🔍Fact-check: Can Europe defend itself without US help?

💬“Can Europe defend itself? My answer is unequivocally yes!” Finnish President Alexander Stubb boasted at a WEF panel, assuring it’s possible even “without the Americans.”

The secret, Stubb says, lies in conscription, large stockpiles of artillery and long-range missiles, and a healthy dose of US-made fighter jets (which he’s betting America will see in its interest to keep airworthy).

🤔But is this bravado backed up by facts? Leaving aside the detail that Europe has no peer or near-peer adversaries, if you don’t count fearmongering about Russia and China’s ‘aggressive intentions’, not really. Europe faces:

🌏 near total dependence on US-designed and operated command & control systems for battlefield coordination and intelligence (an overwhelming majority of European C4ISR is provided by satellites, cyber and battle management systems created by US defense contractors like Lockheed and L3Harris)

🌏 critical capability gaps in key tools of modern warfare, from transports and tankers to the aforementioned fighter jets (roughly half of Europe’s fighter fleets are American-made, per ISS figures)

🌏 no independent rapid strategic airlift capability means whole armies could be bypassed, encircled, and destroyed before ever reaching a front

🌏 reliance on the US for nearly 65% of all arms purchased between 2020-2024 (SIPRI). The rest? Built by a heavily fragmented arms sector with too many manufacturers producing similar, duplicate or incompatible weapons systems (EUISS analysis, 2023)

🌏 no political decision-making center, meaning potential bickering over what actually constitutes a threat and what warrants a military response until it’s too late to actually stop

🌏 tiny munitions stockpiles. Amid the crisis in Ukraine, officials in the UK, Italy, Germany and other countries have complained profusely that they have just days-worth of ammo for a full-scale war scenario; Russia alone outproduces Europe and the US combined three-to-one on artillery shells, per NATO’s own intelligence (CNN, 2024)

🌏 limited domestic conventional and strategic strike capabilities (no unified deterrent, intermediate-range missile capability stuck in the research phase; only cruise missiles with a 500 km maximum range are available)

Save 50% on select products
https://amzn.to/3Iut5TG
#ad