I’m similar; but when it comes to Europe, why haven’t you spent the past 50+ years building up a collective army that can challenge Russia? It is your backyard. Having America on stand by is fine, but we seem to be the first and last line of defense for Europe; while Europe - Germany in particular - seems to be under the impression they have no geopolitical threats whatsoever.
If you look at NATO it has a target of 2% of GDP defence spend
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallm...ountries-meeting-the-2-threshold-infographic/
The United States is on target to spend just over $730 billion on its military this year, equating to 3.42% of its GDP. It's joined above the threshold by Bulgaria (3.25%), Greece (2.28%), the United Kingdom (2.14%), Estonia (2.14%), Romania (2.04%), Lithuania (2.03%), Latvia (2.01%) and Poland (2%).
France has traditionally met the 2% target too. Also, Turkey though the problem is that Greece and Turkey are arming up to fight each other, not the Russians. Germany got too neutered after WWII and will always be useless.
If you look at that list you've got a bunch of countries on the frontier who do spend 2% of GDP. Unfortunately the economies of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are so tiny that 2% basically buys you a bunch of MANPADS and anti-tank missiles. Not an airforce and certainly not enough tanks to challenge Russia.
So the NATO solution is that the Baltic States have
Baltic Air policing provided by other NATO states. Look at the absolutely bizarre mix of aircraft that have taken part. The Romanians sent MiG-21s!
Both the UK and Poland have more sizeable armed forces and the UK sent MLRS systems to the Baltics for an exercise after Brexit to signal to Russia not to intervene. Poland in particular has lots and lots of tanks. Germany, the UK, and France also do between them though they're all doing everything they can to fuck that up. Add in French and British nukes and its
probably enough to dissuade Russia even in the nightmare scenario the US decides to sit it out.
There's also an EU army which the UK has been sort of lukewarm on because it thinks everything should be done via NATO. However, France and Germany are committed to it. It's unclear if German politicians would allow this to actually fight Russia though - many of them are incredibly compromised by Russia.
I do think you'd get the Baltics, the Visegrad group, the UK, and France working through NATO to resist a Russian invasion of the Baltics. I think the US would get dragged in, even if it was initially averse to it.
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