I don’t mean the EU as such, as it doesn’t have any spying capabilities, but states like the UK, France, Germany and maybe Sweden, Norway, Italy or Spain must have satellites orbiting earth to spy on adversaries, equipment to eavesdrop on communications like the NSA does, operatives on the ground…
Can they substitute American intelligence gathering, now the US is essentially trying to pull a chamberlain on Ukraine?
I dare say intelligence in at least 7 European countries rival the US intelligence. But it’s a good thing imo that a lot of people underestimate European capabilities.
Also, when it comes to Russia, Ukrainian intelligence is top notch due to historical ties.
But TBH, I do think Europe needs to find a way to make peace with Russia and with the Middle-East, specifically Turkey, Egypt and Iran.
They are our direct neighbours. The cold war idea that we could have a powerful friend across an ocean, while having strained relationships with our direct neighbours just isn’t going to be a good strategy going forward.
Peace with Russia is difficult as long as Russia isn’t interested in peace, which they clearly aren’t
Russia is interested in peace as long as it gets to dictate the terms, and install its own people in the new Russian territory.
Not disagreeing, we should strive for good or at least civil relationships with our neighbors, even if we don’t exactly like each other, but the problem is that
- any agreement or peace deal with Russia isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, they’ll just ignore it when they want to
- make peace with one country in Middle-East, you’ll anger another
Good relationships go both ways. It’s pointless to be friendly to an abusive partner. It’s not just Russia but the US as well now.
It’s important to remember when they say US intelligence is also the combined intelligence of US allies with intelligence sharing agreements. Whenever things were working before it was all blown up the intelligence worked so well because NATO+ block worked as a unit. That’s why it was so important for Putin to deploy his operative to blowing up that alliance.
Yes. Europeans have been enjoying a bed that was made for them in this area as part of a security package that came into existence after WW2. They didn’t have to invest in intelligence as much because they had it delivered to their doors. If that delivery system stops, they will have to replace it. They can do that.
I wouldn’t be surprised if at EU level (+UK) we will see a lot of unified defense initiatives that mention in a subordinated clause that intelligence coordinating and sharing will be part of that as well.
All we can get on that topic is wild speculations. Nobody who has inside knowledge of the exact capabilities of each of these countries is going to share that here.
It can, it just isn’t going to be as good. Fortunately for the EU, most of that intelligence was only useful for soft power covert diplomacy, which Trump has thrown into the garbage.
To some extent. But intelligence is worthless if there’s no one to act on that intelligence, and European militaries are woefully understaffed and underfunded.
