How this Crisis will be resolved (for the U.S.)

[David Horn]

(12-30-2019, 11:00 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: ...  If the EU had a couple years to build up a nuclear stockpile, they could challenge the US - or Russia.

Skipping the argument about nuclear war, I'll just note that building a nuclear stockpile takes more time than "a few years". Let's assume that the choice is thermonuclear rather than simpler fission bombs. Making the fusion products is time consuming, and nearly impossible to hide. You either need heavy water reactors or more advance gas reactors to turn lithium into tritium. Neither can be built quickly. After that, the production process is slow and the resulting products need to be centrifuged into weapons grade form.

Getting the EU to that point would be at least a decade … assuming they have full access to the French and/or British production reactors.