To be worried there will be a war in Europe

Blimey this is depressing and a very believable scenario

Please stop with the scaremongering posts. Some people come to AIBU to get away from all that. Thanks

Russia doesn't have the manpower or the resources. They can't even subdue Ukraine.

If there is a war, I won't be involved. My great grandfather was wounded in WW1 and my grandfather was in the RAF in WW2, but if there was a war tomorrow, I wouldn't lift a finger. I don't feel English/British anymore. That sense of living in a nation with a shared history and shared identity just isn't there. The left have demonised all our national heroes and taught us to hate and reject our own culture and history.

When Labour got in in 1997, a speechwriter for Blair said "the plan was to rub the right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date." Fine. But you can't have it both ways. You can't destroy somebody's identity, sneer at their history, impose a new identity on them and then expect them to risk their life for you. The left have got what they wanted. They've created a new Britain, and they can go and fight for it.

I wish I could find the post from a few years ago when I said one of the major effects of the UK leaving the EU was that it signalled to Russia that Europe was starting to really disagree and that the infighting resulting from Brexit was a gift to Putin.

I was seriously worried it would embolden Putin to start a war with one of the old 'Eastern bloc' countries. Something he has been itching to do for years. Although the EU was of course an economic union, it was nonetheless a union and made Europe stronger and a more formidable enemy for Russia.

I hadn't even thought about the effect of a US president like Trump who would want to cosy up to the Russian bully and how it would weaken NATO so much. I am really worried the war will spread too.

I worry that Russia will move on to one of the smaller Baltic States as a test to see if NATO will respond with force without the US fully on board. It this happens and NATO does not respond with decisive and aggressve force we are truly stuffed . Even if NATO were to respond decisively the, resulting fight would be awful too. Let's hope I am wrong in this , DH thinks I am

This thread😲

I grew up in the Cold War. There will be a cyber war or a Cold War if that.

I don’t think anyone will be sent on active service. I don’t know anyone in real life who thinks like this. It’s the changing relationship with US that makes people feel threatened.

It's not, but the US have always been involved, which in many ways has prevented Europe from putting together a more coordinated defence policy, because the deal was that the US would guarantee Europe's security.

Yes.

Trump behaves like an idiot, he flip flops and causes more uncertainty. He currently sides with Russia just taking Ukrainian land and the Ukrainian people should just roll over and accept it.

It looks like the plan is to get rid of Zelensky (with Trump's hands) in the hope that Ukraine will roll over without him. Next are the Baltics - very small, so easily defeated. Poland will be the next formidable adversary, 20 mln people ready to fight (all Poles have learnt how to use a rifle at secondary state schools in the last 30-20 years), so they could get stuck there for years. I just read now 14-year olds are learning at schools there how to assemble their rifles.
In the UK there have not been any discussions at all about this, people will have no idea until the Russian submarines cut off our power/Internet/gas cables under the sea. However, in order to resist a land attack, we would need a very resilient civilian population and I don't think we have that (just look at everybody's claiming anxiety/poor mental health, blah, blah, blah). Sometimes I feel like the Russians would enter and promise 'no more immigration, lower bills, free food and gas', and the people here would be like... 'whatever, just let me go back to my phone'. Education would have to start at schools now.

Sorry you're right he served as secretary of state for defence.

Grant Schapps isn’t defence secretary.

@StandFirm why is a more coordinated European defence policy the responsibility of the US?

Leaders like the UK's Defence Secretary Grant Shapps suggest we have moved from a "post-war" to a "pre-war" world, facing threats from multiple actors like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Polls in Europe and the US show that most people think there will be another world war within the next 5 to 10 years.

I’m concerned that is also the attitude of leaders in Europe including the UK. It makes us weak.

There won't be a war. Scaremongering again. Don't believe the MSM.

So what do you think Ukraine can do
Russia is making ground every day
Ukraine gives in or gets totally overtaken by Russia
The only way that will not happen is if Europe gets involved
Do you want your kids going to fight for Ukraine then is that ok with you

I don’t see it that way tbf. If we want to pay more for defence then we just need to put the money in. The US has said pay up in a way that actually works, not much else does. We don’t want war, we don’t want to pay for it either really, all rational and understandable.

I’d prefer not to have the media / headline anxiety but as pp said this is just NATO realising it needs more money from the EU.

@Standfirm.

Yep, European defence spending needs to increase but POTUS very much wants the money going to Lockheed-Martin, Boeing etc, not Dassault, Airbus, BAe or Thales etc..

Trump is not the issue
Stop believing the BBC which has been shown to lie and the Guardian
Putin is intent on a war Trump is the only us president since Roosevelt who has not committed USA to a war
USA does not want to get involved in other people's wars - that includes Europe
The issue is Nato which is weak
Russia committed an act of sabotage in Poland that is an attack on a Nato county
Noto response was zero

No one ever wants that unless there's a true existential threat to the nation.

Well, this is all a bit of a kick up the backside, but what annoys me with the US policy right now is the cakeism. For decades, they've done nothing to encourage a more coordinated European defence strategy, instead wanting to be the ultimate arbiters and suppliers. Today, they still want that, just with us paying through the nose for the privilege. The new doctrine is not really about the US disengaging from Europe, on the contrary, it's in fact about getting more money from us. It's a mistake to think we are encouraged to be more independent. That's not what's happening, depressingly enough.

I meant to say I can see why US voters don’t want to be overly relied upon to send their dc in pp.

Although that probably applies to EU too.

Revolutions usually happen when people are hungry. That is the driving force.

@Alexandra2001 but no European country was meeting their defence spending commitments as required under NATO. Trump is the only President who managed to get this moving in the right direction.

What do you mean "Stupidity of our own Governments"

We voted for lower defence spend.

On Trump, of course he is the one causing the issues, the US is in NATO, we all based our defence requirements on the USA being part of our defence, they very suddenly pulled the rug out from us.

I wonder how many who criticise Labour over tax rises, are now also calling for higher military spend?

In a war & in preparing for one, we will also need far greater capacity in the NHS, in roads, in transport and in industrial regeneration... all requiring huge tax increases.

Tbf the only thing that has got the EU to put in what was it 600bn was the threat of US saying no more. The electorates just won’t have gone for we need to spend more on defence, because it always takes a war like justification.

I don’t want it, I’m sure most fear sending young people more than cables / other things mentioned here.

Fine as said below an organisation wants more money, we get anxiety inducing headlines to justify it.

The whole thing is unconscionable anyway, that people are being sent from any country rn. I can see why EU voters also don’t want to send their dc.