Europe

[Furunculus]

People like me. Hopefully the union will occur slowly over the next 100 years or so. Too many people have tried to unify Europe with military force. Legislative force will fail as well. Integration, openness, and time will bring Europe together.

sounds like a good result.

successful nations adapt and evolve to the situation around them, and who knows, in a hundred years time my two tests may have different answers, but for britain now and the near future there is no point in subsuming into dysfunctional federal europe.

[Samurai Waki]

Got to be a part of the problem if you want to be a part of the solution.

[Furunculus]

sounds catchy, does it actually apply to geo-politics in the specific situation of the UK and the EU?

[Tribesman]

in that case i am a fruitbat too, for believing that the first duty of the sovereign nation state is the defence of the realm, and any government that apportions less than 5% of spending to Defence when we have spent the last fives years fighting two wars is grossly negligent of its duty to the British people. i have zero problems with the aims and ambitions of the UKNDA.

Which nations spend more than 5%?

[Furunculus]

much easier to find comparative figures for defence spending by percentage of GDP, because nations use different proportions of GDP on annual spending.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat.../2034rank.html

the UK is listed 70th, but that is based on 2005 figures when defence spending was around 2.4%, whereas in reality it is about 2.2% today, which given that government spending is ~44% of GDP means that defence represents ~5% of government spending.

[Tribesman]

So then which of those countries which make the magic number do you consider good examples for a soveriegn nation to immitate as its "first duty"?

[Furunculus]

So then which of those countries which make the magic number do you consider good examples for a soveriegn nation to immitate as its "first duty"?

i don't care what course other nations choose to pursue. :)

[Tribesman]

i don't care what course other nations choose to pursue.

But surely if they meet your criteria of what a soveriegn nation should do then you can pick one as an example for what you want your country to do.

[Tribesman]

you haven't challenged that point at all, there have been various for you to choose from, and the poll quite adequately showed the difference between one nation with public support for the war in question and other nations that did not have public support.

you mean the polls where the respondants in different countries were asked very different questions under entirely different circumstances ?
Yeah thats a good way to compare things. It adequately shows nothing.
Which is why you should have used the pre-war polls when no nation was already going to war and the peoples opinions all could be accurately gauged with the same question....but then of course the numbers would have been completely at odds with your claims wouldn't they.

What purpose does your second question actually have in this discussion?

If your views held true among the population there would be no problem filling the positions would there, there would also be no problem re-introducing conscription. Pay and conditions would mean very little as they would all think they are fulfilling the primary role of the soveriegn state

[Furunculus]

don't be so dramatic. why bring conscription into anything?

it's not needed
it's not useful
it's not wanted

pay and conditions explains a great deal, you have heard about that thing called overstretch have you not, if not then any brit on this forum will happily leave you better informed.

but again with the purposeless distraction that has nothing to do with european politics, why?