European Rearmament (Are We Preparing for the Wrong War?) - (Part 1)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.พ. 2023
- The war in Ukraine completely changed how Europe saw its own defence, and once against the continent is beginning to scramble to hastily rearm and modernise its defence industries. The question being asked by several analysts though, is whether Europe is rearming for the right war? Whilst the tanks the UK, France and Germany are fast-tracking are optimal for the battlefields of Eastern Ukraine, they are of little use for future conflicts in the jungles of Mali, the foothills of the Balkans or even the beaches of Taiwan. Is Europe once again preparing to fight the last war?
On this part:
- Neil Melvin (RUSI)
On the rest of the panel this week:
PART 1 - Neil Melvin (RUSI) - • European Rearmament (A...
PART 2 - Alex Clarkson (Kings College) - • European Rearmament (A...
PART 3 - Perun (Defense Analyst) - • European Rearmament (A...
PART 4 - James Black (RAND) - • European Rearmament (A...
Other Related Videos:
- The Feasibility of an EU Army: • The Feasibility of an ...
- The Next 3 Months in Ukraine: • The Next Three Months ...
- Could NATO Defend the Baltic States: • Could NATO Defend the ...
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This is easily my favorite podcast out there right now, but I want more!!!!
Now I know it's not really feasible for y'all to pump out more videos while maintaining this quality, but I was wondering if yall have any channel recommendations to fill the space inbetween podcasts.
I've been watching Prof. Ker-Lindsey for a while but other than that it's been tough to find this style of content with actual experts in the field.
Thank y'all for giving us this
I'm a big fan of Prof. Lindsey myself. Here are some recommendations, though they're not all based on interviews with experts:
Kraut - political science and history
Caspian Report - pop geopolitics
Good Times, Bad Times - pop geopolitics
Kamome - pop geopolitics
Vlad Vexler - political theory and philosophy
Babel - CSIS Middle East podcast
Asia Chessboard - CSIS Indo-Pacific podcast
Perun - defense economics
William Spaniel - International relations and game theory
Anders Puck Nielsen - Security studies and defense
h0ser - lighthearted history and geopolitics
Into Europe - European affairs
Polymatter - East Asian affairs and business
Geo History - geopolitics and history
I think my wife would kill me if we doubled the workload of the show haha. We are trying to do some extra panels, and what not to scratch that itch and fill the gap between weeks. We should be dropping our panel on "Examining Wagner's Finances" this weekend.
So many good channels here.
I would also add in
- TLDR News (Quick Breaking News)
- Cold Fusion (Finance Deep Dives)
- Economics Explained (Finance/Geopolitcal Deep Dives)
- VisualPolitik (Medium Dives)
- The Cold War (Cold War History/Russian Econ)
- World War II (WWII Week by Week)
- Binkovs Battlegrounds (Good Equipment Analysis)
And a whole bunch more, but those are the ones off of the top of my head.
Germany didnt sent only helmets in the beginning because they couldnt send anything else. They did it because these helmets were planned to be sent before the war and there was no political will (and sending weapons is very unpopular in german public) to sent weapons to Ukraine. Germany did send many weapon systems after the russians went in because now there was a good political reason to do so
Also I would note that these helmets and other personal equipment Germany sent were EXTREMELY NEEDED by Ukraine as they started receiving countless volunteers. In fact almost right after Germany sent all the planned batches Ukraine was back again begging for more personal equipment.
People should seriously stop shitting on material support for individual soldiers. No tank is worth a thing if there's no properly equipped infantry to support it.
I agree with you, but I thought it was important to demonstrate the contrast in German policy between now and the first week of the fighting.
To be honest Germany missed the ability to play both sides, double down on the medical infrastructure and send ambulances, aerial hospitals, and hospital ships to treat both Russian and Ukrainian sick/wounded civilians and soldiers. This prevents them from breaking their reluctance to send lethal weapons and maintain a decent neutral ground.
@@scifidude184 Why would they do that? Germany doesn't want to play both sides.
@@scifidude184 Why the fuck would the Germans support the Russian side? Those war criminals don't deserve treatment.
20:45 - A Repear drone is a specialised high altitude observation & missile platform so $16m is a cheap version of a $60m fighter bomber. The TB-2 has proved to be far less effective and more vulnerable in a strike role & is now operated by Ukraine for strategic recon. A TB-2 appears not to be able to operate with the same capability as a Reaper against a peer opponent. Ukraine now uses TB-2s, $40k industrial drones that can reusably drop artillery shells, racing drones as kamikaze BTR destroyers and infantry squads use $50 hobby drones for tactical recon & grenade drops.
Just because its a flying vehicle without an onboard pilot doesn’t make all “drones” equal. Ukraine Armed Forces can now teach NATO more about “drone” warfare than they ever knew, because UAF have become experts in it over the last 9 years. Their solution is to have drones of every type were they can afford them, even commercially building their own for strike roles in ground force support.
Repear wouldn't have any easier life in Ukraine than TB-2 does. If UAF would think otherwise - they would ask for it, yet... they don't.
Some of the Russian systems, like Pantsir, are extremely capable drone-killers, especially against MALE drones (Pantsir's missiles are easily able to reach Repears, a drone that isn't exactly stellar in maneuvering, at its service ceiling, yet alone operational altitude). It's small drones that cause most of the issues to Russians, and it's small drones that Ukrainians use the most.
(Obviously mileage may vary, keeping in mind Russian air defense doctrine)
Spot on.
The trouble is that we always want to stick to as close to 90 minutes as possible, and when you start with 4 hours' worth of audio that usually means you have to cut ALOT of it out. When it comes to the issues like this there is always a "do we oversimplify and brush over, or do we add an extra 2-5 minutes unpacking a little more".
We will often try to stay as close to the path as possible for these episodes without straying too far into the weeds, and then cover that other topic we glossed over properly with its own 90-minute special. (Something we may or may not have coming up in a month and a bit). I hope that makes sense.
Finland has always been preparing to fight Russia. And has a strong land army for its size. Poland is following. The Russian threat will always be there (until the "heat death of the Universe"). So it makes sense for especially the Eastern European countries to prepare for it. Countries will waste money if they don't have a clear vision of what they want. Witness the inefficient pacifist German army versus the Finnish or French army that know who and why they are fighting. You need to have the will to be strong if you want to be able to do anything. Germany also would be a good country to be prepared to fight Russia. This would form a strong backbone for European defence. And maybe free up resources in UK or France for overseas or insurgency wars. And of course enable US to focus more on Asia. The Nordic countries will also be building a defence against Russia together. They form a good combination. Finland has good land forces, and a decent air force. Sweden has good air force and navy. Norway has pretty good air force and perhaps land forces. Denmark might specialize in the Navy and the air force as well. Together they have a pretty large army rivalling the largest European countries. They will likely somewhat act as a separate block within NATO, also allying more closely with the UK (the JEF block).
Even before Ukraine combined EU defense budget was 3 times that of Russia. (this is with around a 1.5% spend for EU, versus around 5% spend by Russia).
There are 300 million more people in the EU than Russia, and the EU economy is typically 8-10 times bigger.
Combined EU countries forces typically are around 1.4 million personnel, roughly 400k more than Russia.
(CSDP is a long established project dedicated to coordinating this mass).
EU reserves are in the 3 million range.
And EU has the worlds best transport network. So Russia was never going anywhere.
EU population is simply too big, too advanced, too armed. For anyone.
It doesn't seem correct to compare the European automobile industry to European tank 'industry' due to the market size and timings of the purchases (tanks are not usually replaced every 3-4 years). Better to compare airliners which have equally high barriers to entry. Since Airbus has acquired the civil aviation arms of all its predecessors (British Aerospace, Dassault, Dornier, Casa) it ends up with just one model type per segment and as the sole supplier, all its European competition disappears. I think this is why the Soviets separated their design bureaus to keep challenging each other on new airplane or tank types. And if everyone in Europe buys F-35s, then what happens to the European aircraft industry? SAAB goes bust and Dassault & BAe shutter their divisions. This seems to be happening with the SP guns as mentioned with regards to the Korean K-9.
Quick note on why not economies of scale for weapons production.
Secrecy, for one. Romania is nowhere near the industrial espionage hub that China is, but if you have some kind of sexy secret armor mesh having your hulls made in a former WP country is an unnecessary gamble. Money isn't everything and if you're rich introducing risk into the model to produce more for it's own sake might not be worth it. And of course every tank you build is one more you store, maintain and crew. Diminishing returns are a thing.
History is a factor. Germay and France may consider themselves the twin pillars of the civilized world but it wasn't so long ago (around the time of the Greek Debt Crisis) France was talking shit about quitting the EU. Both nations are being wise in considering the other a possible future threat. If Marine LePenn becomes PM the odds that France decides to Frexit get considerably more real. That wouldn't make them mortal enemies overnight, but Turkey and Greece are a reminder it's possible to be bitter rivals and still be in NATO.
Also uh.. bro, M4's aren't expensive. They aren't AK12 cheap by the thousand but again what are you saving in money to lose STANAG interoperability? And the futures market for Russian weapons systems are worse than ever. It won't be a real politically smart move to have your lads strutting around with AK's any time soon if you're a western power when you can instead at least equip them with the weapons of your _allies._
I got referred to this podcast by Perun and so far I'm not real impressed. There are a few glaring failures of assumptions that do not boast of real depth of knowledge on these topics.
Hey mate, thanks for taking the time to reply. There is a lot of good feedback here.
I talked about it a bit in a comment above, but one of the troubles we have is that we always want to stick to as close to 90 minutes as possible, and when you start with 4 hours' worth of audio that usually means you have to cut ALOT of it out. There are plenty of issues like this where there is always a "do we oversimplify and brush over, or do we add an extra 5 minutes unpacking a little more (which really adds up after a few)".
I agree for the Le Pen and the Romania stuff, but Im also just the host. Im here to listen to the people who have been covering this issue longer than me. I admit I should have pushed back a bit more on that response.
For the AK12 point. Yep, bad analogy by me. I was more just trying to set up the quality vs quantity debate, without using the same question I had used twice before and x1 vs x1.75 doesnt sound as demonstrative.
As I said before, thanks for taking the time to give us feedback. It really does help. Hopefully, there is something else in our back catalogue you will enjoy. 🙂
- Michael
It’s okay to talk a little faster
Its okay to change the replay speed of the video. (Yes its in the settings of every TH-cam video)
@@_Dibbler_ I know. But it sounds like they where trying to talk slow. And every time they slipped they talked faster, only to catch the, selves and slow it down. It’s okay to talk your normal natural speed. You don’t need to slow it down. Just talk in what ever way your comfortable.
@@sarawarlestedt7242 Usually people speak way to fast in presentations, I am fine with how they speak anyway. You cant please everyone.
Wow, that intro is *extremely* controversial, with every "fact" there residing solely on an absurdly cherry-picked selection of what consists of Europe. If you look at Europe as everything from Portugal and Greece to Estonia and Iceland - it's a very different picture, completely negating these absurd generalizations, even if you'd like to keep it purely to the continental Europe.
Do you remember what the Germans did in the 1940s? And you want them to re-arm? Madness.
Dumb comment. What country are you from? I noticed that in American, Russian and British politics WW2 is used as a way to instill ideals by making everything black and white, and the side effect is that there's a general distrust of Germany that does not exist in the EU (except for Poland, but even then it's waning)
The reason they attacked russia is because stalin was going to attack first...that's why there were millions of men on the border with Germany...so the Germans attacked first to make sure they wouldn't be taken by surprise. Communism had to be destroyed stfu