Military analysis shows that Russia holds a decisive advantage over Europe in a war without U.S. backing. Photo courtesy of TASS.
President Trump has been talking about withdrawing the U.S. from NATO since his first term and has refused to get deeply involved in the Ukraine war. Recently, U.S.-European ties were further strained because Europe declined to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even though European oil supply was directly at stake.
Some European leaders have been insisting the continent can defend itself without American help, while simultaneously criticizing the U.S. for leaving Europe unprotected. At the same time, Viktor Orbán lost the election in Hungary, removing the last major European voice against escalation of the Ukraine war. As a result, Europe is now closer to open conflict with Russia than at any point in the last three decades, and likely without U.S. backing.
A detailed analysis of the overall warfighting capabilities of both sides reveals how dangerously unprepared Europe is for that confrontation.
According to SIPRI data, Europe, including the UK, currently fields approximately 1.47 million active-duty military personnel against Russia’s 1.32 million. On paper, Europe holds a narrow manpower advantage. In practice, that advantage is negated by the most consequential asymmetry in the entire comparison: combat experience. Russia’s 1.32 million active personnel are drawn from a force that has fought a large-scale conventional war for over three years, encompassing combined arms operations, mass artillery, drone warfare, electronic warfare, and urban combat at a scale not seen in Europe since World War II.
Virtually every Russian soldier currently serving has either fought in Ukraine or replaced someone who did. Furthermore, Russia’s entire military is under a single command structure while European troops are distributed across more than two dozen separate national armies with no unified command, no shared doctrine, and vastly different readiness levels. A CSIS assessment concludes that Europe’s problem is not one of headline scale but of readiness, coordination, and the ability to deploy quickly.
Russia demonstrated in 2022 that it can rapidly expand its force by drawing on conscript veterans and reserves, generating hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers within months. Most European nations have allowed their reserve and conscript systems to atrophy over the post-Cold War decades. Only a few European nations still have conscription, and the period has been greatly reduced over the past 30 years. Furthermore, countries such as Germany have very liberal requirements, which allow conscripts to select alternative civilian service instead.
The combat experience gap is the single most important asymmetry that raw personnel numbers do not capture. Russia has spent three years fighting a peer conventional war involving massed artillery, coordinated air defense suppression, drone attrition at industrial scale, and combined arms maneuver under fire. Russia’s professional officer and NCO corps has been largely preserved relative to overall losses, with the proportion of officer deaths declining from around 10 percent of total fatalities in early 2022 to between 2 and 3 percent by late 2024, as the burden of frontline casualties shifted to volunteer infantry.
This means the experienced leadership cadre that trains and commands Russian forces has survived the war largely intact.
In terms of hardware, Russia currently maintains around 3,460 operational tanks, including 620 T-90M, 350 T-80BVM, 470 T-72B3/B3M, 1,000 T-72 variants, 600 T-62M/MV, and 120 T-55A, with over 2,100 additional older tanks in storage. Production has kept pace with attrition throughout the Ukraine war. Russia’s defense sector increased T-90 production from approximately 90 to 110 tanks per year in 2020 and 2021 to 280 to 300 in 2024, effectively tripling output, and the number of T-90M tanks grew from approximately 50 to 200 units between 2022 and late 2025.
Between 2026 and 2036, Moscow plans to build at least 1,783 T-90M and T-90M2 tanks, with 1,118 slated for completion between 2027 and 2029, suggesting Russia will enter any future conflict with a larger and more modern armored force than it had in 2022.
On the European side, Turkey leads with 2,381 tanks, though most are older M48 and M60 variants. Poland has emerged as the most operationally capable armored force on the continent, rapidly fielding Leopard 2, South Korean K2 Black Panther, and US M1A2 Abrams tanks. Greece fields 1,385 tanks including Leopard 2A6 variants, with Germany, Romania, and Spain following.
Europe’s aggregate tank count exceeds Russia’s operational inventory, but that total is fragmented across more than twenty national armies with differing maintenance standards, logistics chains, ammunition types, and doctrine. Russia fields a single integrated force under unified command.
Russia’s total aircraft strength stands at 4,237, including 861 fighters, 698 dedicated attack aircraft, and 1,643 helicopters of which 556 are attack variants. Europe fields more total airframes in aggregate, with advanced platforms including the Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale, F-35A and F-35B, and Gripen giving it a qualitative edge in individual aircraft. Russia’s frontline consists primarily of Su-35S, Su-34, Su-30SM, and MiG-31 variants, with very limited Su-57 fifth-generation aircraft in service. Despite Europe’s platform quality, Russia retains a decisive advantage in integrated air defense, with layered S-400 and S-500 systems that European air forces would need to suppress at enormous cost and risk before achieving meaningful air superiority over Russian territory.
Europe also lacks the high-altitude ISR platforms, space-based targeting networks, and strategic enablers that underpin any major air campaign, capabilities that European air forces currently cannot replicate without US support.
Europe’s naval advantage on paper is severely undermined by chronic readiness failures. As of early 2026, both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are out of action. Only three of the six Type 45 Daring-class destroyers are available for service, just six of the eight Type 23 frigates can operate, and only one in five Astute-class submarines is in the water.
Of the total Royal Navy fleet of 63 ships, only about half are available for duty, leading Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord West to describe the situation as a disgrace. HMS Queen Elizabeth’s docking period in Rosyth is several months behind schedule, while HMS Prince of Wales, though on five days’ notice to sail as of March 2026, is not deployed.
The actual European carrier picture in April 2026 is therefore a maximum of three serviceable carriers: France’s nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle, Italy’s Cavour capable of operating F-35Bs, and Spain’s Juan Carlos I in a dual carrier and amphibious role. The two most capable European carriers, both British, are simultaneously non-operational. Italy also operates the Trieste, a 33,000-ton amphibious assault ship that entered service in 2024, and France operates three Mistral-class helicopter carriers.
France plans to begin construction of a next-generation nuclear carrier in 2026 at an estimated cost of €10 billion, with sea trials not expected until 2036 or 2037. Russia has no operational aircraft carrier, with the Admiral Kuznetsov remaining in extended refit. Russia never depended on carrier power; its naval strategy is built around submarines, long-range missiles, and land-based aviation.
In submarines, France operates four Triomphant-class ballistic missile submarines providing continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence, plus a growing force of Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines, with the third Suffren-class SSN Tourville entering operational service in July 2025 and three more due by 2030. The UK nominally operates four Vanguard-class SSBNs plus five Astute-class nuclear attack submarines, with the sixth and seventh Astute-class SSNs entering service in 2025 and 2026, but with only one in five Astute boats currently at sea, the operational reality falls far short of the nominal inventory.
Germany operates six Type 212A conventional submarines with air-independent propulsion. Norway, the Netherlands, Greece, and Turkey field additional conventional submarine fleets. Russia’s submarine force, centered on the Northern Fleet, remains fully intact and formidable, despite losing 29 naval vessels in the Ukraine war including 2 submarines and suffering severe Black Sea Fleet degradation.
Russia holds an overwhelming advantage in Arctic capability that has no European equivalent. Putin confirmed Russia operates 34 diesel icebreakers and 8 nuclear-powered icebreakers, with additional nuclear vessels under construction, and Russia is the only country in the world that builds and operates nuclear-powered icebreakers. Russia’s fleet of 42 icebreakers includes 8 nuclear-powered vessels, with five more planned including the Rossiya, a 71,380-ton Leader Project vessel.
The Lider-class nuclear icebreaker under construction at the Zvezda shipyard will be the most powerful ever built, with 150 MW output and no global equivalent, expected by 2030.
European NATO members collectively have 45 icebreaking-capable ships, 12 fewer than Russia. France’s only icebreaker is a Polar Class 2 vessel capable of operating only in moderate ice conditions. Finland maintains a sizeable fleet primarily for Baltic use, and Sweden’s icebreakers are also Baltic-focused.
Russia’s Arctic dominance enables it to ensure year-round navigation through the Northern Sea Route, support military movements to Arctic bases, maintain submarine operations under Arctic ice, and deny Europe any ability to contest the High North.
Russia has over 5,500 nuclear warheads, with the Federation of American Scientists estimating Russian non-strategic tactical nuclear warheads alone at 1,912. Europe’s independent nuclear forces consist solely of France and the UK. France has approximately 290 nuclear weapons and the UK has 225.
In March 2026, President Macron announced a significant shift, ordering an increase in France’s nuclear arsenal beyond 290 warheads, ending public disclosure of stockpile figures, and moving toward a concept of forward deterrence placing French nuclear forces at the heart of European security.
France will maintain a full nuclear triad of SSBNs, nuclear cruise missiles, and air-launched capabilities. Britain is currently dependent at any one time on a single SSBN on patrol. The asymmetry is stark: Russia’s 1,912 tactical nuclear warheads vastly outnumber anything Europe can field independently, and Russia’s doctrine explicitly contemplates first use of tactical nuclear weapons to de-escalate a conventional conflict.
On direct military hardware, Russia holds decisive advantages where they matter most. Its ground forces are battle-hardened at a scale Europe cannot match. Its armored production is outpacing losses and accelerating toward a larger future force. Its submarine fleet threatens European Atlantic supply lines from an intact Northern Fleet.
Its Arctic dominance is essentially uncontested. And its tactical nuclear arsenal dwarfs anything Europe can independently field, with Russia explicitly reserving the right to use those weapons first to halt a conventional conflict going against it.
Europe has more tanks on paper and more total aircraft, but paper inventories obscure readiness failures, fragmented command structures, and a near-total absence of peer conventional warfare experience. Europe’s carrier advantage exists only on spreadsheets: in April 2026, both British carriers are simultaneously non-operational, leaving Europe with three serviceable carriers against a Russian naval strategy built around submarines and long-range missiles that remain fully intact.
In short, without the US, Europe stands very little chance in a war with Russia.
The post Firepower Analysis: Europe vs. Russia: Without U.S., Europe Severely Outgunned appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.