Munich security conference

[Kagemusha]

....ah, the great dream. I have doubts about its efficacy until "civilization" as you are using it here is a universal norm. Best wishes to you.

On the other hand, combine this with my earlier posts regarding funding a bit, and I would say you are onto something.

Most of Europe, as it stands now, spends far too much on their militaries. I do not mean that they spend too much in terms of what they could spend economically, but that the levels of spending are a huge waste. If you are not going to fund a military that can make a practical difference to your defense/strategic objectives, then why waste the money in the first place? It's like that old saw about the most expensive thing in the world was the second-best navy -- cause it gets sunk and the resources are effectively wasted. Europe should either fund legitimately useful forces (either unilaterally or multilaterally if they prefer) or it should just give up the game and focus its funding on police, drug rehab, education, and other social welfare.

Specifics:

What is the point of a 20k person army in Belgium? They possess no heavy armor, few tracked vehicles, and little artillery. Aside from 30k worth of military and civilian jobs, what good is a force size that would have trouble defending Antwerpen?

The Royal Navy has 77 hulls (discounting the perma-docked), 19 of which are under 100t displacement. Major surface vessels and subs, combined, represent fewer than 30 vessels -- one large integrated task force. Does that level of force make sense? The RN has ONE potential force projection effort possible at any given time. The RN's value in defending England would be negligible. Is one tool of force projection worth the cost?

Denmark has a smaller military than Belgium, but still maintains more than 800 vehicles and the RDAF fields two squadrons of fighter-bombers. Despite its smaller size, the force is significantly more expensive -- and expensive to maintain -- than that of Belgium.

@Seamus Fermanagh. Strange..Very strange post.Dont really know from where to start. Have you no knowledge that you have singled out only NATO countries and most of their forces have been earmarked for NATO command structure?
Just to point out your example of Belgium. Their land component is composed of mechanized brigade called "Medium Brigade", which is part of NATO´s Eurocorps, which in turn comprises of 10th German armored division, 1st Spanish Mechanized Division, The French-German Brigade and and a Luxembourgian reconnaissance company. The other half of Belgian land component is a air mobile Brigade.
Do you think NATO has lost its meaning and should be disbanded? Or whats the case?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

@Seamus Fermanagh. Strange..Very strange post.Dont really know from where to start. Have you no knowledge that you have singled out only NATO countries and most of their forces have been earmarked for NATO command structure?
Just to point out your example of Belgium. Their land component is composed of mechanized brigade called "Medium Brigade", which is part of NATO´s Eurocorps, which in turn comprises of 10th German armored division, 1st Spanish Mechanized Division, The French-German Brigade and and a Luxembourgian reconnaissance company. The other half of Belgian land component is a air mobile Brigade.
Do you think NATO has lost its meaning and should be disbanded? Or whats the case?

The discussion had moved towards Europe taking a more active role. Others above had asserted the need to do so as Europe, not as a group of countries. NATO could be such a framework, but I think you will find that many in Europe feel that NATO is superfluous now, and that some see it as counter-productive.

I was just suggesting that the examples above made no sense in light of the individual situations of the countries in question. As part of a larger integrated NATO command they do, I will grant you. That integration is all predicated on defending from an attack -- and still largely oriented on defending from an attack moving East to West. Is that still valid?

[Kagemusha]

The discussion had moved towards Europe taking a more active role. Others above had asserted the need to do so as Europe, not as a group of countries. NATO could be such a framework, but I think you will find that many in Europe feel that NATO is superfluous now, and that some see it as counter-productive.

I was just suggesting that the examples above made no sense in light of the individual situations of the countries in question. As part of a larger integrated NATO command they do, I will grant you. That integration is all predicated on defending from an attack -- and still largely oriented on defending from an attack moving East to West. Is that still valid?

Of course they do not make sense out of context, but the current context for reality concerning security is NATO for most of Europe and their militaries have been built accordingly. Ever since the cold war ended European NATO countries have been downshifting their armed forces away from large mechanized formations, towards more mobile forces with better equipment. What Europe is really only lacking is real blue water navies, but are those really a priority when US has 11 Carrier strike Groups, which can move their European allied forces pretty much everywhere on the planet?

Like i posted before. To me this whole issue is low priority. If US would take more isolationist stand towards World politics, then it would become an issue.