Europe has long range strike - FP-5. Germany should (assuming they haven't already) sign a contract to buy 500 FP-5s. Add in partnership between MBDA or similar European missile manufacture to upgrade the terminal and guidance electronics you'd have something that works and works as needed. Germany can even pay for a 2nd factory in Germany to expand manufacturing capability.
Just one thought: what’s the real threat from Russia today - and for the next 5 years indeed - given that they can’t even beat the Ukrainians? Isn’t Russia pretty much exhausting itself in Ukraine, with a total implosion of the regime, and another decade of internal strife, the most likely scenario?
I have the same thoughts as you. My big worry is that NATO leaders are so worried lol. You’re right that Russia has been badly weakened by Ukraine. I think their concern is less that Russia can defeat NATO in a straight fight, and more that Moscow may still be dangerous while weakened. A wounded Russia can still launch missiles, use drones, sabotage infrastructure, conduct cyberattacks, etc.
I think where it matters is in the escalation ladder. If Russia uses sabotage, drones, cyberattacks, or “ambiguous” military pressure to create a crisis on NATO’s eastern flank, the Rapid Response Force gives NATO a fast conventional option short of full mobilization. It can reinforce exposed allies, move air and naval assets into the theater, harden deterrence, and signal that Moscow’s little gray-zone adventure could become a very conventional NATO problem very quickly.
So you’re right that the force is not a cure-all for asymmetric warfare. But it helps close the gap between “strongly worded statement” and “large-scale war.”
…so US absolutely sure it’s not going to need any help at any point right?
…Europe is on its way to upgrade its military capabilities using recent and on going experience in Ukraine to serve itself better without the US, and i’m absolutely sure that that in the future trump will crawl back asking for help
…arrogance and ignorance is no substitute for intellect
What you are leaving out of your analysis with is what’s happened in the past four years. I remember back around 2020 2021 having this awful feeling in my stomach because of the reports that I read everywhere about the robust capabilities of Russia’s state-of-the-art air defenses, the S 400 that was bigger better faster, stronger, more accurate more threatening and capable of everything from very high altitude, subspace interceptions of incoming ICBMs to taking down stealth aircraft that the Russians had been able to tune their radars to detect
I remember how there was a forboding sense that Russia was building an impenetrable Onion Dome (TM- that’s my proprietary name) over their airspace with the ability to deny both US missiles and aircraft any access in a major configuration. In fact, the Reporting was so pessimistic that it almost questioned whether the United States could even get through a retaliatory full nuclear strike if Russia decided to hit us while we had enough THADD and other interceptors to maybe take out four or five incoming missiles at best
On top of that, Russia had its vast battalions and entire armies of heavy armor and land forces with the most most modern mobile systems in massive numbers. It seemed that Russia on one10th of the budget had not just overtaken the United States, but surpassed us and would be in a position to hold us at bay as it had its way with the European continent.
And then they invaded Ukraine
And we saw that the whole story was a one giant fucking lie Russian propaganda piled on top us defense contractor bullshit to manipulate the public consciousness into believing there would be no amount of money that would be too much to spend on overcoming this vast Russian power
For Christ sake, Russia, couldn’t even take Kyiv!!! Ukraine has destroyed 60% or more of Russia’s air defenses. They are frolicking at Will in the skies over even the deepest Russian industrial plants and energy facilities, and their drones are migrating over the skies of Saint Petersburg and Moscow with almost no interdiction.
Russia has been exposed as a paper tiger as it has run through possibly it’s entire viable storage of Soviet era tanks and lost dozens of their most advanced fighter aircraft to a Mötley assortment of Ukrainian weapons and a few high-end US systems. And yes, perhaps some of the Irist and other European Systems.
What we have learned in the past four years, is that this massive US commitment that requires vast expenditures to keep at the ready for rapid deployment is likely wholly unnecessary
And yes, it shows that Germany has gone from mocking and insulting Trump on the global stage, and treating him like a stooge, and a monkey, to suddenly realizing that everything he told them was true, they should have done everything he told them to do, and that they played a large part in facilitating the Ukraine war by being so fucking weak, so fucking cheap, and so fucking interested in funding their woke social programs that defending themselves and the continent just wasn’t important to them. They use the excuse that “oh we are such bad people that if we build all that well, we just won’t be able to help ourselves and we’ll take over the continent ourselves” what a force.
And despite everything that we’ve seen in the past four years, Germany has announced Grand plans, but everything is 3 to 5 years off in the future only this year have they started to ramp up at all but they’ve got probably two years before they will reach scale because they’re just not willing to invest at the volume necessary to make it happen immediately and Trump has made it clear that the US taxpayer isn’t going to foot the bill for them anymore - not one day more that they have to step it up and they have to do it now.
Russia has run itself down so badly that if they mounted an assault on the Balkan nations right now you would not need a rapid deployment force to be ready for them. We would see them massing their troops, and these would be brand new recruits with little training poorly equipped with supplies that are thin or nonexistent and virtually unprotected from drone and air warfare that doesn’t require a 90% United States air component
All of our NATO partners should be investing tens of billions of dollars in drone systems of every sort long range short range defensive FPV anti-drone the whole suite.
This idea that Ukraine became a drone power completely on its own is laughable. I personally know three engineers who have worked with Ukrainian counterparts in advancing and improving their drone systems and virtually all of them are founded on a combination of Chinese and western technology married by Ukrainian American and some European engineers Ukraine, unlike Germany, and the United States has had to move at light speed to innovate. It’s not that they’re better at it because they’re not - they just have no time - they have to throw things together and send them out and keep iterating until they find what works. They have no Luxury of waiting for exquisite perfection and it’s time for the rest of Europe to figure out that they’re in the same position.
If we just keep providing them, the bulwark of the force they will never meet the moment. Ukraine is on the cusp of bringing Russia to its knees to negotiate a cease-fire and an end to this war and they did it without all those tomahawks and F 35 that everybody said they needed. this has happened in a way that creates no direct justification for Russian attacks on Europe, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come as Russia gets desperate
In four years, how many 700 to 1000 km range cruise missiles or drones did Europe develop?
How many autonomous deep strike drones, effectively cheap cruise missiles did they develop?
Where is Germany’s equivalent to the flamingo, but sleeker stealthier and Better?
The answer is nowhere. And it will never be anywhere unless they’re forced to do it. All the anti-Trump American and military analysts are just running cover for EU and European abuse of their American protectors. We have happily done that for 80 years really 100 years — and we have run up at least half of our national debt protecting Europe.
We could pretend that this isn’t true and that we could just continue down this road forever that pax Americana was somehow efficient spending to buy our “trade relationship” with Europe. Yeah, that’s some trade relationship. Almost every product my company made or represented faced, gigantic tariffs, VATs, and other barriers for import of Europe. It made them un competitive. Our massive trade-in balance wasn’t just because we’re so rich. It’s because the EU was formed as a trade weapon against the United States. That was its only purpose.
The US provided Ukraine with more aid in four years than it provided Israel in 80 years Ukraine has received more international aid in four years than any country in the history of the world has received in total ever the American taxpayer needs to deal with the regions of the world that are a real threat to our prosperity in the next
I was at the SpaceX roadshow yesterday and the only competition they face in almost everything they are doing is China. There are no European countries. There are no American companies. There’s nobody that poses a serious threat to them and lift or communications technologies outside of China. And China is doing everything it possibly can to close that gap, using every tool that it’s disposal from outright theft to bribery extortion you name it the products that Russia puts out our ridiculous and wouldn’t have been competitive 15 years ago and they’re only valuable capability, lift took a massive hit this year
Sorry for a very long post in reply, but I think this need your reaction to what’s going on in Europe is too automatic. It ignores the lessons of the last four years and the prospects for the next 20. We have to be economical with our efforts. Sadly, it looks like the Iranian project has gone sideways because somehow our Pentagon and intelligence community did not foresee the ferocity with which the Iranian lunatics would attack. The Gulf states energy complex. It is a new experience in world history to see a single state hold hundreds of millions of Africans and Asians hostage, threatening them with starvation and deprivation to protect their own hides and their nuclear program.
We clearly weren’t ready for it, and of course, the American people and the Democrat party insist that a generational problem, one that they created with their stupid JC,POA and Biden’s unbelievable weakness, might take more than a couple months to solve. Imagine that.
thanks for the reporting and explanation. From a German perspective there are some challenges: the – necessary – spending in defence (even though a lot of money has been provided) is still having a hefty impact on all other spending by German government, especially when the current coalition is trying to implement large cuts in all things linked to social security (in an especially clumsy and disingenious way). So we will have a more difficult political climate on the – unfortunately necessary – investments in the security of both nation, way of living, freedom of development etc.
This does feed the support for the populist fifth column Putin lovers/local MAGA/AfD shitshow. As it does in other European countries (supported and promoted by dictator-wannabe Trump his eminence…)
There is a coalition of serious minded parties/people within political parties – grown ups – who will support this (say Green Party, some conservatives and some social Democrats), but there is the usually sad but morally corrupt bunch of schemers within our conservative party as well…
Things change in Europe which seemed to be fixed and reliable…
Europe has long range strike - FP-5. Germany should (assuming they haven't already) sign a contract to buy 500 FP-5s. Add in partnership between MBDA or similar European missile manufacture to upgrade the terminal and guidance electronics you'd have something that works and works as needed. Germany can even pay for a 2nd factory in Germany to expand manufacturing capability.
Great insight, thanks Wes
Just one thought: what’s the real threat from Russia today - and for the next 5 years indeed - given that they can’t even beat the Ukrainians? Isn’t Russia pretty much exhausting itself in Ukraine, with a total implosion of the regime, and another decade of internal strife, the most likely scenario?
I have the same thoughts as you. My big worry is that NATO leaders are so worried lol. You’re right that Russia has been badly weakened by Ukraine. I think their concern is less that Russia can defeat NATO in a straight fight, and more that Moscow may still be dangerous while weakened. A wounded Russia can still launch missiles, use drones, sabotage infrastructure, conduct cyberattacks, etc.
Russia engaging in asymmetric warfare against NATO is a distinct possibility, but what good is the Rapid Response Force in this case?
I think where it matters is in the escalation ladder. If Russia uses sabotage, drones, cyberattacks, or “ambiguous” military pressure to create a crisis on NATO’s eastern flank, the Rapid Response Force gives NATO a fast conventional option short of full mobilization. It can reinforce exposed allies, move air and naval assets into the theater, harden deterrence, and signal that Moscow’s little gray-zone adventure could become a very conventional NATO problem very quickly.
So you’re right that the force is not a cure-all for asymmetric warfare. But it helps close the gap between “strongly worded statement” and “large-scale war.”
…so US absolutely sure it’s not going to need any help at any point right?
…Europe is on its way to upgrade its military capabilities using recent and on going experience in Ukraine to serve itself better without the US, and i’m absolutely sure that that in the future trump will crawl back asking for help
…arrogance and ignorance is no substitute for intellect
Thank god they flight testing the Ruta 3 missile 2000km range next year.
What you are leaving out of your analysis with is what’s happened in the past four years. I remember back around 2020 2021 having this awful feeling in my stomach because of the reports that I read everywhere about the robust capabilities of Russia’s state-of-the-art air defenses, the S 400 that was bigger better faster, stronger, more accurate more threatening and capable of everything from very high altitude, subspace interceptions of incoming ICBMs to taking down stealth aircraft that the Russians had been able to tune their radars to detect
I remember how there was a forboding sense that Russia was building an impenetrable Onion Dome (TM- that’s my proprietary name) over their airspace with the ability to deny both US missiles and aircraft any access in a major configuration. In fact, the Reporting was so pessimistic that it almost questioned whether the United States could even get through a retaliatory full nuclear strike if Russia decided to hit us while we had enough THADD and other interceptors to maybe take out four or five incoming missiles at best
On top of that, Russia had its vast battalions and entire armies of heavy armor and land forces with the most most modern mobile systems in massive numbers. It seemed that Russia on one10th of the budget had not just overtaken the United States, but surpassed us and would be in a position to hold us at bay as it had its way with the European continent.
And then they invaded Ukraine
And we saw that the whole story was a one giant fucking lie Russian propaganda piled on top us defense contractor bullshit to manipulate the public consciousness into believing there would be no amount of money that would be too much to spend on overcoming this vast Russian power
For Christ sake, Russia, couldn’t even take Kyiv!!! Ukraine has destroyed 60% or more of Russia’s air defenses. They are frolicking at Will in the skies over even the deepest Russian industrial plants and energy facilities, and their drones are migrating over the skies of Saint Petersburg and Moscow with almost no interdiction.
Russia has been exposed as a paper tiger as it has run through possibly it’s entire viable storage of Soviet era tanks and lost dozens of their most advanced fighter aircraft to a Mötley assortment of Ukrainian weapons and a few high-end US systems. And yes, perhaps some of the Irist and other European Systems.
What we have learned in the past four years, is that this massive US commitment that requires vast expenditures to keep at the ready for rapid deployment is likely wholly unnecessary
And yes, it shows that Germany has gone from mocking and insulting Trump on the global stage, and treating him like a stooge, and a monkey, to suddenly realizing that everything he told them was true, they should have done everything he told them to do, and that they played a large part in facilitating the Ukraine war by being so fucking weak, so fucking cheap, and so fucking interested in funding their woke social programs that defending themselves and the continent just wasn’t important to them. They use the excuse that “oh we are such bad people that if we build all that well, we just won’t be able to help ourselves and we’ll take over the continent ourselves” what a force.
And despite everything that we’ve seen in the past four years, Germany has announced Grand plans, but everything is 3 to 5 years off in the future only this year have they started to ramp up at all but they’ve got probably two years before they will reach scale because they’re just not willing to invest at the volume necessary to make it happen immediately and Trump has made it clear that the US taxpayer isn’t going to foot the bill for them anymore - not one day more that they have to step it up and they have to do it now.
Russia has run itself down so badly that if they mounted an assault on the Balkan nations right now you would not need a rapid deployment force to be ready for them. We would see them massing their troops, and these would be brand new recruits with little training poorly equipped with supplies that are thin or nonexistent and virtually unprotected from drone and air warfare that doesn’t require a 90% United States air component
All of our NATO partners should be investing tens of billions of dollars in drone systems of every sort long range short range defensive FPV anti-drone the whole suite.
This idea that Ukraine became a drone power completely on its own is laughable. I personally know three engineers who have worked with Ukrainian counterparts in advancing and improving their drone systems and virtually all of them are founded on a combination of Chinese and western technology married by Ukrainian American and some European engineers Ukraine, unlike Germany, and the United States has had to move at light speed to innovate. It’s not that they’re better at it because they’re not - they just have no time - they have to throw things together and send them out and keep iterating until they find what works. They have no Luxury of waiting for exquisite perfection and it’s time for the rest of Europe to figure out that they’re in the same position.
If we just keep providing them, the bulwark of the force they will never meet the moment. Ukraine is on the cusp of bringing Russia to its knees to negotiate a cease-fire and an end to this war and they did it without all those tomahawks and F 35 that everybody said they needed. this has happened in a way that creates no direct justification for Russian attacks on Europe, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come as Russia gets desperate
In four years, how many 700 to 1000 km range cruise missiles or drones did Europe develop?
How many autonomous deep strike drones, effectively cheap cruise missiles did they develop?
Where is Germany’s equivalent to the flamingo, but sleeker stealthier and Better?
The answer is nowhere. And it will never be anywhere unless they’re forced to do it. All the anti-Trump American and military analysts are just running cover for EU and European abuse of their American protectors. We have happily done that for 80 years really 100 years — and we have run up at least half of our national debt protecting Europe.
We could pretend that this isn’t true and that we could just continue down this road forever that pax Americana was somehow efficient spending to buy our “trade relationship” with Europe. Yeah, that’s some trade relationship. Almost every product my company made or represented faced, gigantic tariffs, VATs, and other barriers for import of Europe. It made them un competitive. Our massive trade-in balance wasn’t just because we’re so rich. It’s because the EU was formed as a trade weapon against the United States. That was its only purpose.
The US provided Ukraine with more aid in four years than it provided Israel in 80 years Ukraine has received more international aid in four years than any country in the history of the world has received in total ever the American taxpayer needs to deal with the regions of the world that are a real threat to our prosperity in the next
I was at the SpaceX roadshow yesterday and the only competition they face in almost everything they are doing is China. There are no European countries. There are no American companies. There’s nobody that poses a serious threat to them and lift or communications technologies outside of China. And China is doing everything it possibly can to close that gap, using every tool that it’s disposal from outright theft to bribery extortion you name it the products that Russia puts out our ridiculous and wouldn’t have been competitive 15 years ago and they’re only valuable capability, lift took a massive hit this year
Sorry for a very long post in reply, but I think this need your reaction to what’s going on in Europe is too automatic. It ignores the lessons of the last four years and the prospects for the next 20. We have to be economical with our efforts. Sadly, it looks like the Iranian project has gone sideways because somehow our Pentagon and intelligence community did not foresee the ferocity with which the Iranian lunatics would attack. The Gulf states energy complex. It is a new experience in world history to see a single state hold hundreds of millions of Africans and Asians hostage, threatening them with starvation and deprivation to protect their own hides and their nuclear program.
We clearly weren’t ready for it, and of course, the American people and the Democrat party insist that a generational problem, one that they created with their stupid JC,POA and Biden’s unbelievable weakness, might take more than a couple months to solve. Imagine that.
thanks for the reporting and explanation. From a German perspective there are some challenges: the – necessary – spending in defence (even though a lot of money has been provided) is still having a hefty impact on all other spending by German government, especially when the current coalition is trying to implement large cuts in all things linked to social security (in an especially clumsy and disingenious way). So we will have a more difficult political climate on the – unfortunately necessary – investments in the security of both nation, way of living, freedom of development etc.
This does feed the support for the populist fifth column Putin lovers/local MAGA/AfD shitshow. As it does in other European countries (supported and promoted by dictator-wannabe Trump his eminence…)
There is a coalition of serious minded parties/people within political parties – grown ups – who will support this (say Green Party, some conservatives and some social Democrats), but there is the usually sad but morally corrupt bunch of schemers within our conservative party as well…
Things change in Europe which seemed to be fixed and reliable…