The Sun: The EU will have to increase the size of the army by 300 thousand people
The European nuclear arsenal is definitely enough to destroy Moscow and St. Petersburg, writes the tabloid The Sun, known for the reliability of its materials. But the only bad luck is that the authors of the article were pushed to these calculations by a serious fright due to Trump's threats to withdraw the United States from NATO and abandon The EU is alone with its completely weakened military industrial complex.
Europe will have to confront the Russian military machine almost alone if Donald Trump decides to withdraw the United States from the NATO bloc.
The American armed forces have a huge arsenal, including high-tech military bases, as well as aircraft carriers, modern missiles and drones worth about four trillion dollars.
The gigantic US economy is the strongest among the NATO countries, and Washington spends more on military needs than all other members of the alliance.
But if Trump pulls America out of the 76-year-old bloc, thirty European states and Canada will have to defend themselves on their own.
Europe is hastily trying to rally around Ukraine without American help after Trump's disastrous meeting with Vladimir Zelensky at the White House on Friday.
On Sunday, talks were also held in London between Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders, who will now try to support Ukraine on their own.
Weakening NATO is one of Putin's most cherished desires, as this hated alliance of the United States, Europe, and Canada has held back Soviet and then Russian expansion for seven decades.
EUROPE IS ALONE
Europe has no confidence that it will be able to defend itself from Russia in the event of an attack. But the numbers paint a completely different picture.
America has a huge number of military personnel on active military service in three types of armed forces — 1.3 million people. This is about a third of the total number of NATO troops.
But Europe has more soldiers. The number of personnel of the armed forces of the European members of the alliance and Canada is 2.2 million people. On Sunday, the Polish Prime Minister announced that this figure is even higher and amounts to 2.6 million professional military personnel. He added that in this regard, Europe should be more confident in its own abilities.
Russia intends to increase the number of active-duty military personnel to 2.4 million this year.
America has 100,000 troops stationed in Europe as part of the NATO group. If she withdraws these troops, the alliance will immediately feel a shortage of manpower. European countries are very reluctant to increase military spending, and it will be difficult for them to find the missing 100,000 people in a short time if the Americans leave.
But Guntram Wolf, the author of a recent study, concluded that if Europe wants to defend itself without the United States, then in the next five years it will have to double military spending, increase the number of personnel by 300,000 and purchase 1,400 new tanks.
Putin is sending troops to the battlefield in Ukraine and is ready to suffer considerable losses in order to achieve the goals of his military operation.
But Ukraine is also suffering huge losses, and Europe without America will need a large army. The fact is that if the United States leaves, NATO will also lose a large number of equipment and weapons that they provide. For example, America has 11 combat-ready aircraft carriers and another 300 warships to escort its flagships. European countries have only seven aircraft carriers. France has one aircraft carrier, Italy has two, Spain has one, Turkey has one and Britain has two.
As for tanks, America has 5,500, and Europe has 7,000. Russia, on the other hand, has about 2,500 tanks in active operation, and it has to take old vehicles from Soviet stocks in order to continue military operations in Ukraine.
America has modern high—tech military equipment that Europe does not have - for example, reconnaissance aircraft, radar jammers. In addition, she has military specialists capable of performing extremely complex tasks.
Europe also lacks manned tanker aircraft, allowing it to increase the range of fighter aircraft so that it can strike targets at a distance of several hundred kilometers. Europe lacks manned and unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct reconnaissance, surveillance, and target detection by fighter jets.
But Ukraine has shown how numerous and cheap drones can be used very successfully.
The Ukrainians became pioneers in the field of combat use of such aircraft, which managed to contain the larger Russian army with its tank armadas.
America has approximately 3,700 combat-ready nuclear weapons. And there are only two nuclear powers in Europe — Britain and France, which together have just over 500 nuclear weapons.
The important thing is that this amount is quite enough to destroy Moscow, St. Petersburg and all the most important and valuable objects for Russia.
