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Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently made the enduring comment [ [link removed] ] that 500 million Europeans were asking 300 million Americans to protect them against 140 million Russians. An extension to that might be: 140 million Russians who can't defeat 40 million Ukrainians.
This statement, at the “emergency summit” in London after President Donald Trump's flare up [ [link removed] ] with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, came in the context of European leaders saying they were prepared to go it alone without the United States in opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Tusk's remarks were a reminder of how ridiculous it was for Europe to be needing so much from America in the first place.
It also called attention to just how woefully unprepared for war Europe is, even with all its advantages of population, wealth and technology. Moreover, it is unprepared because it chooses to be unprepared.
Europe Aflame
In the early 2000s, I interviewed British Army General Patrick Cordingley about his experience in Operation Desert Storm, where he commanded the U.K. armored forces on the center-right of the line in Saudi Arabia during the campaign to expel Saddam Hussein's Iraq from Kuwait. He told me his troops were well-trained and that he had communications with all of them in his command vehicle.
“We were trained to fire and retreat in front of the Soviets,” Cordingley told me. “We just went forward this time.”
I laughed. Great line. He was very specific about communications and logistics in his ability to bring his attack off. He was in touch with all of his formations. He could call in artillery. He could call in air support.
About 35,000 British service people took part in what was the largest U.K. ground deployment [ [link removed] ] since the Second World War. There were 13,000 vehicles involved in the campaign, including 179 Challenger I main battle tanks, over 300 armored infantry vehicles and about 100 artillery pieces.
Today, the U.K. has about 200 Challenger II tanks (the follow-on model) in its inventory, but only about 25 of these are reported to be combat-ready [ [link removed] ] at any given time. Furthermore, British sources say the nation would struggle to come up with 10,000 troops for a proposed peacekeeping force in Ukraine. Not even a combat force, as fought in 1991 Iraq. The Institute for the Study of War says the Russians are producing and losing [ [link removed] ] 8,000 to 9,000 armored vehicles per year in its war in Ukraine. These are World War II numbers that no Western European power is remotely acquainted with.
Vice President J.D. Vance committed a rare own-goal recently when he suggested European armies did not have the combat experience [ [link removed] ] to form a credible peacekeeping force in Ukraine. The French and the British have experience in both coalition warfare and individual operations in the last decades, including significant combat in Afghanistan. In fact, many NATO members have fought beside the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, if Vance was inartful he was not entirely wrong about troops and equipment [ [link removed] ]. France has an expeditionary capability, which it has shown in its under-reported deployments in post-colonial Africa, but it is not large enough to fight the Russians. The British Army, while trained to a high degree of professionalism, has fewer than 100,000 ground troops. The Polish forces are building up and looking to reach nearly 300,000 troops, but they are untested in high-intensity warfare. Turkey has the largest and most combat-experienced non-U.S. army in NATO, but is pursuing its own agenda and can't be counted on to contribute forces to oppose Russia.
The less said about the Germans [ [link removed] ] the better.
It is impossible to imagine that the modern British Army, or any other army in NATO, could advance on the center-right of any offensive line today that did not involve the United States. This is the absurdity of today's European chest-thumping [ [link removed] ] about its imaginary military capabilities. The fact is, no European NATO force is larger or more well-equipped or battle-hardened than Ukraine's [ [link removed] ].
While NATO has significant forces on paper, the amount of these forces that could be deployed effectively to fight Russia is questionable. Of course, Russia's inability to subdue Ukraine after three years of intense fighting raises questions about how dangerous it really is to its Western neighbors. It is safe to say that NATO could handily defeat [ [link removed] ] any incursion from Russia. But that assumes a major U.S. role, which should no longer be assumed. However, if Europe is conceiving of a purely continental force it could use offensively against Russia, it has another thing coming.
Chasing the Devil
There is a good independent internet site called “War is Boring [ [link removed] ]” that tackles some of the non-flashy details of the military. It's a good title because war, like the devil, is always in the details, and the details of war are often boring—until war catches up with you.
When any of us who don't usually read about war all the time read about war, we tend to focus on the interesting battles and campaigns and the people who fought in them, and all that flashy gear. But to actually wage a war, you end up having to master all of these boring aspects involving supply, intelligence-gathering and maintenance. It turns out, you don't really have the ability to wage a war without a lot of thought and preparation given to the boring aspects.
Europe typically ignores the boring aspects and focuses on the flash. This won't work in Ukraine, or against Russia in general.
The United States has done little else but figure out how to wage total war on a global scale for the last 80 years and then make things to bring that capability about. It would take too much space to talk about how the same country that produced the ethereal F-104 Starfighter interceptor also built the gut-punching A-10 “Warthog” ground attack aircraft.
We were all over the place. Air, sea, land, space. And then we had to work out how everything was to communicate with everything else, and be resupplied, and then rotated through depot maintenance. And then we needed to make sure everything was upgraded using lessons in the field—for decades on end. We waste a lot of money and end up mucking up a lot of eye-wateringly expensive programs [ [link removed] ]. We can only hope the Chinese have had this problem as well. But overall, the U.S. can project its power because we have made doing so a priority.
The Europeans have not done this. As a rule, they do just enough to show a flag or attend an airshow with a decent fighter. And Europe produces some of the best warplanes in the world. It's Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale and Saab Gripen are at least on par with the U.S. F-15, F-16 and F/A-18. They are leagues better than their Russian counterparts. Moreover, Europe produces the best air-to-air missile in the world and some of the best strike weapons. It's air-defense systems are similarly excellent.
What it lacks is depth in logistics, support and spare parts.
During the Iraq War, I was unpopular with my more hawkish publishers because I would entertain the views of some of our European readers, such as the French, who were skeptical about the whole affair. While I was in France visiting a helicopter squadron, I was surprised to hear them say they wished they had been deployed to Iraq.
“Why?” I asked. “Because then we would get some spare parts,” the officer told me.
Europe is able to produce some marvelous equipment with unique technical capabilities. It just does a horrible job with the boring stuff, like paying to acquire it in useful numbers and keep it in the field.
There are some non-U.S. tanker aircraft assigned to NATO. There are even a few airborne command and control aircraft. But as a rule, Europe relies on the U.S. for the boring aspects of fielding a modern military that can actually do things. For its part, the U.S. delegates a lot of its boring logistics and transport duties to its National Guard. But the National Guard is able to do the boring stuff and deploy overseas to fight wars.
The U.S. Air Force has 605 tanker aircraft [ [link removed] ] capable of refueling warplanes in flight. Most of these are in National Guard squadrons. European NATO has 27 dedicated tankers, although it can press a hundred or so transports into this role if required. The ersatz tanker aircrews receive little of the specific training required to support an air campaign.
The same can be said for command-and-control aircraft, such as the venerable U.S. E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS) planes with that distinctive saucer dome structure on top of the airframe. More modern and modest types have a rail-like solid state radar on top and use smaller airframes.
The main reason is because the U.S. has an air force that routinely deploys on military missions around the globe. In total, the U.S. operates 125 aircraft in this category [ [link removed] ]. All of Europe has 35.
Tankers are important. Command and control is important. Both are needed to maintain around-the-clock air patrols, establish air superiority, provide air support to ground forces and conduct airstrikes deep into enemy territory. Any number of other boring details are also important. This is where Europe is completely unable to meet an enemy of any capability without the United States alongside it.
Boring Old Uncle Sam
This is not to say the U.S. has maintained its edge. Certainly, it is less fat and much more capable than Russia before it started its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. What experience Russia might have gained in fighting Ukraine it has lost in throwing experienced men into the meat grinder.
China's alleged lean, mean fighting machine is giving us pause. But we will put China's daunting, if untested, military aside for another day.
The United States has fought and won, drawn and lost against numerous foes on air, sea and land during the Cold War and in the decades after. There was no peace dividend in America. Naval blogger CDR Salamander calls the fighting in the Red Sea against Houthi attacks on shipping the best “unscheduled range time [ [link removed] ]” imaginable. But only the U.S. Navy is capable of maintaining a front against a “sub-4th rate, quasi-piratical, non-state actor,” with the European allies dipping a toe in the water to help now and again.
It is impossible to imagine how Europe would manage a long war against an enemy like Russia. Fighting wars has not been a European priority for nearly 80 years. It has not done the boring work to become good at war.
I understand how irritating it must be to listen to Trump and his administration run down your proud military forces with their vaunted traditions and victories and sacrifices. It is unseemly, unchivalrous and very undiplomatic. But these acknowledgments don't negate the fact that modern Europe is in no way prepared for the horrors of modern war on an extended basis.
Russia and Ukraine have done us the favor of showing us just how terrible a modern war can be. And this is without nuclear weapons. We have had three years of watching two capable if once inexperienced military forces engage and learn while bleeding, expending and killing. Europe will not be able to deter a hardened Russia without showing itself to be hardened.
Ukraine and Russia have shown us again how boring and terrifying it is to fight in trenches, endure drone and missile attacks, retool your economy for extended war, do without the pleasures of life, and mourn the loss of a limb or a loved one. The United States has experience with some of this. Some European countries with militaries that have deployed in recent memory do also.
Perhaps Europe needs to involve itself in another meat grinder to learn again about what war really means, beyond the suits at airshows. But if it does, Europe will want boring Uncle Sam there at its shoulder. It's the only way to win.

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