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Unless you reside within a small carbaord box, you probably know by now that there is a lot of friction between America and her European allies. While the argument about Iraq's pissant dictatorial regime won't lead to armed conflict between Europe and America, this difference of opinion leads to some tough questions. What sort of dynamic will evolve between the New World and the Old World, now that their is no Soviet threat? How loyal will America's allies remain? How much influence does America have overseas?


So, here are the scenarios.
1. America wants to send troops to conquer a small, African nation. Many European nations have interests in this nation. The nation has a history of horrific human rights violations, giving the Americans the moral high ground, but it also has natural resources, currently being utalized by a number or european nations. Therefore, both America and Europe have economic intrests as well as moral interests. Which faction gets it's way?

2. If America where to launch an invasion of this small African country, and a EU military alliance were to move in to stop the American forces, would they succeed? Is the EU powerful enough militarily? How do they rate when compared to American troops? Assume England stays out of it.

In short, which is more potent militarily, and which side has the most diplomatic clout?

Thirdfain wrote:
So, here are the scenarios.
1. America wants to send troops to conquer a small, African nation. Many European nations have interests in this nation. The nation has a history of horrific human rights violations, giving the Americans the moral high ground, but it also has natural resources, currently being utalized by a number or european nations. Therefore, both America and Europe have economic intrests as well as moral interests. Which faction gets it's way?

The U.S does not bother itself with Africa, not on moral grounds, anyway. Also, South Africa and other regional powers have the habit to participate in their neighbours wars, and wouldn't like an armed invasion of the U.S.
Guerrilla war would be hell to fight (Vietnam, multiplied by a few). A small African country is just not worth the resources of an invasion.

2. If America where to launch an invasion of this small African country, and a EU military alliance were to move in to stop the American forces, would they succeed? Is the EU powerful enough militarily? How do they rate when compared to American troops? Assume England stays out of it.

The U.K can side with the E.U forces, it would still be a hopeless fight. The E.U is not a military organization. Our projection forces are almost non existant. We have defensive capabilites, and lots of WMD, and that's about it.

In short, which is more potent militarily, and which side has the most diplomatic clout?

Due to the African countries history and current relations, Europe has an home advantage in the diplomacy field.

As far has the military is concerned, there wouldn't even be a fight.

Give us twenty years and we shall see.

I don't think the EU could beat us. The U.S. Navy would be able to control the seas (though the Royal Navy could give us a hard fight if Britain sided with the EU, the Royal Navy is not nearly as large as the U.S. Navy, but it's very well trained, and has modern equipment). I think it likely that the U.S. would obtain air superiority in fairly short order as well. The EU countries don't seem to possess an air superiority fighter as good as ours, nor are their pilots quite as well trained.

The problem with this scenario is that a dictator with a history if horrific human rights violations is not, by itself, enough. After all, that's exactly what Saddam is, and look how much protest we have both at home and abroad. The U.S. government justifies the war by pointing out that A) this is really a continuation of the Gulf War, since he has consistently violated the terms of the peace settlement that ended that war; the resumption of hostilities is just the price he has to pay for not living up to his treaty obligations. And B) he is about to develop a nuclear capability, along with chemical and biological weapons, all of which he may be willing to sell to terrorists; it is better in the long run to take him out now, before he gets nukes, and becomes essentially untouchable. Neither of these conditions applies in this scenario. I do not think there would be much support for a war under the conditions you have outlined, nor should there be; there are no U.S. interests really at stake.

Ultimately, it's all about economics. The United States will never invade a country where its major corporations stand to suffer as a direct result. That means the way to ensure immunity from American interference is to build strong economic ties with it, which is why we will see lots of sniping but no actual military conflict between the EU and America (it's also why Saudi Arabia has not yet been targeted).

Thirdfain wrote:
2. If America where to launch an invasion of this small African country, and a EU military alliance were to move in to stop the American forces, would they succeed? Is the EU powerful enough militarily? How do they rate when compared to American troops? Assume England stays out of it.

The US has about six times more power projection capacity then the rest of the world combind. EU troops would be very hard pressed to even reach the country, let alone do more then die.

As its been pointed out, If America Wanted to Conquer Africa and South America, no European or Asia Nation(Russia inculded) could stop us, Of course with the Manpower we have now we could not realy Conqure and hold anything bigger than say Texas but thats beside the point

How odd, it seems to me that the beginning of the 21 st century strangely resembles the beginning of the 20th century. As for the economic ties part of this deal, I don't know, but what was Iran like in terms of economic ties in the 70s?

The US has Numerical, Technological and Training advantages over the EU.

0.1 wrote:How odd, it seems to me that the beginning of the 21 st century strangely resembles the beginning of the 20th century. As for the economic ties part of this deal, I don't know, but what was Iran like in terms of economic ties in the 70s?

They were pretty good but then that was under the Shah.


IIRC Iran is the only country we ever sold F-14s to. It's kind of weird to see them in desert camo.


EDIT: Another thing that may be of interest. Most people still refer to the Gulf as the "Persian" Gulf. Since our falling out with Iran the maps and charts the US Navy uses calls it the Arabian Gulf.

Tsyroc wrote:

0.1 wrote:How odd, it seems to me that the beginning of the 21 st century strangely resembles the beginning of the 20th century. As for the economic ties part of this deal, I don't know, but what was Iran like in terms of economic ties in the 70s?

They were pretty good but then that was under the Shah.


IIRC Iran is the only country we ever sold F-14s to. It's kind of weird to see them in desert camo.

Iran has some cool paint schemes. Iran was the only export customer for the F-14, they ordered 80 but the last aircraft was embargoed. Around 250 Phoenix missiles where also sold, and there known to have brought down quite a few Iraqi Mirages and MiG's.

Really, nothing was good/expensive enough for the shah's air force. Originally Iran was going to buy F-15's, but the Phoenix and Tomcat combo was more effective against the MiG-25, and the Soviets had been over flying Iran with them at the time. That ceased after a live fire test near Iran's northern border.

In 1979 Iran had 160 F-16's, seven E-3's, six destroyers, three subs, and a bunch of other equipment on order with America, and there where plans for another 140 F-16's, nuclear power stations and possibul Iran contributing to the F-18 program. Iran also had contracts with the UK for 125 Shir I and 1,225 Shir 2 tanks and was funding tracked Rapier development. Both where improved Chieftains.

But when the Shah fell the new government canceled almost every deal, and in any cases arms embargos would have blocked delivery.

The US navy got the four destroyers, which became the Kidd's though now Taiwan is buying them. The USAF and USN also took what few aircraft had been produced such as the Tomcat and some other equipment, HAWK and TOW missiles mostly. The Shir I was already in production and the units ended up in service with Jordan. Shir 2 was developed further into the British army's Challenger. Tracker Rapier was also adapted by the UK.


Its amazing how powerful Iran stood to become. By 1985 Israel and Iran combined, or perhaps just Iran alone could have conquered and occupied most if not all of the Middle East except Turkey within weeks. And both nations liked Turkey anyway.

Thirdfain wrote:1. America wants to send troops to conquer a small, African nation. Many European nations have interests in this nation. The nation has a history of horrific human rights violations, giving the Americans the moral high ground, but it also has natural resources, currently being utalized by a number or european nations. Therefore, both America and Europe have economic intrests as well as moral interests. Which faction gets it's way?

This is actually a very interesting question. As Mike said the key in 'reigning back' America is if it's economic interests would be comprimised. Now the EU is a big market, but in the end it has still go a ways to go before America would actually feel it's going to have to respect it (i.e. If it's important enough, really important enough, then America will just ignore the EU). America +1

Thirdfain wrote:2. If America where to launch an invasion of this small African country, and a EU military alliance were to move in to stop the American forces, would they succeed? Is the EU powerful enough militarily? How do they rate when compared to American troops? Assume England stays out of it.

With the exception of Japan, America's military request of $48 billion dollars more, is larger than any other countries entire military budget. Please understand correctly, this $48 billion wasn't the actual military budget but the extra it was given . America +2.

Europe has no force projection capabilities and given what Iraq has done to it, its diplomatic clout is limited. If this were a purely economic concern then the EU is even-stevens against the US.

I tried to tell some anti-america at some other board this but they refused to believe me that the US military was stronger than the combined European Union's.

ArmorPierce wrote: tried to tell some anti-america at some other board this but they refused to believe me that the US military was stronger than the combined European Union's.

The EU's 'military' consists of 60,000 troops If he is talking about all of the member's military combined then I don't know the exact numbers, but only a moron would assume that their capabilities even begin to match that of the US!

Does anyone have an estimate on the combined E.U. countries armies??

Tragic wrote:Does anyone have an estimate on the combined E.U. countries armies??

That would depend on whether you count the French army as a positive or negative number in the equation

Darth Wong wrote:

Tragic wrote:Does anyone have an estimate on the combined E.U. countries armies??

That would depend on whether you count the French army as a positive or negative number in the equation

That was too funny!

Tragic wrote:Does anyone have an estimate on the combined E.U. countries armies??

Insufficent about sums it up.

Darth Wong wrote:

Tragic wrote:Does anyone have an estimate on the combined E.U. countries armies??

That would depend on whether you count the French army as a positive or negative number in the equation

The French has an army?? Who would have thought that.

The combined size of the EU's military is over 1 million soldiers, but many of them are undertrained and underequipped by American standards. At the end of the Cold War, while military budgets decreased, most European leaders didn't want to risk increased unemployment, and thus the military's size stayed the same while budgets went down. When that happens, the money comes out of training and procurement.

so since they are so under trained.would it be safe to say 500,000 U.S. troops with superior equipment that are well trained take on that 1 milliion troops win??

Tragic wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:

Tragic wrote:Does anyone have an estimate on the combined E.U. countries armies??

That would depend on whether you count the French army as a positive or negative number in the equation

The French has an army?? Who would have thought that.

They can surrender in under 8 seconds...

Gandalf wrote:

Tragic wrote:

Darth Wong wrote: That would depend on whether you count the French army as a positive or negative number in the equation

The French has an army?? Who would have thought that.

They can surrender in under 8 seconds...

I doubt they could surrender fast enough.
In 7.890 seconds, 300 nukes hit France, leaving the question of surrender worthless.