Europe and the Rest of the World - A Military Analysis

[Vuk]

If you were to try and rank the top 10 militaries in the world in terms of effectiveness, European nations would dominate the majority of the list.

There is a danger, though, in letting entitlements (cultural decadence if you will) eat away at a nation's military budget. I would say 3% of GDP is a solid figure not to drop below for proper maintenance of the standing force and R&D for future technology. The US/Euro bond through NATO as well as greater intra-Euro cooperation due to the EU, yield even greater economies of scale in terms of the latter.

Despite years of declining military budgets, the Western World is still very militarily secure.

In terms of size, budget, tech, etc they are ok, but esp. considering that they are small fish in the ocean, they cannot rely on out spending enemy armies and pumping more troops against them. There is a strength that cannot be directly observed or measured, and it is that that, alongside money, is the deciding factor in military engagements; much more important than troop count. History supports me on that. If Europeans are not willing to do that and straighten out as a society (which they probably will never do) it will be to their detriment, as well as to the detriment of the US and the rest of the world.
Looking at the total population, combined GDP, tech, landmass, etc of Western Europe, there is no reason that they should not collectively be far stronger than the US. They are not though, they are completely dependent on the US.