Foreign Affairs

2naSalit

(105,004 posts) Wed Jul 1, 2026, 04:47 PM 2 hrs ago

Europe Is Finally Building the Ukraine Shield - Professor Gerdes Explains 🇺🇦

For most of this war, Europe has helped Ukraine survive. But now something different is happening. Europe is beginning to build the shield Ukraine should have had from the beginning: tighter pressure on Russian access, more drones, more ammunition, more training, more airpower, more industrial cooperation, and more serious defense planning. This is not just rhetoric. The evidence is in the actions. France, Latvia, Britain, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, and NATO are all part of the same larger shift: Ukraine is no longer being treated as a charity case. Ukraine is becoming the front line of Europe’s own security system.

00:00 Europe starts building the shield Ukraine needed
00:37 Europe tightens pressure on Russian access
02:11 Britain, drones, and Ukraine’s energy resilience
03:43 Denmark and Sweden expand military support
05:57 Germany’s pro-Russia temptation returns
07:15 Hungary and the limits of European unity
07:45 Who has really carried Ukraine’s defense burden
10:02 Ukraine’s politics, battlefield momentum, and Belarus warning
12:36 Japan, drones, components, and NATO’s arms-production argument
16:32 Iran, final viewer question, and has Europe really woken up?

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Europe Is Finally Building the Ukraine Shield - Professor Gerdes Explains 🇺🇦 (Original Post) 2naSalit 2 hrs ago OP

The 3 biggest threats in the world (N. Korea, N. Korea, US or China ) for 3 different reasons Bluetus 1 hr ago #1

Bluetus

(3,359 posts)

1. The 3 biggest threats in the world (N. Korea, N. Korea, US or China ) for 3 different reasons

Reply to 2naSalit (Original post)

Wed Jul 1, 2026, 05:53 PM

1 hr ago

Let;s take them in order.

N Korea is on the list because they is the most likely to use nuclear weapons. They have the least to lose. Trump's strategy for them is love letters.

Russia is the biggest threat of conventional war moving through Europe. He has always wanted his legacy to be the reassembly of the USSR, and despite big losses in Ukraine, he is still moving on other fronts. The Europeans fully understand that no only with a Trump USA not help them, Trump is actively trying to undermine the Europeans to help Putin. It is good to see the Europeans jioning the battle in a big way. And one of the consequences is that US arms merchants will likely be cut out of hundreds of billions of dollars of sales to our former allies.Maybe these people are too stupid to see what is coming, but the military contractors ought to be pushing to dump Trump.

Then there is China. They are winning the big war without firing a single shot. They were already cleaning the ISA's clock even before Trump started alienating the whole world. We can't build a single major military system without Chinese technology. Moreover, Trump has forces our former allies do develop much stronger trade relations with China.

Remember a few years back when Greece was a failed economy when their dept became 100% of their GDP? Historically, 90% was considered high, and 100% was considered near-emergency. Well, Trump has the US debt at 125% of GDP. Meanwhile, China is in the 100-105% range

So, while we are pissing away about 23% of our GDP on bloated health care and military costs, China continued to take over global manufacturing, raw materials, and most recently, R&D. We are losing badly. Iran is the least of our problems.

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