Europe is moderately self sufficient, but only for tactical level operations. No-one wanted to break the understanding on strategic level capabilities.
Europe has a long pattern on that front. Large scale militaries rarely sit idle for long. With multiple nuclear powers in play, that genie has been kept mostly bottled up for 75 years.
It’s also worth noting that I don’t think the UK, France and Germany (previously Prussia) have ever been on the same side in a large scale hot conflict. Figuring out how to do it, without it imploding in 20 years is a challenge. The original plan was NATO, but Russia has managed to neuter that via Trump.
Europe is moderately self sufficient, but only for tactical level operations. No-one wanted to break the understanding on strategic level capabilities.
Europe has a long pattern on that front. Large scale militaries rarely sit idle for long. With multiple nuclear powers in play, that genie has been kept mostly bottled up for 75 years.
It’s also worth noting that I don’t think the UK, France and Germany (previously Prussia) have ever been on the same side in a large scale hot conflict. Figuring out how to do it, without it imploding in 20 years is a challenge. The original plan was NATO, but Russia has managed to neuter that via Trump.