Why can't Europe defend itself?

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar..._Member_States

The combined defence budgets of the 27 EU member states in 2008 amounted to €200.2 billion ($260.4 billion). This represents 1.63% of European Union GDP[2], second only to the US military's €477.4 billion ($620.5 billion) 2008 defence budget, which represents 4.5% of United States GDP. The EU figures include the spending for joint projects such as the Eurofighter and joint procurement of equipment.

You mean to tell me then the EU can not defend itself? I mean, Why do we have to fight all the wars and keep bases all around the world. Do the Europeans love their softy Pension benefits from the Government they can't defend themselves if the big ban Russian/Chinese/Arab come knocking?

[Shibumi]

Oh, we can.

However, we are not as, how to put it? "Eager" - to get into conflicts.

China has a lot of ground to cover before they reach us.
Russia can not tackle us.
Arabs... You got to be joking?

[Lemur]

Arabs... You got to be joking?

Hey now, we've spent upwards of two trillion in the last nine years taking it to the Arabs. And ... uh ... look at how well that's turned out!

[PanzerJaeger]

Oh boy.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Hey now, we've spent upwards of two trillion in the last nine years taking it to the Arabs. And ... uh ... look at how well that's turned out!

And look at England in Afghanistan in the 1800's. Well over a 100 years prior and even then the English, the most powerful nation in the world got whoop by them. Mongols got crushed by the Egyptians in 1260's.
Don't underestimate them.


How can you prove Russia won't? Overran you guys (part of Europe anyhow) once before....

[Sasaki Kojiro]

They can't afford it; they spend all their money on firefighters.

[rory_20_uk]

"Defend" is different to invading / pissing off the locals.

I agree that Europe has become complacent in its defence and has a very poor organisation in terms of strengths and duplication.

America uses its defence policy as part of it's Pork Barrel orders to placate areas whose industries are failing.

[Cute Wolf]

Europe has gonna weak... all they do is condemning fights anywhere... maybe an alien invasion will teach them a lesson or two...

[Lord of Lent]

We can just think of a better use for that 3 trillion dollars...

[Andres]

They can't afford it; they spend all their money on firefighters.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Nice quip Sasaki-san.

My answer would be that Europe chooses to defend themselves with a network of alliances and economic ties along with a good deal of "jaw-jaw."

Since, aside from the Balkans in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, there hasn't been a lot of harm done to the Europeans, it is pretty hard to say they've got it wrong.

Should NATO be disbanded there would need to be a shift in the approach, but right now it works well.

[Brenus]

“maybe an alien invasion will teach them a lesson or two...” Or maybe the 1,357,000 names written in the 36,785 towns and villages' Monuments from the WW1 and the 238,000 from the WW2 taught (Europe) France a lesson or two as to stop to fight each other and to stop to attack others.
So we learned our lessons: War is bad.

As foreign invasion, I am the first generation that didn’t seen one, thanks you. I have still time, but hopefully it won’t happened.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

And look at England in Afghanistan in the 1800's. Well over a 100 years prior and even then the English, the most powerful nation in the world got whoop by them. Mongols got crushed by the Egyptians in 1260's.
Don't underestimate them.


How can you prove Russia won't? Overran you guys (part of Europe anyhow) once before....

You mean "Great Britain".

In any case - the Afgans didn't "whoop" the Empire, they just faught it to exhaustion. Or, more to the point, they did what they are doing to America now.

Can we defend ourselves?

Yes, but we dod not have long-range Force projection, the whole of Europe has three Aircraft Carriers between all its nations. How many does the US have these days? 12?

That's where your money is.

[Sarmatian]

How can you prove Russia won't? Overran you guys (part of Europe anyhow) once before....

More than once, actually, but since Russian GDP is waaaay smaller than EU's, they really can't do it, they'd get spanked. And they have no reason to. Since they can't and they don't want to, there is no real reason to afraid, is there?

China, kind of similar to Russia.

Arabs, now that is a joke...

[Hax]

You mean "Great Britain".

Wouldn't you rather say "The United Kingdom"? I'm feeling sorry for all the soldiers from Man being left out of it all.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You mean to tell me then the EU can not defend itself?

Erm, according to that excerpt the EU represents the 2nd largest military budget (after the USA). And unlike the USA the EU doesn't make a point of annoying the people of Okinawa on a semi predictable basis. Instead we prefer to deal with Somali pirates which is less expensive and more useful altogether.

I mean, Why do we have to fight all the wars and keep bases all around the world.

You do know that the USA chose to do that. There was no military need for the USA to invade Iraq, it just felt like it. You can agree or disagree with the motives but the point remains that as long as the USA continues to remain a meddlesome power it is going to get tied up in all sorts of regional conflicts. That's not so different from the EU but what is different is that as long as the USA's approach to exerting influence is by sending in its armed forces the USA is going to be tied up in all sorts of regional wars. It's much cheaper to supply a conditional bilateral loan than to spray a country with bullets and not get what you want either.

Do the Europeans love their softy Pension benefits from the Government they can't defend themselves if the big ban Russian/Chinese/Arab come knocking?

They won't. For starters who's going to finance the Russians, Chinese, and Arabs if they did? Right now it's the Europeans (well the Arabs not so much, the USA pumps in lots of money there as well). But especially China has no interest in killing off the market which fuels Chinese growth and provides China with cheap capital; Russia has its own problems to deal with -- and both China and Russia are conveniently preoccupied with the USA because both would dearly love to tell the USA to suck it up.

The one thing they do is stealing IP. But no army is going to stop that from happening, as the USA has been beginning to realise in the past few years: guns don't buy you much on the Internet.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Wouldn't you rather say "The United Kingdom"? I'm feeling sorry for all the soldiers from Man being left out of it all.

That's just how it is, we're the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". The Manx are not part of the UK, they are a crown dependency, they have their own government, with the Queen as Head of State, although they still have have British citizenship.

[Lemur]

The Manx are not part of the UK, they are a crown dependency

That sounds like a sweet deal. How do I go about applying to be a "crown dependecy"?

[Hax]

That's just how it is, we're the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". The Manx are not part of the UK, they are a crown dependency, they have their own government, with the Queen as Head of State, although they still have have British citizenship.

Intriguing.

We don't like to defend ourselves, seeing how we're cheese-loving surrender monkeys. Not just the French, all of us.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Only corrupt countries - state power used for private gain - spend more than 2% on defense. Such as the basket cases of socialist Greece, mobster-ran Bulgaria, and neoliberal America.


Massive defense spending is just a means to get one's snout in the through filled with taxpayer's money. Nobody militarily threatens Europe or America, and one does not need to fight a mule powered Taleban with an aircraft carrier.
(Rather, if you use a $1.5 trillion dollar of equipment to fight somebody with $22,50 worth of equipment, and you don't win instantly, then obviously you are not getting your money's worth and you need to spend it all more wisely.)

[a completely inoffensive name]

The EU has learned the lesson that war is not supposed to be encouraged and supported at the drop of a hat. Also, there are no more great enemies or rivalries to be fought out. The world was consolidated into two spheres, and now with free market capitalism coming out as the dominant, the world is connected to the point where everyone is supporting each other economies. We support the Chinese, the Chinese support someone else and etc...all the way until it reaches back to us. Anyone who says the Chinese will attack us is wrong. Anyone who says that Russia will attack us is wrong. China needs to sell crap, Russia needs to sell natural gas.

Arab threats all stem from the Isreali-Palistinian conflict, it serves as the great tool for recruiting destabilizing terrorists. If we simply manage to come to a peaceful solution to that conflict, the world will be likely be safer then it has been for a long time.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Arab threats all stem from the Isreali-Palistinian conflict, it serves as the great tool for recruiting destabilizing terrorists. If we simply manage to come to a peaceful solution to that conflict, the world will be likely be safer then it has been for a long time.

Well mostly from a combination of internal instability, and Western interference. See if you are upset about the local dictator abusing his power and having his “police”/intelligence service harass you every time you speak out against him, then if you learn that he's supported by some foreign power some of your feeling of frustration, aggression and hatred is going to be redirected onto that foreign power. As it happens, that power is often the USA and (less visibly) the EU.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

All of your self-entitlement programs don't help match ethiter.

[Lemur]

Arab threats all stem from the Isreali-Palistinian conflict, it serves as the great tool for recruiting destabilizing terrorists. If we simply manage to come to a peaceful solution to that conflict, the world will be likely be safer then it has been for a long time.

Oh, well then, any minute now world peace will break out. 'Cause the Israelis and Palestinians are such reasonable people.

[Tellos Athenaios]

All of your self-entitlement programs don't help match ethiter.

Match who or what and why? There's just no compelling military threat to Europe. Our armed forces are quite capable; we simply do not have world domination aspirations just yet.

[Tellos Athenaios]

That sounds like a sweet deal. How do I go about applying to be a "crown dependecy"?

First you cut off your tail. Second you find some ancient military conflict which you then resolve by you ceding your formal independence from the Crown in exchange for substantial de-facto autonomy. Next you continue to be utterly insignificant in every way you can and you do not challenge Great Britain in any respect. If you're lucky nobody notices you and your status becomes one of those old relics of the past and nobody will bother with the trouble of reorganising your domain.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

"World domination aspirations" :/

[Rhyfelwyr]

The world was consolidated into two spheres, and now with free market capitalism coming out as the dominant, the world is connected to the point where everyone is supporting each other economies. We support the Chinese, the Chinese support someone else and etc...all the way until it reaches back to us. Anyone who says the Chinese will attack us is wrong. Anyone who says that Russia will attack us is wrong. China needs to sell crap, Russia needs to sell natural gas.

They used this exact same argument about economic interconnectedness making war improbable right before the First World War. Improvements in technology have made states today more capable of being self-sufficient than at any time in the past, there's really no reason to be complacent that a war won't come about over conflicts of interest.

That sounds like a sweet deal. How do I go about applying to be a "crown dependecy"?

There's nothing you can do about it, you blew your chance so it's up to us now if we want to take you back. And we're still in a huff with you after 1776, so don't get your hopes up...

[Louis VI the Fat]

http://www.rydercup.com/2010/europe/

[Husar]

They used this exact same argument about economic interconnectedness making war improbable right before the First World War. Improvements in technology have made states today more capable of being self-sufficient than at any time in the past, there's really no reason to be complacent that a war won't come about over conflicts of interest.

The problem here seems to be that the two states that could threaten us the most finance their armies by selling stuff to us. If they attack us, they will run into great financial problems. And if you look at history, many times when Europe as a whole was under attack, it managed to work together and fend of the attackers, the Austrians alone didn't drive the Ottomans back for example, neither did the spanish do their reconquista solely with spanish soldiers. Except the USA perhaps, I don't see anyone successfully invading a Europe that stands united unless they use nukes. Another question would be why? What ressources? Since when has Europe got any ressources left? Russia surely doesn't need any more land than it has right now, China could find a lot of easier targets to expand, so why would either of them attack the hand that pays them? The results would be devastating, first they'd lose their army, then they'd go bankrupt and to top it off, some 12 US carriers and 3 european ones might start bombarding their homeland if they hadn't already surrendered at that point.not to forget that other countries might side with Europe, I'm not sure China has all that many friends in Asia either, some wannabe-autonomous regions could rebel, some neighbors try to side with Europe to get a piece of the Chinese cake. Russia isn't even as much a threat as China, the cold war is over, i wouldn't even think they have any interest in attacking Europe at all, they want to be influential and get a say in this or that, but I think they're too clever to actually bite. We also helped them out when they're in trouble, maybe that doesn't do a lot to a pragmatic leader, but can such a leader start a very dangerous war against the will of a large part of the citizentry?

Europe isn't half as defenseless as few here seem to think, next I'm going to open a thread called "Is america unable to build decent guns or why does the Abrams tank use a 120mm Rheinmetall gun from Germany?"