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rkajg

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Europe has its own nuclear forces

Also LOL @ the US being the destabilizing force with Russia.

> Europe has its own nuclear forces

That is not really true. Some european countries have nuclear forces. France and the UK.

There are also countries who host American nuclear weapons, but they can't arm them without the authorisation of the US Department of Defense. (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey)

Europe as an entity does not have its own nuclear force. (It is hard to even know what that would mean.)

As I understand the UK nuclear deterrence is highly dependable on the US, unlike the french.

In what way?

UK Trident missiles are leased from the US. Also, Much of the technology in the UK program is from the US, and the french tech was developed independently.

Russia is in Europe and has a lot of nukes.

Let me guess, russia is a misunderstood friend, right?

Yes comrade, the Tsar is your friend!

Bonjour :-)

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

France and the UK have nukes

https://www.icanw.org/nuclear_arsenals?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj...

UK is not even in the EU any longer and France having nukes is not an "EU nuclear force".

If France consider the EU being one of it's 'vital strategic interest', you can consider EU to have 289 nukes available. Not 290, because the first one will be used as a 'warning shot'.

This is classic dilemma in nuclear strategy: would France risk Paris to defend Warsow, or Berlin (by using nuclear weapons)?

A similar dilemma: will the US risk New York to save Paris?

France did not believe that the US would risk New York to save Paris.

So France developed it's own nuclear deterrent.

I leave the rest as an exercise to the reader.

It seems pretty clear that yes. Probably won't do the warning shot until a EU city where a french embassy/school is present is bombed, but clearly yes.

Post-95 french doctrine refuse the use of nuke as a tactical weapon, so i guess supply lines or military airports would be the targets of subsequent nukes, but we have generals who grew with the idea of using tactical nukes, and i'm pretty sure the possibility is still studied at St-Cyr.

French will say "we won't bomb Russia, but do you think we can bomb your territory, close to the border, on this train station/close to this airport?" It will probably be refused, until its _really_ needed.

Russia (and US) doctrine of only using nuke if their territory is nuked does not work in an offensive war.

You're correct. They wouldn't. The US and France would not nuke Russia if it invaded Poland or Germany. But that isn't necessarily true if Russia invaded the US or France (and had a chance of winning).

>Warsow

Wtf

The UK is still in Europe, it has a lot of interest in keeping Europe as a whole safe and defended. France is tightly integrated and dependent on the EU, being a nuclear force makes the EU as a whole a nuclear force.

Unless you believe France and the UK would leave the rest of Europe hanging to dry in case of a nuclear exchange, if you think so I'd first question why.

It is generally believed by people who study nuclear strategy that this in fact does not work.

Imagine Russia invades Poland. Will the UK Nuke Moscow? Probably not - because Russia would surely retaliate, on the UK!

Imagine Russia nukes Paris. Does the UK Nuke Moscow? Probably not! For the same reason.

As always, yes minister got it all right: https://youtu.be/3OpsP-gz_00?si=_uKmwkZUbE_fTNCM

The European nuclear arsenal isn't for countering Russian invasion, it's for MAD. If Russia tried to invade poland, they get kicked out by Nato conventional forces instantly (and probably take Kalliningrad while they're at it). If, OTOH, France's nukes are to prevent Russia from using nukes.

There is no European nuclear arsenal. There is a French nuclear arsenal. It functions to deter other countries from using nuclear weapons against France.

I have read some experts views a while back and as far as I understood it’s more complicated. Suppose that Russia launches nukes for The Netherlands or South-West Germany, it’s likely that the UK/France will retaliate ‘just in case’ because it’s not immediately clear if the nukes are not destined for the UK/France.

But yeah, Poland/East Germany is probably too far away and there will be debates about nuclear sharing.

Are you going to create a new account for every comment?

Saudi Arabia has less of a history of invading European countries

We were told in 2022 that the Russian army was incompetent, people had no gloves and were fighting with shovels. Probably not entirely without reason, because the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2022 was relatively successful.

So the gas money definitely did not go to the army. Now, after the sanctions, on the other hand Russia keeps producing missiles and other things and trades with China.

By the way, Saudi Arabia does have a history of invading Yemen. Not an EU country, but a "military operation".

the House of Saud conquered Arabia less than 100 years ago.

What exactly is your point?

You are basically saying that despite pre-2022 Russian/European gas trade revenue initial Russian military performance was poor, but since Russian combat readiness improves now (with sanctions in place), the EU might as well have continued trading? Because that is just faulty reasoning; You would need actual data here to draw any conclusions about sanction effectiveness.

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