Why can't Europe defend itself?

[Rhyfelwyr]

@Husar: Much of what you said is circumstancial. There is real competition for resources and China is pushing its weight in the new scramble for Africa. As for the practicality of war, that has been shown to be a very changeable thing throughout history, depending on various changes in relations between society/politics/the military, which are far too complex to predict. I agree the circumstances right now make war unlikely, but so what, things change more than ever these days, only seventy years ago we had the first truly total war. Things might have reversed since then but there's no reason to assume that trend will continue.

It seems like the more contentious issue has to do with being able to project power around the world and contain aggressive dictators. Does anyone have an idea what the world would look like if the US didn't have that ability? What would south korea look like? That's the only concrete thing I can think of. So the question seems to be, should Europe shoulder its share of that, or can they just shrug it off as "world domination aspirations"?

While such measures might protect western strategic interests, I'm not convined they will spread democracy and create a lasting peace. The strength/roots of democracy lie in society, not in the political system itself. There are many social preconditions for democracy, like a strong middle class, an industrialised economy,centralised government etc. There can't be created overnight, and they weren't created overnight in South Korea either.

Of course, you could point out the state of affairs in North Korea, which was historically always one with the south, but I would argue that things have only been able to get the way they have done there because of international influence, artificially propping up the regime. Unfortunately things are now so bad you can't take away the food aid without everybody dying, but again that's because of foreign influence, hindering the natural deveopment of the state.

Having American troops running round having 'regime changes' seems superficial to me.

[Husar]

Things might have reversed since then but there's no reason to assume that trend will continue.

So you think there will be a nuclear war over ressources and we'll all die in the end? Because that's kinda the only way for China to beat the US, and incidentally will lead to destruction of China as well, it's a MAD scenario, also incidentally a lot of western nations are moving away from ressource-based economies. Whether that is a good or a bad idea is for another topic, but at the moment we don't seem to have a lot of incentive to compete with China over steel, in fact we're selling them our steel production facilities. Oil may be a factor but sooner or later electric cars are going to become more normal I hope and some guys in Saxony or so have found a way to make plastic from wood, hah! I just think there are many factors to such things and there isn't all that much of a reason to assume things will change as well.
In a nuclear war, having a huge armed force won't help Europe either. And if we actually need a huge force, we can still stock up, at the moment though a lot of nations have a tendency to go for smaller, better equipped and more specialized force, of course you can claim to know better than the defense minister of Germany for example, but I'm not sure I would believe you.
Those smaller forces are also meant for things like proxy wars, but I doubt we'll get something like a carrier anytime soon, more likely the forces would be flown into a friendly country nearby.

[gaelic cowboy]

I remember reading a paper on the internet some while back about the likely senario of a China/USA nuclear war and how it might end.

The author came to the conclusion that while China would lose but they could deal a crippling blow to the USA with less than a dozen nukes and USA would crumble due to her reliance on the major population centers for economic and industrial strength.