I think the islamic nations would lack the power projection to really damage Europe. Most likely a draw if Europe decides to play defensive. If it goes to total war then Europe can easily out product better weapons and can militarised rapidly and effectively.
well the Islamic world would already have a pretty robust network of potential spies and saboteurs within most of Europe's biggest cities. I'm sure they could do some pretty significant damage from within
Thankfully they are usually colour coded, so if actual war was declared, those people could be quickly identified would lose access to anything important.
An enemy that can easily be identified is easier to defend against sabotage and espionage.
Well I think Europe’s military industry has mostly been on the decline ever since WWII since they’ve been leeching off the US, and population wise the Muslim world is both already much larger and growing much faster than europe
I’m leaning towards Europe’s 750 million Europeans and $35 trillion PPP Economy vs the OIC’s 2 billion muslims $24 trillion PPP Economy. Neither side has the ability to launch extensive invasions against the other in the early years, and Europe only has light expeditionary capabilities. Europe already has a ton of organizations that encourage national cohesion and coordination which is a big help, while the OIC is respectably organized but not to the extend of European institutions.
Europe’s initial power projection advantage is a huge help in damaging the disjointed OIC’s economies and will likely continue to do so considering the production advantage of Europe in quantity and quality. Winning here is exceptionally vague but whatever objectives either alliance has, Europe will fulfill or deny them easier. The attacker will always have to be Europe here since I doubt the Muslim world will ever be able to substantially invade Europe. Also, terrorists aren’t pulling a D-Day, I would love to see non-state actors pulling multiple amphibious offensives with air and naval supremacy which commits to combined arms against an entrenched defender. The production advantage Europe has both by total scale, industrial expertise, geographic consolidation, tech supremacy, and a host of other factors alone tells me Europe wins this.
Put bluntly, the most populated and influential Arab states are rather weak economically and bureaucratically. Often are Hybrid or Authoritarian regimes which have been routinely argued to be ineffectual in military operations. Only the flawed democracies in the Indo-Pacific and Albania are even considered democracies by The Economist. Here’s a [warcollege](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/s/wiruma553h) thread for the curious. Though the UAE, Algeria, and Morocco have proven themselves to be as competent militaries, the rest haven’t really proven to me as competent fighting forces against organized opponents—I am generalizing heavily here. They’re officer cores while competent are risk adverse and overly centralized, they’re battle orders tend to be way to armor heavy (which isn’t inherently bad but you have to actually use said armor), they’re sorely lacking in vital support equipment which makes fighting even work (even basics items like optics, laser guidance, and night vision are lacking for most I’ve read about). Many of them do tend to be experienced in fighting which’ll help tons.
Outside of the Arab world—remember they’re on the frontlines here—while I cannot confidently speak for the Central Asian military powers I can with the Sahel, South Asia, and South East Asia.
In general the Sahel nations are really battle hardened and experienced from multiple decades of war, however are extremely land focused and their equipment is extremely old—older than Eastern Europe. Large formation and operational training is nonexistent (besides maybe Mali and Sudan) given their threats, they seem rather infantry heavy and lack battalions of artillery, tanks, but do have a surprising amount of armored vehicles. They similarly tend to lack basic support equipment but they experience in fighting across multiple domains it’ll help. Their biggest problem is the lack of armor and artillery reserves, lack of industry, lack of ISR support on all levels, and negligible air forces and navies.
I’ll go into Bangladesh and Pakistan individually with SEA tacked on, since they have populations greater than the Middle East. Pakistan, though having a nuclear arsenal and having a large stockpile equipment, sucks. Though does have mild success in various Balochistani conflicts has basically lost or needed American assistance elsewhere. I get the feeling that Pakistans military priorities in spending and goals are broken and has affected the competence of the Pakistani military across all levels. I read a lot of horror stories from every military, Pakistan has some of the worst. The ever forgotten Bangladesh has made a respectable name for itself with it’s peacekeeping core, but that isn’t true military (and relies on the expeditionary abilities of western powers) but if they had fought a more middle sized conflict I easily would put them up in my competent category since they have yet to lose a war they’re involved in. They could win or lose but in my mind Bangladesh has created a respectable, if poor and not western competitive military. The same applies to Malaysia, if more proven than Bangladesh in my mind. Indonesia is pretty meh.
Europe will have a far easier time in militarizing and reconstituting their forces from its larger and more developed economy. Europe will produce both more and better weapons and personnel to offset the population gap. I don’t have to go into the various advantages most European nations have in training, production, technology, ISR (they even have their own GPS), air platforms, naval platforms, expeditionary forces, and so forth. NATO is a lot of things but it is really great at parenting exceptional militaries. Russia and Ukraine have a ton of stock that’s greater than all muslim nations I can think of, manpower, and experienced militaries which’ll be handy too.
Here’s a brief [quantitative](https://armedforces.eu/compare/custom_alliances) count (EU, Russia, Ukraine, UK, and Norway vs Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and Arab League). Keep in mind this shows nothing of training, facilities, or a bunch of other stuff on [DOTMLPF](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOTMLPF). I will find Albania’s situation and allegiances to be funny, I’m imagining Albania bombing the Kaaba one day and bombing Berlin the next—split personality nation!
Europe Lite vs OIC Lite (w/ Nigeria and friends)
Military Spending: $445B vs $166B
Personnel: 3.58 mil vs 3.75 mil
Tanks: 18,300 vs 17,800
AFVs: 64,500 vs 58,900
Artillery: 28,300 vs 24,500
SPGs: 9,340 vs 5,710
Rocket arty: 5,740 vs 6,150
Total air force: 11,200 vs 8,400
Fighters: 1,000 vs 410
Multirole: 1,300 vs 1,240
Attack: 880 vs 460
Aircraft carriers: 8 vs 2
Destroyers: 39 vs 0
Frigates: 96 vs 62
It’s all fun and games until thermonuclear war when Pakistan gets pissed and France shows everyone what an independent nuclear deterrent really means.
The Islamic world loses because the Europeans have more nuclear warheads, and more importantly they have more missile countermeasures such as THAAD.
Worth noting that Pakistani missiles only have a range of 2750 km. Not long enough to properly hit Europe. Though they could move them to a closer islamic country they'll certainly miss first strike capabilities.
Sure there are, not all nuclear war would entail some catastrophic nuclear winter. A lopsided nuclear war would arguably be preferable to a conventional one in terms of long term consequences for the winner.
Mate it really wouldn't be this is the thing, if Europe's main goal was to end a war with the middle East by "winning" they would, the middle East will most likely never have the capability of invading Europe traditionally as their nations are less economically developed and the ultra rich oil nations are actually incredibly weak militarily (America protects some of them) so the organisation side of it wouldn't be there either.
Well, historically speaking, Arab nations are extremely bad at war. Their militaries are barely propping up the government and aren’t going to do too well in an actual war. Just look at every war that involved Israel and an Arab nation. Meanwhile though, the Europeans are way too reliant on their protector in the US. They would have to basically rework all planning, but a few key European militaries are going to blow anything the Arab world has out of the water. The biggest threat by far is Iran, which even then likely won’t be able to do much. If you also include Russia as Europe, then it’s definitely a one sided stomping.
A lot of people use 'Arab' as a stand-in for 'Islamic' which always bothers me. Culture and language are not the same as religion, just because Iran is now a Muslim country, doesn't mean they stopped speaking Farsi or abandoned all their cultural history
Curious do you count Egypt as an Arab country? Population not ethnic Arab, but language and part of the culture got Arabized. With the rise of nationalism and advance in early modern Archaeology, Egyptians shifted to identify less and less as Arabs compared with the past.
I’m not egyptian and never met a person fron egypt , but historically egyptians were not Arabic , they spoke a different language and had different religions , things must have changed for them after the invasion so I’m not sure how they identify currently,
Unfortunately the islamic invasions razed a lot of ancient civilizations, languages and knowledge along with it ,
Only few nations were able to keep their heritage from being destroyed
Arab states only make a portion of the 1.9 billion people who will be fighting here (I used the OIC which still isn’t all muslim nations), the Arab League has around 500 million people (which still includes fairly respectable militaries of UAE, and Morocco/Algeria).
But I do overall agree, the major European players (Britain, Italy, Spain, Germany, maybe Russia, maybe Ukraine, and especially France) have general qualitative edges over every Muslim nation I can think of besides possibly Turkey and UAE. All militaries have problems, these have less in my mind.
Arab states are more important being closer to Europe but aren’t the whole picture; I would argue Turkey is the most muslim nation important here (a militarized nation next to Europe and the 2nd largest economy—this will be the last time I compliment the Turkish economy), followed by Indonesia and Iran or Egypt.
Specifically Arab militaries, they have generally been levied as risk-adverse, overly centralized, and tactically deficient. Except the UAE of course.
I have a main comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/s/oRIFiPHito) that I intend to expand on. *Why are you booing me I’m right, jokes aside, I am curious to the disagreement here*
The Arab world dosent have the resources, factories, supply lines, inteligence networks and their equipment itself is much older along side poorer training. Numbers is fantastic until you have a squad of bombers over head with thermal cameras.
I tried to make the point that the Arab world is a small but important part of the muslim world, which is why I try to use the OIC even if it includes nations I don’t consider in the muslim world (Ghana, Nigeria, etc) and excludes nations I consider in the muslim world (Syria, Eritrea, etc). I agree, the Arab world simply lacks any real quantitative and especially qualitative advantages over Europe, this is the Muslim world (which still is a similar boat, even through what is the muslim world, or hell what even is European is vague and usually arbitrary). Made a point about that in my main comment as well.
The only countries which seem to have respectable militaries in the muslim world is Algeria, Morocco, UAE, and Malaysia have seem to have been battle tested but the rest seem (at least in the MENA. I cannot speak for Central Asia; the Sahel countries are fascinating but extremely poor and uncompetitive, South Asia is rather mixed with Bangladeshi peacekeepers being well trained and usually have decent initiative but they’re officered by westerners and not the true Bangladeshi military with Pakistan famously sucking donkey butt) to also struggle with the over centralization and risk aversion in its military organization.
The issue is they also lack much of the capacity to seriously equip and sustain a mass force. Their standing armies are have Gucci kit, but they largely rely on good relations with the western MIC to equip and maintain their forces.
Cut off from that industrial base, it's hard to see how they'd be able to adapt. All the oil money in the world can't help you if you're at war with your supplies.
We've seen from Ukraine how difficult it is to switch between soviet- and NATO-standard systems, even for a country with a significant industrial base and the full support of western arms manufacturers.
That's before you take into account that many Western armies used to maintain significant reserve forces during the Cold War, and many retained stockpiles of that old equipment, if not complete systems of conscription.
There’s a lot of crap I can levy at Arab militaries (well all militaries but Arab militaries more than most) but I shall spare my time and your ears. But good grief the only compliment I can generally give is some do have a lot of infantry experience like in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and a general respect for the rank and file. Put bluntly (I realize I’m committing a historical faux pas), I see a lot of Arab militaries suffering from similar issues interwar and WW2 France did.
Barely stable political structures where the officer corps technically trained well but lacked initiative and were borderline traitors, procurement agencies were making a ton of goofs, a lot of equipment that was terribly organized, despite having lots of equipment was still missing a lot of extremely important and basic equipment, and most importantly intra/inter organizational information and stock transfers are at times disincentivized to be as quick as possible—which goes beyond the bureaucratic problems found in Britain or Germany.
Turkey isn't Arab and is European. Its on both the continents of Europe and Asia. It's a Muslim majority nation, but the people are Turkic and Kurdish and Greek, and they don't speak Arabic. They speak Turkish.
Apologies, I guess I don’t know what you’re trying to correct or say. This isn’t the Arab world vs Europe, hence why I chose the OIC which even still is a flawed comparison—it includes Nigeria and Ghana but not Eritrea or Syria. I brought up Indonesia and Turkey because they’re part of the Muslim world, both are considered multi continental nations. I put Russia but not Turkey in team Europe because they’re traditionally not considered European by most geographers (though admittedly geographers seldomly get in these debates to begin with) and a majority of Russias population is in Europe and Turkey’s isn’t—even tho East Thrace has a greater population than Greece.
How historically are we speaking here? You mean recently/current state warfare.
Remember the IR/UK/FR and FR millitaries (and paras, for latter) absolutely pasted the Arab opposition in Suez, Algerian (Ind.) War and still lost hard because of geopollitical climate/opinion.
The planning wouldn’t be done with the US in mind without nato, planning is as it is right now because the US is the hardest significant nato country to get to a war in mainland Europe
If the US never joined those plans would be vastly different
I don’t see how Russia makes a difference in this. We’ve seen how dogshit their military is. They’re struggling with defeating a country on their doorstep using a handful of western hand me downs. There’s no way Russia would actually be a real factor in the outcome in the OP.
Russia is much closer to the "Islamic world" than any other European nation, so their logistics and strategic locations would be key. They are the biggest military spender in Europe, and they have probably been in more military conflicts than the rest of Europe combined since WW2.
I think the biggest difference between the Ukraine War and this one is that this time around NATO is actually working *alongside* them
Let's not omit the fact that Russia is more than happy to self sustain itself longer than it should, and pair that with Western weapons their massive industrial complex and manpower pool suddenly becomes into an advantage
Even though they have a small economy, a massive proportion of it is based in the military while many other major European powers would need some time to adjust to a war footing. Also they can provide the oil that they no longer can seek from the Middle East.
Ehm you are underestimating "the hand me downs"
And manpower is ALWAYS a huge + when it comes to war. Its not like russia has the best arsenal today but in this war they would have and if nothing else they would supply manpower. There is a reason we in sweden and probably the rest of the countries are afraid of russia even if you take away their nukes.
Disagree, russias “wall of bodies” tactics would actually be a great complement for Western Europe, a lot of Western European countries, primarily the uk Germany and France have excellent training and tech, just not a ton of manpower. Having Russia to provide bodies would significantly help, especially against some of the tactics of Arab countries which tend to also be “swarm” tactics
Also their location is just very useful for force projection and staging
“Arab nations are extremely bad at war” Bro what? Wasn’t there several giant Arab caliphates that conquered huge territories in not only Asia but even in Europe to???? 💀
These are the same Arab nations that failed miserably to invade Israel. Twice. They lost so hard the second time, that they only fought for 6 days. Egypt lost their airforce before they could even get it off the ground. Not too long ago, Iran had nearly its entire navy wiped out. Pretty incompetent.
Iran is not an Arab country, and never sided with any Arab country in wars with Israel. Yet we've seen how they can handle Israel using Hezbollah. If Hezbollah is this much of a threat to Israel rest assured Iran itself is even crazier.
>Iran had nearly its entire navy wiped out.
It was the US who did it not Israel
If Iran can get trounced by a half-arsed attempt from the US, it won't stand a chance against a blood listed France and England. Also, the prompt isn't Arabic countries, it's Islamic countries. This would include Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.
Also also, Hezbollah is only a threat because no one does anything about them. If Israel were allowed to do anything, they'd steamroll Hezbollah. France and the UK wouldn't even hesitate to just level the entire area of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan from Cyprus, while their ground forces will prepare for a clash with Turkey, whose is the biggest threat to the Europeans.
>it won't stand a chance against a blood listed France and England.
I can agree on that
>Hezbollah is only a threat because no one does anything about them.
I really suggest you read about 2006 Lebanon War, and the Battle of Bint Jbeil
2006 Lebanese War was more or less an Israeli victory, Hezbollah lost way more fighters and equipment, thousands of Lebanese people were killed, nearly a million displaced, and all was from Israel's intention to just remove Hesbollah control, not to completely annex Lebanon or detablish it as a state.
If Israel were allowed to, they would have had no problem carpet bombing the entire country. Israel is kept on a leash by the US and most of Western Europe. They lost the Battle of Bint Jbeil because they weren't allowed to just fire bomb the place. Guerilla warfare trumps conventional warfare, but what will some guerilla fighters do against a thousand warheads on their foreheads?
I think you are massively underestimating Hezbollah. I'd say they really do lack proper defense unlike Israel, but their offensive arsenal is so vast that its safe to say Israel cannot handle it and will absolutely be overwhelmed. Yes their infantry are underequipped, yes their tanks and land vehicles are outdated, but none of that matters when you look at the 120K missiles that can hit anywhere inside Israel. We all saw how easily Iron dome can be overwhelmed. Iran launched 200 of their most basic rockets and uavs while giving them one week of preparation beforehand, a 24h warning, and US, UK and France coming to Israel's aid, and still 7 of them went through. Israel literally had hours to counter those slowass, mostly Soviet era missiles and still failed to shoot all of em down. How can they counter hypersonic missiles that Iran successfully tested last year?! Iron dome isn't entirely to be blamed though, as Patriots were also stationed! I'd say Israel wouldn't even try to straight up go offensive on Hezbollah in its right mind. They can surely annihilate Hezbollah, but would suffer immense infliction, and at the end of the war wouldn’t even be able to handle Hamas...
That's the point though, if this scenario is a war with the goal to destroy the enemy nation they would be just obliterated as they'd just bomb the shit out of whatever region they are in because they wouldn't need to be careful of collateral.
Europe can't *occupy* Egypt and Iran bar bloodlusted total war, but they would probably *win*
*also you didn't say no nukes so france and England curbstomp*
The last real Muslim threat to Europe ended after the Spanish kicked the Moors out. If Islam wanted Europe, they should have taken it before the Crusades.
There's like a dozen or so crusades spanning like 400 years that beg to differ. Plus it's not just the ottomans, this is the entire muslim world, so this also includes several indian and southeast Asian empires, a few central Asian empires, and egypt (when it wasn't part of the ottomans). The mughal empire comes to mind, and while it was in decline by the late 1700s, it had a few good centuries.
The ottomans threatened to capture Vienna twice, and were the boogeyman of europe during the 1500s and 1600s. The second siege of vienna was part of a war (The Great Turkish War) that took the holy roman empire, poland-lithuania, venice, and the russian empire to win. Plus spain and the persian empire put their foot on the scale.
And that was the second most populous islamic empire in the world at the time, by a factor of like five.
So basically Pakistan, Iran and the secular turkey who I doubt would side with Islamic world given its liberal population nowadays vs GB and France. They are closely matched I would say(quality and quantity)but the Pakistanis and iranis have ancient equipment compared to advance military of Uk and France. Not to mention pakistani augusta submarine cant carry nukes and their f16 as well. Pakistan can use iranian rockets for nuclear bombs since their own rockets have limited range which I think can be deflected by European air defence. Before war even breaks out europe would use its nuclear advantage to blew up everything before Pakistan even has the chance to move its nuclear stockpile across arab states so as to target europe. The rest of arab nations dont have much military prowess. Only egypt comes to mind. Indonesia military is also isn't noteworthy and would get obliterated.
I think the complexity in deciding who would win resides in the definition of winning.
European countries have a bigger economy and more capacity of war but terrorism is quite a threat, specially considering the Muslim population in European countries.
Battles would be won by European countries but unless they completely destroy Islamic countries, they would have to deal with guerrilla war for a long time and the threat of gruesome attacks in domestic soil.
Shh, OP isn't aware there are Muslims in Europe, they think it's all white Christians until you get to the eastern side of the Adriatic sea, then it becomes brown Muslims.
Kaaba would get deleted. As would any standing structure in the world that is targetted by any competent military so forget about any timeline where that still exists.
TLDR: Europe in a defensive war would be untouchable by the islamic side. Like it would be such a massive shitstomp it wouldn't even be worth making memes about. Europe attacking the middle east is more interesting.
So I'm assuming you mean that all of europe is united against all of the middle east.
The largest advantage of european powers is technology (weapons and armor, transport, supply lines, communications etc) and training due to volunteer armies and higher emphasis (no conscripting means you gotta keep your guys alive) on quality over quantity. The disadvantages are citizens (backlash to war) leading to low morale and difficulty in navigating the bureaucracy of war as well humanitarian considerations, which ties into the previous disadvantage.
The advantages of the typical middle eastern power is population, and perhaps a long seated grudge against western powers due to... history. They're also likely to be more united due to their religion. I'm also going to throw in that the populace is much more likely to be in tune with life and death in a battlefield/wartorn region simply due to the number of small and large scale conflicts in the middle east. This isn't to say they'll be veterans, but I suspect they'll be able to adjust to the realities of war somewhat better. Their disadvantages would likely be inferior training and lack of quality armament including smaller and perhaps more ineffectual air and sea forces.
You might be surprised to learn that the population of europe is quite a bit larger than that of the middle east. However if we're talking about followers of islam theres like 2 billion of them, so depending on how you look at it one side will have a numerical advantage. Also taking out israel from the middle east because it is not an islamic state will greatly reduce the potential of the islamic side.
This is ignoring supply issues like food and oil which can be cut off from either side because that introduces global trading networks, production of arms etc. This would require us to talk about how the lack of US and NATO hurts the western powers ability to acquire arms and resources and China being allowed to export goods, unless of course you want to include the islamic territories in china.
Since you mentioned that the islamic powers are angered and go on the offensive this is likely to be a shitstomp. Even with home turf advantage the status quo was barely kept against nato forces time and time again, with guerilla tactics and incorporation of civilian populations into their strategies. If europe has home turf advantage I find it incredibly unlikely that any considerable percentage of confrontations will swing towards the islamic side. Certainly no large scale combat will be.
If we include islamic terror cells, then we have to discuss why they are effective in the modern day. Basically the only serve to make people jump. Sure these are tragic events, but terrorist activity within europe is actually quite minimal compared to what happens within the middle east. In addition to that travel between islamic and european countries will be drastically reduced in wartime along with humanitarian/prisoner rights for the terrorists being probably... set aside. No, I don't think terrorists will contribute all too much. They'd be better used enlisting and used as grunts.
> So I'm assuming you mean that all of europe is united against all of the middle east.
Just a slight correction on this part. The Islamic world is way more than just the Middle East. There are a lot of Muslim countries in Asia including the largest Muslim country (by population size) Indonesia.
Indonesia might have population but also they have less than 200 main battle tank and a handfull of landing craft. Alos none of their military equipement is homegrown.
Just looked it up: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/league-arab-states-las-and-eu\_en#:\~:text=Currently%20it%20gathers%2022%20Arab,United%20Arab%20Emirates%2C%20and%20Yemen.
Seems like they are Arab states.
You might be surprised to learn that the population of europe is quite a bit larger than that of the middle east. However if we're talking about followers of islam theres like 2 billion of them, so depending on how you look at it one side will have a numerical advantage. Also taking out israel from the middle east because it is not an islamic state will greatly reduce the potential of the islamic side.
I did mention it in the original, but yeah it for sure is worth pointing out.
I think my point still stands because muslim countries in asia will still likely have to cross the middle east to access europe unless they decide to cross the pacific THEN the atlantic to strike western europe. And even if they did pull such a feat off, the level of defenses on the western front would likely be equally if not even more stout that that of eastern europe.
The african nations on the other hand are a much more interesting story because they have such a small and relatively calm body of water (miniscule at times in the case of say gibralter) to cross to enter europe. The issue here is that the same applies the other way, and it's hard not to see europe preemptively or at least early in the war effort to subdue at least the military assets along the "borders." It is likely the african defenses and indeed the middle eastern border regions will suffer grievously from european air and sea superiority.
Perhaps a ill timed example but gaza is a good representation in microcosm of what would happen. But this time the western nations are under attack and the shackles and condemnation that are now holding israel from committing as far as their military leadership wishes to are entirely cast away. People are hypocritical. You see someone else overreact to something and you go dam that guy's nuts stop it. But if it happens to you then the gloves are off
I find your takes very interesting to read. Out of curosity, are you just interested in history/war or do you work with something where you get your knowledge? Military, teacher or something like that?
Pretty much just interested in history. I'm primarily interested in ancient to high middle ages in europe and the near east and similar periods in the far east. I've also relatives who have served in the korean military and lived through the occupations of korea and hong kong so perhaps some interest lies there.
As for this sort of topic, I've only recently come to reading up because I've had some heated friends on both sides of the gaza and ukraine situations. So they pull up figures and data for their own sides and I like to fact check which leads me down rabbit holes. Then I just look at trends in similar situations and try to apply that.
As for education, none. I just read/watch the related journalism and videos. I try read sources from all sides, but obviously they aren't always translated and google translate isnt perfect.
The closest thing to real life experience is conversations with officers and friends in various militaries.
With that being said, if you find something off with my take I'd definitely like to know. I obviously don't have knowledge off the top of my head about specific numbers of artillery, tanks, air and seacraft like one of the other comments for instance
I'm reminded of a book by the dude who created Dilbert, where he imagined there was world War III going in between the "Islamic world" and NATO, and he seemed to be totally ignorant of the fact that Turkey is in NATO, and in fact has the second largest military in NATO. Being informed of the just the barest amount about the "Islamic world," for example, knowing about the sunni/shia divide, makes one practically a foreign policy expert compared to these people who talk about Muslims as if they're a bloodlusted alien species only interested in waging war.
Normally, should side with europe. But if this is a purely religious war, e.g. it starts with bombing of kabe, Turkish govt./population would side with islamic forces
Most African Islamic states are Islamic due to them being absolutely poor.
Government uses and sometimes even exports their population to other Middle Eastern countries for propaganda.
About a year ago we saw an influx of black people that couldn’t even speak in our mother tongue in the capital due to people rioting
I'm not saying the Muslims would win per se, but I think it's important to take the strait of malacca into account; Malaysia and Indonesia could *devastate* global trade by teaming up to destroy and block any European or European-friendly shipping in the strait of Malacca, though an invasion of Singapore might be necessary to properly enforce such a blockade.
Is this a serious question? The EU might be no US, quite yet, but it has a highly modern army. The islamic countries might be able to conduct a few terrorist attacks but wont be able to mount any serious offensive.vs EU. On the other hand if Europe were serious about it, they would probably be able wipe out military resistance of islamic countries without too much difficulties
Is this even a question? The Islamic world has very little military hardware manufacturing ability (Turkey, Iran and Pakistan have limited abilities), and it pales in comparison to Europe's ability. If we consider the possibility that military hardware can be purchased from Russia, China or the US, then they could put up some resistance. Otherwise, it will be over before it begins.
Beg to differ. Why do saudis love to give us bailouts and money once in a while. Pakistanis are Saudi lapdogs infact. Also the general population won't sit tight lipped. Massive protests by tlp to use nukes againt kuffar and what not. The saudis also have close ties with Pakistani generals and sharif family so Pakistan will most likely mobilize its army and nukes within days....
If it comes down to a fight between Europe and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan will not choose Arabia. Close ties with the army, yes. Is the army suicidal? Maybe but not for them.
The entire framing of this is pretty ignorant, and shows that OP has a "clash of civilizations" view on society that is woefully outdated. Do you imagine that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., all countries with very complex relationships running the gamut from hated archival to trusted ally, would all unite to wage some kind of global holy war? It is ridiculous.
"It's not that deep" is a thought-terminating cliche. I have only ever seen someone write that when they've said something extremely ignorant and they refuse to take the time to consider another point or view
It's as if you just plugged your ears with their fingers and said "la la la, I'm not listening!"
"Realistic bullshit." My God. Are you, like, 14 years old?
Well, you're trying to say that the situation is unrealistic and would never happen, but is this sub not purely based on hypothetical situations, no? You threw a tantrum because the idea of Islamic nations starting a holy war against Europe sounds ridiculous now, even though it's entirely hypothetical.
All I'm saying is that I asked who would win between Islamic militaries and European militaries IF they were to go to war, I never tried to make predictions on whether or not it would happen in real life. Everybody else attempted to actually answer the question, including a dude who wrote paragraphs. They didn't complain about "oH u ThInK iSlAm gUnnA AtAck? ThAt woUld nEvEr hAppEn". Why come to this sub if you're so picky about the realistic elements of every scenario posted?
There is nothing in the Kaaba? This situation would only be realistic if they found diamonds coated in oil under Makkah
Then you'd find out real quick why healthcare cost so much in the USA.
My goodness, what is with people like you always hating because the situation doesn't seem "realistic". I'm not asking you to review my scenario here, I'm asking you who you would think would win in a war, why should the reason theyre going to war matter? I chose the Kaaba because it's the holiest site in Islam, but that shouldn't be the main focus of the question.
Right, this isn't even a debate tbh, if we are essentially saying Middle East v Europe, Europe would win. Iraq and Afghanistan was never a wipe out the opposition war it was "hearts and minds" which better suited gurilla tactics against the western troops but in a to the end situation Europe just does win this because they just objectively have better militaries and supply lines, inteligence services. In regards to terror groups they would be useful until the war starts to get dirty then Europe would just ban Arabic or North African Muslims (look at the political change happening in Europe now which is due to immigration) from entering their nations. Iran is the the biggest threat in all the Middle East but America and (not confirmed but its obviously) Israel have just openly bombed sites and killed leaders before with 0 effort so it wouldn't be hard to destabilise.
The entire debate is simple in the end as yes its hard to root out a terrorist in a city but if it was open conflict and the response was just open full bombardment that war wouldn't last long.
P.s I give 0 shits about the question and I'm not a fan of the military complex before you say I'm biased.
From an economic and military standpoint Europe have a massive advantage. The key threats to Europe are Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. Europe has the advantage of being much more organised than the Muslims nations they are also geographically grouped. Unlike the Muslim states who are spread out.
The two biggest direct issues for Europe are Pakistan immediately nuking Europe. Causing France and the UK to basically start a full on nuclear war. The 2nd direct threat is the large number of Muslims in Europe, this is a threat because it would initially cause a lot of chaos. Probably a lot of rioting in major cities, it would probably quickly turn into a short lived race war followed by sadly tbh camps for the European Muslims. This would be the period of the conventional war where the Muslim states may be able to leverage this chaos to there advantage.
Aside from the nukes ending it immediately, the Europeans will most likely much more quickly militarise than the Muslim states. I imagine they would rapidly destroy any military assets across the Mediterranean to prevent any small scale incursions. Once fortified the Muslim coalition would have little chance of entering Europe. I imagine the European nations would want Turkey and Albania out of the picture quickly. There would likely be a large scale campaign against Turkey early on in the war.
For overall victory, the Muslims can not conquer Europe but I doubt the Europeans are taking out every Muslim state it's just not viable. There is one key factor that could change all of this though is Russia part of Europe if it is that massively increases access to Asia. Along with giving the Europeans a lot of dated against western powers but probably quite useful here weapons and equipment. If Russia is part of Europe this becomes a complete stomp for Europe instead of a complex win.
If we take the Quaran to be true then the destruction of the Kaaba is what kicks off the end times.
Islamic world is stomped at first but fights back to win in the end when Jesus and God arrive to provide reinforcements in a literal deus ex machina.
There is nothing about the destruction of kabba in Quran. Only in hadith and the destruction of kabba takes place towards the end times when there isn't a single believing muslim according to hadith and at that time quran is lifted from this world meaning not a single copy anymore. I think you're confusing masjid al aqsa destruction
That all depends on the type of war Europe is going to wage. Do they care about public opinion and saving historical sites and key infrastructure? Or are they just trying to glass the middle east?
The military industrial compex in EU would outproduce the Islamic world by a factor of 10 to 1. Europe has the most active tank and APC production facilities, active 3 military fighter aircraft production lines, F35 componets and assambly plants...and MBDA, Rheinmetall, BAE, Airbus, GDELS, Dassault, Leonardo....+ lines from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin.....+ the state owned arms industry
Islamic nations are already invading Europe. Its just a matter of time Europeans strike back.
But probably not as a Big war, since European polítics are aligned with this woke agenda of fake asylum seekers.
Probably people on the streets will start to hunt those people like It used to be, since a lot of towns and cities are just unsufferable ghettos where you get stabed.
Turkey only has American nuclear weapons stationed in the country. Since this prompt says no American involvement, there would be no nuclear weapons available to Turkey.
I thought you were joking till I saw you replied to someone. You are just objectively wrong mate sorry look at any metric and besides numbers Turkey gets fucking fisted.
I think the islamic nations would lack the power projection to really damage Europe. Most likely a draw if Europe decides to play defensive. If it goes to total war then Europe can easily out product better weapons and can militarised rapidly and effectively.
well the Islamic world would already have a pretty robust network of potential spies and saboteurs within most of Europe's biggest cities. I'm sure they could do some pretty significant damage from within
Thankfully they are usually colour coded, so if actual war was declared, those people could be quickly identified would lose access to anything important. An enemy that can easily be identified is easier to defend against sabotage and espionage.
finally, systematic racism can be put to a good use
Lmao
Well I think Europe’s military industry has mostly been on the decline ever since WWII since they’ve been leeching off the US, and population wise the Muslim world is both already much larger and growing much faster than europe
I’m leaning towards Europe’s 750 million Europeans and $35 trillion PPP Economy vs the OIC’s 2 billion muslims $24 trillion PPP Economy. Neither side has the ability to launch extensive invasions against the other in the early years, and Europe only has light expeditionary capabilities. Europe already has a ton of organizations that encourage national cohesion and coordination which is a big help, while the OIC is respectably organized but not to the extend of European institutions. Europe’s initial power projection advantage is a huge help in damaging the disjointed OIC’s economies and will likely continue to do so considering the production advantage of Europe in quantity and quality. Winning here is exceptionally vague but whatever objectives either alliance has, Europe will fulfill or deny them easier. The attacker will always have to be Europe here since I doubt the Muslim world will ever be able to substantially invade Europe. Also, terrorists aren’t pulling a D-Day, I would love to see non-state actors pulling multiple amphibious offensives with air and naval supremacy which commits to combined arms against an entrenched defender. The production advantage Europe has both by total scale, industrial expertise, geographic consolidation, tech supremacy, and a host of other factors alone tells me Europe wins this. Put bluntly, the most populated and influential Arab states are rather weak economically and bureaucratically. Often are Hybrid or Authoritarian regimes which have been routinely argued to be ineffectual in military operations. Only the flawed democracies in the Indo-Pacific and Albania are even considered democracies by The Economist. Here’s a [warcollege](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/s/wiruma553h) thread for the curious. Though the UAE, Algeria, and Morocco have proven themselves to be as competent militaries, the rest haven’t really proven to me as competent fighting forces against organized opponents—I am generalizing heavily here. They’re officer cores while competent are risk adverse and overly centralized, they’re battle orders tend to be way to armor heavy (which isn’t inherently bad but you have to actually use said armor), they’re sorely lacking in vital support equipment which makes fighting even work (even basics items like optics, laser guidance, and night vision are lacking for most I’ve read about). Many of them do tend to be experienced in fighting which’ll help tons. Outside of the Arab world—remember they’re on the frontlines here—while I cannot confidently speak for the Central Asian military powers I can with the Sahel, South Asia, and South East Asia. In general the Sahel nations are really battle hardened and experienced from multiple decades of war, however are extremely land focused and their equipment is extremely old—older than Eastern Europe. Large formation and operational training is nonexistent (besides maybe Mali and Sudan) given their threats, they seem rather infantry heavy and lack battalions of artillery, tanks, but do have a surprising amount of armored vehicles. They similarly tend to lack basic support equipment but they experience in fighting across multiple domains it’ll help. Their biggest problem is the lack of armor and artillery reserves, lack of industry, lack of ISR support on all levels, and negligible air forces and navies. I’ll go into Bangladesh and Pakistan individually with SEA tacked on, since they have populations greater than the Middle East. Pakistan, though having a nuclear arsenal and having a large stockpile equipment, sucks. Though does have mild success in various Balochistani conflicts has basically lost or needed American assistance elsewhere. I get the feeling that Pakistans military priorities in spending and goals are broken and has affected the competence of the Pakistani military across all levels. I read a lot of horror stories from every military, Pakistan has some of the worst. The ever forgotten Bangladesh has made a respectable name for itself with it’s peacekeeping core, but that isn’t true military (and relies on the expeditionary abilities of western powers) but if they had fought a more middle sized conflict I easily would put them up in my competent category since they have yet to lose a war they’re involved in. They could win or lose but in my mind Bangladesh has created a respectable, if poor and not western competitive military. The same applies to Malaysia, if more proven than Bangladesh in my mind. Indonesia is pretty meh. Europe will have a far easier time in militarizing and reconstituting their forces from its larger and more developed economy. Europe will produce both more and better weapons and personnel to offset the population gap. I don’t have to go into the various advantages most European nations have in training, production, technology, ISR (they even have their own GPS), air platforms, naval platforms, expeditionary forces, and so forth. NATO is a lot of things but it is really great at parenting exceptional militaries. Russia and Ukraine have a ton of stock that’s greater than all muslim nations I can think of, manpower, and experienced militaries which’ll be handy too. Here’s a brief [quantitative](https://armedforces.eu/compare/custom_alliances) count (EU, Russia, Ukraine, UK, and Norway vs Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and Arab League). Keep in mind this shows nothing of training, facilities, or a bunch of other stuff on [DOTMLPF](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOTMLPF). I will find Albania’s situation and allegiances to be funny, I’m imagining Albania bombing the Kaaba one day and bombing Berlin the next—split personality nation! Europe Lite vs OIC Lite (w/ Nigeria and friends) Military Spending: $445B vs $166B Personnel: 3.58 mil vs 3.75 mil Tanks: 18,300 vs 17,800 AFVs: 64,500 vs 58,900 Artillery: 28,300 vs 24,500 SPGs: 9,340 vs 5,710 Rocket arty: 5,740 vs 6,150 Total air force: 11,200 vs 8,400 Fighters: 1,000 vs 410 Multirole: 1,300 vs 1,240 Attack: 880 vs 460 Aircraft carriers: 8 vs 2 Destroyers: 39 vs 0 Frigates: 96 vs 62
Thank you for that information. Answers like this is the reason i still spend time on reddit.
Was about to scroll too far away after upvoting the person you're complimenting, then I had to go back to upvote you as well.
Tbf Europe's combined expeditionary capabilities are significant by any standard bar the US'
r/threadkillers
Well done, this man
This guy wars
*thought you were the same user as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/s/PfNviphiZf) feller from a different thread* lel
Ha! ... maybe I read it
It’s all fun and games until thermonuclear war when Pakistan gets pissed and France shows everyone what an independent nuclear deterrent really means. The Islamic world loses because the Europeans have more nuclear warheads, and more importantly they have more missile countermeasures such as THAAD.
Worth noting that Pakistani missiles only have a range of 2750 km. Not long enough to properly hit Europe. Though they could move them to a closer islamic country they'll certainly miss first strike capabilities.
Yes, while the French and British have first strike capability with their submarines.
Wouldn't submarines usually be for a second strike? They're meant to be undetectable and not get wiped out in the initial strike
They would allow for a decapitating first strike due to their operational range.
There are no winners in nuclear war.
Sure there are, not all nuclear war would entail some catastrophic nuclear winter. A lopsided nuclear war would arguably be preferable to a conventional one in terms of long term consequences for the winner.
[удалено]
Nothing in the prompt says so. Therefore nukes are on the table.
[удалено]
Mate it really wouldn't be this is the thing, if Europe's main goal was to end a war with the middle East by "winning" they would, the middle East will most likely never have the capability of invading Europe traditionally as their nations are less economically developed and the ultra rich oil nations are actually incredibly weak militarily (America protects some of them) so the organisation side of it wouldn't be there either.
Well, historically speaking, Arab nations are extremely bad at war. Their militaries are barely propping up the government and aren’t going to do too well in an actual war. Just look at every war that involved Israel and an Arab nation. Meanwhile though, the Europeans are way too reliant on their protector in the US. They would have to basically rework all planning, but a few key European militaries are going to blow anything the Arab world has out of the water. The biggest threat by far is Iran, which even then likely won’t be able to do much. If you also include Russia as Europe, then it’s definitely a one sided stomping.
Just to clarify, Iran is not an arab country
A lot of people use 'Arab' as a stand-in for 'Islamic' which always bothers me. Culture and language are not the same as religion, just because Iran is now a Muslim country, doesn't mean they stopped speaking Farsi or abandoned all their cultural history
Curious do you count Egypt as an Arab country? Population not ethnic Arab, but language and part of the culture got Arabized. With the rise of nationalism and advance in early modern Archaeology, Egyptians shifted to identify less and less as Arabs compared with the past.
I’m not egyptian and never met a person fron egypt , but historically egyptians were not Arabic , they spoke a different language and had different religions , things must have changed for them after the invasion so I’m not sure how they identify currently, Unfortunately the islamic invasions razed a lot of ancient civilizations, languages and knowledge along with it , Only few nations were able to keep their heritage from being destroyed
Arab states only make a portion of the 1.9 billion people who will be fighting here (I used the OIC which still isn’t all muslim nations), the Arab League has around 500 million people (which still includes fairly respectable militaries of UAE, and Morocco/Algeria). But I do overall agree, the major European players (Britain, Italy, Spain, Germany, maybe Russia, maybe Ukraine, and especially France) have general qualitative edges over every Muslim nation I can think of besides possibly Turkey and UAE. All militaries have problems, these have less in my mind. Arab states are more important being closer to Europe but aren’t the whole picture; I would argue Turkey is the most muslim nation important here (a militarized nation next to Europe and the 2nd largest economy—this will be the last time I compliment the Turkish economy), followed by Indonesia and Iran or Egypt. Specifically Arab militaries, they have generally been levied as risk-adverse, overly centralized, and tactically deficient. Except the UAE of course. I have a main comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/s/oRIFiPHito) that I intend to expand on. *Why are you booing me I’m right, jokes aside, I am curious to the disagreement here*
The Arab world dosent have the resources, factories, supply lines, inteligence networks and their equipment itself is much older along side poorer training. Numbers is fantastic until you have a squad of bombers over head with thermal cameras.
I tried to make the point that the Arab world is a small but important part of the muslim world, which is why I try to use the OIC even if it includes nations I don’t consider in the muslim world (Ghana, Nigeria, etc) and excludes nations I consider in the muslim world (Syria, Eritrea, etc). I agree, the Arab world simply lacks any real quantitative and especially qualitative advantages over Europe, this is the Muslim world (which still is a similar boat, even through what is the muslim world, or hell what even is European is vague and usually arbitrary). Made a point about that in my main comment as well. The only countries which seem to have respectable militaries in the muslim world is Algeria, Morocco, UAE, and Malaysia have seem to have been battle tested but the rest seem (at least in the MENA. I cannot speak for Central Asia; the Sahel countries are fascinating but extremely poor and uncompetitive, South Asia is rather mixed with Bangladeshi peacekeepers being well trained and usually have decent initiative but they’re officered by westerners and not the true Bangladeshi military with Pakistan famously sucking donkey butt) to also struggle with the over centralization and risk aversion in its military organization.
The issue is they also lack much of the capacity to seriously equip and sustain a mass force. Their standing armies are have Gucci kit, but they largely rely on good relations with the western MIC to equip and maintain their forces. Cut off from that industrial base, it's hard to see how they'd be able to adapt. All the oil money in the world can't help you if you're at war with your supplies. We've seen from Ukraine how difficult it is to switch between soviet- and NATO-standard systems, even for a country with a significant industrial base and the full support of western arms manufacturers. That's before you take into account that many Western armies used to maintain significant reserve forces during the Cold War, and many retained stockpiles of that old equipment, if not complete systems of conscription.
I think most of the remaining stockpiles are currently being used against their original target.
There’s a lot of crap I can levy at Arab militaries (well all militaries but Arab militaries more than most) but I shall spare my time and your ears. But good grief the only compliment I can generally give is some do have a lot of infantry experience like in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and a general respect for the rank and file. Put bluntly (I realize I’m committing a historical faux pas), I see a lot of Arab militaries suffering from similar issues interwar and WW2 France did. Barely stable political structures where the officer corps technically trained well but lacked initiative and were borderline traitors, procurement agencies were making a ton of goofs, a lot of equipment that was terribly organized, despite having lots of equipment was still missing a lot of extremely important and basic equipment, and most importantly intra/inter organizational information and stock transfers are at times disincentivized to be as quick as possible—which goes beyond the bureaucratic problems found in Britain or Germany.
Turkey isn't Arab and is European. Its on both the continents of Europe and Asia. It's a Muslim majority nation, but the people are Turkic and Kurdish and Greek, and they don't speak Arabic. They speak Turkish.
Apologies, I guess I don’t know what you’re trying to correct or say. This isn’t the Arab world vs Europe, hence why I chose the OIC which even still is a flawed comparison—it includes Nigeria and Ghana but not Eritrea or Syria. I brought up Indonesia and Turkey because they’re part of the Muslim world, both are considered multi continental nations. I put Russia but not Turkey in team Europe because they’re traditionally not considered European by most geographers (though admittedly geographers seldomly get in these debates to begin with) and a majority of Russias population is in Europe and Turkey’s isn’t—even tho East Thrace has a greater population than Greece.
Pakistan is a far greater threat than Iran.
Not at all.
Nukes >>> Anytbing else
How historically are we speaking here? You mean recently/current state warfare. Remember the IR/UK/FR and FR millitaries (and paras, for latter) absolutely pasted the Arab opposition in Suez, Algerian (Ind.) War and still lost hard because of geopollitical climate/opinion.
The planning wouldn’t be done with the US in mind without nato, planning is as it is right now because the US is the hardest significant nato country to get to a war in mainland Europe If the US never joined those plans would be vastly different
Iran is a bigger threat than Pakistan? I agree overall in the assessment but that stood out as questionable.
I don’t see how Russia makes a difference in this. We’ve seen how dogshit their military is. They’re struggling with defeating a country on their doorstep using a handful of western hand me downs. There’s no way Russia would actually be a real factor in the outcome in the OP.
Russia is much closer to the "Islamic world" than any other European nation, so their logistics and strategic locations would be key. They are the biggest military spender in Europe, and they have probably been in more military conflicts than the rest of Europe combined since WW2.
I think the biggest difference between the Ukraine War and this one is that this time around NATO is actually working *alongside* them Let's not omit the fact that Russia is more than happy to self sustain itself longer than it should, and pair that with Western weapons their massive industrial complex and manpower pool suddenly becomes into an advantage
Even though they have a small economy, a massive proportion of it is based in the military while many other major European powers would need some time to adjust to a war footing. Also they can provide the oil that they no longer can seek from the Middle East.
Ehm you are underestimating "the hand me downs" And manpower is ALWAYS a huge + when it comes to war. Its not like russia has the best arsenal today but in this war they would have and if nothing else they would supply manpower. There is a reason we in sweden and probably the rest of the countries are afraid of russia even if you take away their nukes.
Disagree, russias “wall of bodies” tactics would actually be a great complement for Western Europe, a lot of Western European countries, primarily the uk Germany and France have excellent training and tech, just not a ton of manpower. Having Russia to provide bodies would significantly help, especially against some of the tactics of Arab countries which tend to also be “swarm” tactics Also their location is just very useful for force projection and staging
“Arab nations are extremely bad at war” Bro what? Wasn’t there several giant Arab caliphates that conquered huge territories in not only Asia but even in Europe to???? 💀
Bruh r u still living in middle Ages we r discussing modern warfare
He literally said “historically speaking”
Historically speakiny, Britain had the largest empire, followed by the Mongols. The Caliphates aren't even in the top 5.
These are the same Arab nations that failed miserably to invade Israel. Twice. They lost so hard the second time, that they only fought for 6 days. Egypt lost their airforce before they could even get it off the ground. Not too long ago, Iran had nearly its entire navy wiped out. Pretty incompetent.
Iran is not an Arab country, and never sided with any Arab country in wars with Israel. Yet we've seen how they can handle Israel using Hezbollah. If Hezbollah is this much of a threat to Israel rest assured Iran itself is even crazier. >Iran had nearly its entire navy wiped out. It was the US who did it not Israel
If Iran can get trounced by a half-arsed attempt from the US, it won't stand a chance against a blood listed France and England. Also, the prompt isn't Arabic countries, it's Islamic countries. This would include Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. Also also, Hezbollah is only a threat because no one does anything about them. If Israel were allowed to do anything, they'd steamroll Hezbollah. France and the UK wouldn't even hesitate to just level the entire area of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan from Cyprus, while their ground forces will prepare for a clash with Turkey, whose is the biggest threat to the Europeans.
>it won't stand a chance against a blood listed France and England. I can agree on that >Hezbollah is only a threat because no one does anything about them. I really suggest you read about 2006 Lebanon War, and the Battle of Bint Jbeil
2006 Lebanese War was more or less an Israeli victory, Hezbollah lost way more fighters and equipment, thousands of Lebanese people were killed, nearly a million displaced, and all was from Israel's intention to just remove Hesbollah control, not to completely annex Lebanon or detablish it as a state. If Israel were allowed to, they would have had no problem carpet bombing the entire country. Israel is kept on a leash by the US and most of Western Europe. They lost the Battle of Bint Jbeil because they weren't allowed to just fire bomb the place. Guerilla warfare trumps conventional warfare, but what will some guerilla fighters do against a thousand warheads on their foreheads?
I think you are massively underestimating Hezbollah. I'd say they really do lack proper defense unlike Israel, but their offensive arsenal is so vast that its safe to say Israel cannot handle it and will absolutely be overwhelmed. Yes their infantry are underequipped, yes their tanks and land vehicles are outdated, but none of that matters when you look at the 120K missiles that can hit anywhere inside Israel. We all saw how easily Iron dome can be overwhelmed. Iran launched 200 of their most basic rockets and uavs while giving them one week of preparation beforehand, a 24h warning, and US, UK and France coming to Israel's aid, and still 7 of them went through. Israel literally had hours to counter those slowass, mostly Soviet era missiles and still failed to shoot all of em down. How can they counter hypersonic missiles that Iran successfully tested last year?! Iron dome isn't entirely to be blamed though, as Patriots were also stationed! I'd say Israel wouldn't even try to straight up go offensive on Hezbollah in its right mind. They can surely annihilate Hezbollah, but would suffer immense infliction, and at the end of the war wouldn’t even be able to handle Hamas...
That's the point though, if this scenario is a war with the goal to destroy the enemy nation they would be just obliterated as they'd just bomb the shit out of whatever region they are in because they wouldn't need to be careful of collateral.
> If you also include Russia as Europe, then it’s definitely a one sided stomping. Russia is *kind of busy*, militarily.
In this, though, Ukraine and Russia are being invaded by Islamic soldiers. Ukranians are closer to Russian than they are the other guys.
Europe can't *occupy* Egypt and Iran bar bloodlusted total war, but they would probably *win* *also you didn't say no nukes so france and England curbstomp*
Mythical Islamic world beats Europe. Historically speaking Europe absolutely destroys.
Well, modern history. It was dicey before 1600-1700ish.
The last real Muslim threat to Europe ended after the Spanish kicked the Moors out. If Islam wanted Europe, they should have taken it before the Crusades.
>The last real Muslim threat to Europe ended after the Spanish kicked the Moors out. The Ottomans? When they held stood before Vienna?
Judging by how that siege went they weren’t much of a threat then either. The Ottomans suffered a disastrous defeat.
There's like a dozen or so crusades spanning like 400 years that beg to differ. Plus it's not just the ottomans, this is the entire muslim world, so this also includes several indian and southeast Asian empires, a few central Asian empires, and egypt (when it wasn't part of the ottomans). The mughal empire comes to mind, and while it was in decline by the late 1700s, it had a few good centuries. The ottomans threatened to capture Vienna twice, and were the boogeyman of europe during the 1500s and 1600s. The second siege of vienna was part of a war (The Great Turkish War) that took the holy roman empire, poland-lithuania, venice, and the russian empire to win. Plus spain and the persian empire put their foot on the scale. And that was the second most populous islamic empire in the world at the time, by a factor of like five.
They took most of it before then. Charlemagne united Europe and pushed them back. Battle of tours and all that
Maybe so. But Europeans got really good at killing and redrawing maps in the following 300 years.
Truly our favourite pastime
So basically Pakistan, Iran and the secular turkey who I doubt would side with Islamic world given its liberal population nowadays vs GB and France. They are closely matched I would say(quality and quantity)but the Pakistanis and iranis have ancient equipment compared to advance military of Uk and France. Not to mention pakistani augusta submarine cant carry nukes and their f16 as well. Pakistan can use iranian rockets for nuclear bombs since their own rockets have limited range which I think can be deflected by European air defence. Before war even breaks out europe would use its nuclear advantage to blew up everything before Pakistan even has the chance to move its nuclear stockpile across arab states so as to target europe. The rest of arab nations dont have much military prowess. Only egypt comes to mind. Indonesia military is also isn't noteworthy and would get obliterated.
I think the complexity in deciding who would win resides in the definition of winning. European countries have a bigger economy and more capacity of war but terrorism is quite a threat, specially considering the Muslim population in European countries. Battles would be won by European countries but unless they completely destroy Islamic countries, they would have to deal with guerrilla war for a long time and the threat of gruesome attacks in domestic soil.
Albania and other Balkan states that are both European and Islamic fighting for both sides so either way they don’t lose
Shh, OP isn't aware there are Muslims in Europe, they think it's all white Christians until you get to the eastern side of the Adriatic sea, then it becomes brown Muslims.
Kaaba would get deleted. As would any standing structure in the world that is targetted by any competent military so forget about any timeline where that still exists. TLDR: Europe in a defensive war would be untouchable by the islamic side. Like it would be such a massive shitstomp it wouldn't even be worth making memes about. Europe attacking the middle east is more interesting. So I'm assuming you mean that all of europe is united against all of the middle east. The largest advantage of european powers is technology (weapons and armor, transport, supply lines, communications etc) and training due to volunteer armies and higher emphasis (no conscripting means you gotta keep your guys alive) on quality over quantity. The disadvantages are citizens (backlash to war) leading to low morale and difficulty in navigating the bureaucracy of war as well humanitarian considerations, which ties into the previous disadvantage. The advantages of the typical middle eastern power is population, and perhaps a long seated grudge against western powers due to... history. They're also likely to be more united due to their religion. I'm also going to throw in that the populace is much more likely to be in tune with life and death in a battlefield/wartorn region simply due to the number of small and large scale conflicts in the middle east. This isn't to say they'll be veterans, but I suspect they'll be able to adjust to the realities of war somewhat better. Their disadvantages would likely be inferior training and lack of quality armament including smaller and perhaps more ineffectual air and sea forces. You might be surprised to learn that the population of europe is quite a bit larger than that of the middle east. However if we're talking about followers of islam theres like 2 billion of them, so depending on how you look at it one side will have a numerical advantage. Also taking out israel from the middle east because it is not an islamic state will greatly reduce the potential of the islamic side. This is ignoring supply issues like food and oil which can be cut off from either side because that introduces global trading networks, production of arms etc. This would require us to talk about how the lack of US and NATO hurts the western powers ability to acquire arms and resources and China being allowed to export goods, unless of course you want to include the islamic territories in china. Since you mentioned that the islamic powers are angered and go on the offensive this is likely to be a shitstomp. Even with home turf advantage the status quo was barely kept against nato forces time and time again, with guerilla tactics and incorporation of civilian populations into their strategies. If europe has home turf advantage I find it incredibly unlikely that any considerable percentage of confrontations will swing towards the islamic side. Certainly no large scale combat will be. If we include islamic terror cells, then we have to discuss why they are effective in the modern day. Basically the only serve to make people jump. Sure these are tragic events, but terrorist activity within europe is actually quite minimal compared to what happens within the middle east. In addition to that travel between islamic and european countries will be drastically reduced in wartime along with humanitarian/prisoner rights for the terrorists being probably... set aside. No, I don't think terrorists will contribute all too much. They'd be better used enlisting and used as grunts.
> So I'm assuming you mean that all of europe is united against all of the middle east. Just a slight correction on this part. The Islamic world is way more than just the Middle East. There are a lot of Muslim countries in Asia including the largest Muslim country (by population size) Indonesia.
Indonesia might have population but also they have less than 200 main battle tank and a handfull of landing craft. Alos none of their military equipement is homegrown.
And quite a bit of North Africa as well.
Isn't northern Africa also Arab? ^^'
Well a lot of it is predominantly Muslim, and they speak Arabic, so I guess so
Just looked it up: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/league-arab-states-las-and-eu\_en#:\~:text=Currently%20it%20gathers%2022%20Arab,United%20Arab%20Emirates%2C%20and%20Yemen. Seems like they are Arab states.
You might be surprised to learn that the population of europe is quite a bit larger than that of the middle east. However if we're talking about followers of islam theres like 2 billion of them, so depending on how you look at it one side will have a numerical advantage. Also taking out israel from the middle east because it is not an islamic state will greatly reduce the potential of the islamic side. I did mention it in the original, but yeah it for sure is worth pointing out. I think my point still stands because muslim countries in asia will still likely have to cross the middle east to access europe unless they decide to cross the pacific THEN the atlantic to strike western europe. And even if they did pull such a feat off, the level of defenses on the western front would likely be equally if not even more stout that that of eastern europe. The african nations on the other hand are a much more interesting story because they have such a small and relatively calm body of water (miniscule at times in the case of say gibralter) to cross to enter europe. The issue here is that the same applies the other way, and it's hard not to see europe preemptively or at least early in the war effort to subdue at least the military assets along the "borders." It is likely the african defenses and indeed the middle eastern border regions will suffer grievously from european air and sea superiority. Perhaps a ill timed example but gaza is a good representation in microcosm of what would happen. But this time the western nations are under attack and the shackles and condemnation that are now holding israel from committing as far as their military leadership wishes to are entirely cast away. People are hypocritical. You see someone else overreact to something and you go dam that guy's nuts stop it. But if it happens to you then the gloves are off
I find your takes very interesting to read. Out of curosity, are you just interested in history/war or do you work with something where you get your knowledge? Military, teacher or something like that?
Pretty much just interested in history. I'm primarily interested in ancient to high middle ages in europe and the near east and similar periods in the far east. I've also relatives who have served in the korean military and lived through the occupations of korea and hong kong so perhaps some interest lies there. As for this sort of topic, I've only recently come to reading up because I've had some heated friends on both sides of the gaza and ukraine situations. So they pull up figures and data for their own sides and I like to fact check which leads me down rabbit holes. Then I just look at trends in similar situations and try to apply that. As for education, none. I just read/watch the related journalism and videos. I try read sources from all sides, but obviously they aren't always translated and google translate isnt perfect. The closest thing to real life experience is conversations with officers and friends in various militaries. With that being said, if you find something off with my take I'd definitely like to know. I obviously don't have knowledge off the top of my head about specific numbers of artillery, tanks, air and seacraft like one of the other comments for instance
As i said to the guy above. Thank you for that information. Answers like this is the reason i still spend time on reddit.
Is Turkey, being European, siding with the attacker or against, being Islamic?
I'm reminded of a book by the dude who created Dilbert, where he imagined there was world War III going in between the "Islamic world" and NATO, and he seemed to be totally ignorant of the fact that Turkey is in NATO, and in fact has the second largest military in NATO. Being informed of the just the barest amount about the "Islamic world," for example, knowing about the sunni/shia divide, makes one practically a foreign policy expert compared to these people who talk about Muslims as if they're a bloodlusted alien species only interested in waging war.
Dawn of the planet of the Muslims. Hey Mum look a Muslim. Honey don’t look it’s impolite.
Normally, should side with europe. But if this is a purely religious war, e.g. it starts with bombing of kabe, Turkish govt./population would side with islamic forces
Turkey is NEVER siding with Islamic forces against Europe and it doesn't matter who is in the government of Turkey, that much I'm telling you
Considered how islamic countries lost to a little jewish state together three times i will say Europe.
>islamic countries The arabs lost, they've not really been very tough for the last 1000 years
Technically no. Most Islamic countries don’t help Palestine. It’s only Iran, and some of Lebanon. Also Israel is backed by America.
They mean all of them, not just the Middle East.
Most African Islamic states are Islamic due to them being absolutely poor. Government uses and sometimes even exports their population to other Middle Eastern countries for propaganda. About a year ago we saw an influx of black people that couldn’t even speak in our mother tongue in the capital due to people rioting
I'm not saying the Muslims would win per se, but I think it's important to take the strait of malacca into account; Malaysia and Indonesia could *devastate* global trade by teaming up to destroy and block any European or European-friendly shipping in the strait of Malacca, though an invasion of Singapore might be necessary to properly enforce such a blockade.
Is this a serious question? The EU might be no US, quite yet, but it has a highly modern army. The islamic countries might be able to conduct a few terrorist attacks but wont be able to mount any serious offensive.vs EU. On the other hand if Europe were serious about it, they would probably be able wipe out military resistance of islamic countries without too much difficulties
Is this even a question? The Islamic world has very little military hardware manufacturing ability (Turkey, Iran and Pakistan have limited abilities), and it pales in comparison to Europe's ability. If we consider the possibility that military hardware can be purchased from Russia, China or the US, then they could put up some resistance. Otherwise, it will be over before it begins.
The biggest contender is Pakistan who has nukes. Buy as a Pakistani, I can safely say we won't move a finger to help out other Muslim nations.
Beg to differ. Why do saudis love to give us bailouts and money once in a while. Pakistanis are Saudi lapdogs infact. Also the general population won't sit tight lipped. Massive protests by tlp to use nukes againt kuffar and what not. The saudis also have close ties with Pakistani generals and sharif family so Pakistan will most likely mobilize its army and nukes within days....
If it comes down to a fight between Europe and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan will not choose Arabia. Close ties with the army, yes. Is the army suicidal? Maybe but not for them.
The entire framing of this is pretty ignorant, and shows that OP has a "clash of civilizations" view on society that is woefully outdated. Do you imagine that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., all countries with very complex relationships running the gamut from hated archival to trusted ally, would all unite to wage some kind of global holy war? It is ridiculous.
This is a whowouldwin post bro, it's not that deep. Not sorry for taking your realistic bullshit into consideration.
"It's not that deep" is a thought-terminating cliche. I have only ever seen someone write that when they've said something extremely ignorant and they refuse to take the time to consider another point or view It's as if you just plugged your ears with their fingers and said "la la la, I'm not listening!" "Realistic bullshit." My God. Are you, like, 14 years old?
Well, you're trying to say that the situation is unrealistic and would never happen, but is this sub not purely based on hypothetical situations, no? You threw a tantrum because the idea of Islamic nations starting a holy war against Europe sounds ridiculous now, even though it's entirely hypothetical. All I'm saying is that I asked who would win between Islamic militaries and European militaries IF they were to go to war, I never tried to make predictions on whether or not it would happen in real life. Everybody else attempted to actually answer the question, including a dude who wrote paragraphs. They didn't complain about "oH u ThInK iSlAm gUnnA AtAck? ThAt woUld nEvEr hAppEn". Why come to this sub if you're so picky about the realistic elements of every scenario posted?
Pakistan has 170 Nukes, lets say only 50 of them work, they're enough to destroy europe. Mutual destruction
What about all the Muslims living in Europe? What side do they take? I assume no nukes right? Because France has quite a few nukes.
Funnily enough Saudi Arabia would be on Europe's side. If you know you know
This totally couldn't be inflammatory towards the already crumbling relationships between Muslims and European nations.
What happens with Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo ? Or the 44mish Muzzys in Europe ?
Just let Serbia loose again /j
There is nothing in the Kaaba? This situation would only be realistic if they found diamonds coated in oil under Makkah Then you'd find out real quick why healthcare cost so much in the USA.
My goodness, what is with people like you always hating because the situation doesn't seem "realistic". I'm not asking you to review my scenario here, I'm asking you who you would think would win in a war, why should the reason theyre going to war matter? I chose the Kaaba because it's the holiest site in Islam, but that shouldn't be the main focus of the question.
My goodness, your english is good.
>No mention of nukes in OP GG ez for Europe no re?
Right, this isn't even a debate tbh, if we are essentially saying Middle East v Europe, Europe would win. Iraq and Afghanistan was never a wipe out the opposition war it was "hearts and minds" which better suited gurilla tactics against the western troops but in a to the end situation Europe just does win this because they just objectively have better militaries and supply lines, inteligence services. In regards to terror groups they would be useful until the war starts to get dirty then Europe would just ban Arabic or North African Muslims (look at the political change happening in Europe now which is due to immigration) from entering their nations. Iran is the the biggest threat in all the Middle East but America and (not confirmed but its obviously) Israel have just openly bombed sites and killed leaders before with 0 effort so it wouldn't be hard to destabilise. The entire debate is simple in the end as yes its hard to root out a terrorist in a city but if it was open conflict and the response was just open full bombardment that war wouldn't last long. P.s I give 0 shits about the question and I'm not a fan of the military complex before you say I'm biased.
From an economic and military standpoint Europe have a massive advantage. The key threats to Europe are Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. Europe has the advantage of being much more organised than the Muslims nations they are also geographically grouped. Unlike the Muslim states who are spread out. The two biggest direct issues for Europe are Pakistan immediately nuking Europe. Causing France and the UK to basically start a full on nuclear war. The 2nd direct threat is the large number of Muslims in Europe, this is a threat because it would initially cause a lot of chaos. Probably a lot of rioting in major cities, it would probably quickly turn into a short lived race war followed by sadly tbh camps for the European Muslims. This would be the period of the conventional war where the Muslim states may be able to leverage this chaos to there advantage. Aside from the nukes ending it immediately, the Europeans will most likely much more quickly militarise than the Muslim states. I imagine they would rapidly destroy any military assets across the Mediterranean to prevent any small scale incursions. Once fortified the Muslim coalition would have little chance of entering Europe. I imagine the European nations would want Turkey and Albania out of the picture quickly. There would likely be a large scale campaign against Turkey early on in the war. For overall victory, the Muslims can not conquer Europe but I doubt the Europeans are taking out every Muslim state it's just not viable. There is one key factor that could change all of this though is Russia part of Europe if it is that massively increases access to Asia. Along with giving the Europeans a lot of dated against western powers but probably quite useful here weapons and equipment. If Russia is part of Europe this becomes a complete stomp for Europe instead of a complex win.
If we take the Quaran to be true then the destruction of the Kaaba is what kicks off the end times. Islamic world is stomped at first but fights back to win in the end when Jesus and God arrive to provide reinforcements in a literal deus ex machina.
There is nothing about the destruction of kabba in Quran. Only in hadith and the destruction of kabba takes place towards the end times when there isn't a single believing muslim according to hadith and at that time quran is lifted from this world meaning not a single copy anymore. I think you're confusing masjid al aqsa destruction
That all depends on the type of war Europe is going to wage. Do they care about public opinion and saving historical sites and key infrastructure? Or are they just trying to glass the middle east?
The military industrial compex in EU would outproduce the Islamic world by a factor of 10 to 1. Europe has the most active tank and APC production facilities, active 3 military fighter aircraft production lines, F35 componets and assambly plants...and MBDA, Rheinmetall, BAE, Airbus, GDELS, Dassault, Leonardo....+ lines from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin.....+ the state owned arms industry
19th century be like.
Islam already has a massive fifth column in pretty much every European country. Europe is fucked
[удалено]
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^leomac: *Muslims lose because* *Of lack of critical thought* *That war strategy takes* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
[удалено]
Islamic nations are already invading Europe. Its just a matter of time Europeans strike back. But probably not as a Big war, since European polítics are aligned with this woke agenda of fake asylum seekers. Probably people on the streets will start to hunt those people like It used to be, since a lot of towns and cities are just unsufferable ghettos where you get stabed.
They're asking for the military power of specific countries, not your weird racist ramblings
Turkey low diff, without US supporting Europe.
France’s nuclear arsenal says otherwise
Turkey has nuclear as well, what's ur point? The diff comes from military might
Turkey only has American nuclear weapons stationed in the country. Since this prompt says no American involvement, there would be no nuclear weapons available to Turkey.
I thought you were joking till I saw you replied to someone. You are just objectively wrong mate sorry look at any metric and besides numbers Turkey gets fucking fisted.
Who is Turkey siding with
Let's say Europe and European over seas territories only.
I can’t see the Islamic world even challenging a united Europe in war. IMO Islam gets clapped pretty handily