.

They are trying to be. They are even trying to fund a EU army. lol

[Deleted]

Russia IS a threat to Europe. If you were paying attention earlier this year we did combat exercises in Poland against a mock Russian invader and we found out that in just 3 days Russia would be able to take over eastern Europe.
I don't think you understand just how badly the US could beat someone (especially the EU) in a large scale conventional war and just how much of a threat and how much blood the Russians would be willing to lose in a war against Europe that is NOT supported by the US.

Russia can't afford a full war against EU, its an economic suicide, this is what you seems not to understand, except Poland most eastern Europe barely have armies, i will not touch USA subject, Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq say a lot about their military ''might''


You seems to believe this is a video-game, a war is more then how BIG USA/Russia $%#Q is, and excuse me i don't take serious some paranoia from military JUNKIES that want more military founds by inventing threats that don't exist anymore

[jimboa24]

A better question to be answered first is why EU has no interest in maintaining a huge army in the first place:

1. The EU and US need eachother, the US will never take any hostilities to their most important allies.
2. The EU does not have a numerous standing army but many countries do have advanced armaments. Not having a huge standing army means that you can focus more production capabilities towards creating prosperity. Having huge production capabilities like EU has gives it a huge potential in switching products, being able to massproduce insane amounts of weaponry while the existing military delay invasions.
A disadvantage might be lack of experienced troops though.
3. The world has changed. Right now wars between trade partners are never profitable, so its normal for countries in the EU or japan to bet on the fact that its extremely unlikely for wars between developed countries to emerge.
4. The US sees EU as a shield against russia, middle east and China. Why would they want to abandon that?

P.S. Also countries, like Germany, do have limiations due to treaty constraints.

Why waste enormous sums of money on your own military when you have the world's biggest superpower and their even bigger military to protect you against anyone who comes knocking? That just leaves more money in your budget for your pet social programs and refugee charity cases.

[Deleted]

Due to the fact that Europe contains several nations with nuclear capability, it'd be an extremely costly conflict for either side with not much gained, especially when you consider that any benefit you'd hope to get from the region would be immediately lost when the technologically advanced industry, cultural, and commercial sectors simply get destroyed by the hypothetical war.

You can't make the argument 'If you don't consider nukes' because no nation with nuclear capability is going to just roll over all sportsman-like when it's existence is actively threatened. That is the entire point with Nuclear armaments to begin with, to keep aggressors at bay.

[Deleted]

You've got to be joking...lol France? You realize the US just sent a TON of ammunition to supply Europe's forces right? You people can't even supply your own forces with the ammo to fight. Also a battle hardended US military with far more capability's and forces would ghetto stomp Europe into the dirt. Come on back down to reality now...lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion

The strategic concept behind the Force de Frappe is one of countervalue, i.e., the capacity to inflict so much damage on a potential (and more powerful) adversary's population that the potential adversary will be deterred from attacking no matter how much destruction they themselves are capable of inflicting (see Mutual Assured Destruction). This principle is usually referred to in French political debate as dissuasion du faible au fort (Weak-to-strong deterrence) and was summarized in a statement attributed to President de Gaulle himself:

Within ten years, we shall have the means to kill 80 million Russians. I truly believe that one does not light-heartedly attack people who are able to kill 80 million Russians, even if one can kill 800 million French, that is if there were 800 million French.[4]

General Pierre Marie Gallois said "Making the most pessimistic assumptions, the French nuclear bombers could destroy ten Russian cities; and France is not a prize worthy of ten Russian cities."

Perhaps the most significant difference in French strategy is that it includes the option of a first strike attack even in response to non-nuclear provocation.

I dare you to try, good luck surviving when half of US and Russian territory is reduced to smoldering ash, haha.

[Deleted]

They are trying to be. They are even trying to fund a EU army. lol

"Trying" doesn't mean nothing for the OP's question. Because it would be needed an unprecedented arms race by the European Union just to slow down the US onslaught.

[Strangebrew]

I wouldn't know, but as someone who used to be in the army and a border guard towards Russia.

Should an invasion ever occur, we had one job.
"Just delay them as much as you possibly can"
That's it.

[Acidz]

This is why we need Turkey to join the EU. They have a huge army!

[Aeula]

No. Numorous post World War 2 treaties castrated most of Europe's military relevance. And many European activists are trying to scrap even more of it. Just look at pricks like Corbyn who wants to scrap our neuclear weapons program.

We're not going to be much use when it comes to defending ourselves.

[Crispin]

This is why we need Turkey to join the EU. They have a huge army!

No thanks.

[GennGreymane]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

...oh wait, you were serious?

in that case, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I must join the laughing

MMUUUWAHAHAHA

[telygroar]

the fact with the shipment of ammo is much more because of fucktard who didnt protect strategic european ammo industry and prefered lower price out-of-europe ammo which destroyed the industry. now we have this gg situation where we cant actually produce our own ammunition in decent quantity.

[jimboa24]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion






I dare you to try, good luck surviving when half of US and Russian territory is reduced to smoldering ash, haha.

We have a missile shield. And I assure you that as many nukes as France has (which is less than 300), the U.S. has more than a hundred times that. No, really - the U.S. has 4,500 nukes, that we know about. And even 300 nukes isn't enough to destroy the entire United States. You seem to forget how monstrously huge the U.S. is when compared to a single Euro country like France.

So no, if you really want to talk in terms of total destruction, "my dick is bigger than your dick," France's schlong comes up embarrassingly short in comparison. But it's ok France, everyone's does. The United States spends more on its military than all the other nations of the world combined (IIRC, and no, I don't have the source at my fingertips this very second).

[Deleted]

We have a missile shield.

LOL, I stopped reading there.