Europe moves to replace Trump-backed missiles with new EU project

> And cooperation with Ukraine means Denmark will also get faster access to cutting-edge drone tech. Bingo. Money granted to Ukraine should be seen as an investment. Countries like Denmark, UK, Canada etc can expect the best in drone tech, training and consultancy from our Ukrainian friends once the hot war stops.

Add Estonia to that mix. They’re so advanced w IT development and also IT defense.

As a brit it hurts my soul to admit that French b****** was right, and I respect him completely for that clarity of foresight.

It reminds me of Brexit, the UK had a sweet deal within the EU but the majority of the electorate voted following Putin’s campaign and they lost the sweet deal, lots of money and now the UK is renegotiating with the EU from a more disadvantaged position The USA (also following Putin direction) is going to dismantle NATO and will have to start from scratch later on

Interestingly, the US admin has actually signaled that they *want* the tradition of SACEUR being an American (and dual hatting with USEUCOM) to end. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-admin-considers-giving-nato-command-exclusively-american-eisenho-rcna196503 Moreso than the US relinquishing its leadership role in NATO, I think we should see it as walking back the commitment that US troops would be automatically engaged if there is an article 5 scenario in Europe. Because that was always part of the point. If war broke out, the highest military commander in NATO (SACEUR) would have access not just to the troops already committed to the NATO command structure (mainly the rapid reaction forces), but also to all other US military assets in the region via USEUCOM. That would allow NATO to respond much more forcefully and more quickly than if they needed to wait for member states to commit more forces to the NATO command structure. Without SACEUR/USEUCOM dual hatting, the ability for NATO command to respond decisively without waiting for the politicians is significantly degraded. It's hard for the EU to replace this kind of capability, unless it actually stands up a unified EU army and puts it under an independent command structure. Which we're currently very far away from.

Nah, as this news article and many others clearly demonstrate that Europe is decoupling from the US in a number of areas including defence, at quite the pace, whilst remaining diplomatic relations with the US. It's right direction in my opinion. America First is the US alone. If they believe they'll get to keep it's European bases for purely it's own interests into the future, they're deluded.

Your politicians roll over because they dont have much of a choice. Listnook always pretends its just like some comically high inexplicable level of incompetence that makes European leaders beholden to the US when its actually just geopolitical reality. Despite all the noise and overhyped headlines you read in places like listnook, the US still has massive economic and military leverage over Europe. And likely will for some time.

Only partially switched.

It's amazing how badly Russia and Maga-America misunderstood Europe. They mistook the (perhaps naive) European desire for peace as weakness. But it was never weakness, it was just a preference, born out of tough lessons. Now they've pissed off an economy larger than China, with a population equivalent to the US and Russia combined. A re-armed Europe will be an absolute nightmare for the authoritarian regimes that thought we were weak.

Unless the US firmly rejects the far right for multiple presidential elections in a row, European trust will not be "abated". It doesn't matter if the next president is more trustworthy if the country could just betray the EU and side with Russia again four years later. American fascism and oligarchy has become a very serious threat to Europe, and that doesn't disappear with Trump.

its not just trump that's spooked people, its the utter failure of the whole US political system to push back on insanity like trump threatening to invade denmark. its not just 'will the US elect a moron again' every 4 years, the US political system has shown itself to be rotten to the core entirely. the first time around there might have been the belief trump was an anomaly, but that belief is very much dead for many people. i imagine what we're going to see is that while europe will be happy to cooperate with the US where interests allign, it will not step into joint ventures with the US like it has in the past (say, development of the f35) in favour of programs where europe maintains full strategic autonomy.

Of course. But that specific genie is out of the bottle to some extent by the new plants being built in the US. I'm sure there was some corporate style political extortion in there and they'll take forever to get built but there's a precedent. And as it is now, if it's possible and make sense economically, can't hurt to look into it. There's a whole unspoken gaggle of issues with the EU being protective of home companies though that might make it even more unfeasible as an option.

Well to be fair, IMEC can produce chips even TSMC can't. They're just not commercial.

Yes, but it means you can’t be cut out of the market via sanctions or export restrictions

ARM in Britain produce a lot. 

> We already did this with Airbus! Not really. Airbus was formed out of an already existing consortium pre-existing European aerospace/defense companies that were already backed by their respective governments. It's not like they created a new company out of nothing without having the existing technology base to do it. For chips this is a completely different story. Almost all of the truly domestic semiconductor production in Europe is geared towards industrial and automotive microcontrollers. There is little to no domestic CPU/Memory production, nor the lines, knowledge, processes to do so. It would require a massive undertaking costing trillions of Euros, and requiring decades of research/development/construction to build the knowledge base and fabs to get Europe close to where the US, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are already. It's not just one plant... it's the entire industry required to feed the needs of a single production fab. Literally hundreds of companies would need to be involved. It's a massive and cripplingly-expensive undertaking requiring massive industry expertise, and educational base, which why so few countries/companies have been successful - and why many many more have failed than ever been successful.

Definitely. I think that the plans have very strong support, but are in very early stages for chip plants. (Everyone knows that the machines to make those chips are some of the most expensive machinery you can buy at this time. And there’s also fairly large learning curve for operating them too.)

You do realize that creating a strategic dependency on a country which is most likely going to elect Nigel Farage next prime minister could seem a bit risky?

The P90 blowing away the competition in the tender for the PDW contract in the 90s, only for the Germans to throw their toys out the pram about the MP7 not being adopted and the whole project crashing...

Nothing motivates like necessity. Now is as good a time as ever for Europe to pull it together.

Germany lost, had to pay back huge amounts in reparations, and was split into a Soviet, and west Germany for a damn long time. It had to actually put in work to get to where it is today. Germany had to admit the fucked up stuff they did, and make up for it. Now, im not remotely saying US is what nazi Germany was. And i dont think it will ever go that far. But i also cant see a world where US will fully admit they are the main reason for the problem it has become. I remember my Grandpa, (Danish) who was in his 20s during ww2, never letting his hate towards Germany go. In his eyes, they could never be forgiven. Denmark was even one of the countries that was treated better than most (still, occupied, and under nazi rule) Forgiving, trusting and all that is never impossible. But it may take generations to rebuild.

If the US undergoes a fundamental transformation, completely reshaping its political structure, new constitution etc., then yes. But not the current US, even with new leadership.

I actually support this. I don't think it will happen, but the fact is the US is no longer capable of being even slightly united. The MAGA cult is just fundamentally out of touch with reality and ontologically evil and the US cannot continue to exist with them in power.

What is your point? Given enough time things will change and trust will be regained. Administrations come and go, even dictatorships crumble and nations renew themselves. Are you arguing that the United States is essentially going to exist forever as a pariah failed state? That's just not realistic. Look at Russia, right now they are not trusted but during the fall of the Soviet Union relations improved drastically for a time. Look at Japan, also guilty of committing horrendous atrocities, it exists now as a powerful ally of the US and other nations and has a booming economy and technology sector. The Japanese also famously did not pay the same level of reparations or acknowledge to the same degree their atrocities. Even today they have had leaders minimize their impact and crimes, but they exist as a nation that is generally trusted, and they participate in trade all over the world. It's just not realistic to think that the US will just suddenly implode and never be trusted again. Terrible things are happening, and the US, and the world will suffer because of them, but time will move on and things will eventually change. Edit: I also don't assume the US will remain the leader of the free world, more likely the world will have a multi-polar power dynamic and not just the US as the sole super power