NYT interactive military budget cutter

[Simon_Jester]

My working theory (heh) is that after World War Two, the European nations realized that anything else they could do for an encore would just be anticlimactic, and decided they'd rather be remembered for the massive 1945 grand finale than for another century of stabbing each other in the backs.

My own understanding is that we realized that the Next War would be fought with Atomic Weapons, and that it dawned on us that the only way to ever win this war was to never have to fight it in the first place. And so instead we chose to voluntarily unite together and put such silly thing as hate and prejudice behind us. For Science Peace Profit.
We Europeans are a profoundly 'realistic' people at heart. We do what we mus because we can.

Well, I'm sure you can rummage up a cake somewhere.

Anyway, I was largely joking with that line. Sort of like my theory that the French accidentally burned through their reservoirs of awesome in one tremendous burst with Napoleon, and wound up in trouble because they didn't have any left to carry them through 1870-1940.

Edit : more seriously, to answer :

It's not so much a conscious sense that it is better to submit than to fight, or a fear of danger, or a desire to force America to foot the bill for pursuing Europe's interests. It's more like... a decision to step back from thoughts of war, and to step back so far that waging a war effectively becomes very difficult. Europe seems to have tried to remake itself as a 'civilian' continent.

Which, in the context where war becomes necessary, is a recipe for trouble.

We have had enough of war. Enough. We don't want it, we don't seek it, we don't want to anything to do with anymore. Ever.

Too many people died, too many people suffered, for us to remember war as anything else than the Hell it is.

Can you blame us for not wanting to fight anymore ?

I understand the logic very well; pacifism is not new. I'm certainly not unsympathetic.

However, to respect a pacifist I must know that the pacifist is enough of an adult to recognize the consequences of his own beliefs, and how those beliefs might affect others in his charge, and to deal with and understand the consequences of that responsibly.

In the case of Europe's small militaries, that means recognizing that if something you don't like happens in a moderately well armed nation a thousand kilometers or more from your shores, you probably can't do much about it. To take the example of France, one of the best-prepared nations to deal with this, against a moderately serious opponent, you can send a token force, you can threaten to launch your nuclear deterrent, but you don't have any options between "Unleash the Force de Frappe, and kill twenty million people" and "scrape together a modest armed force and pray the enemy doesn't get lucky and humiliate us."

If a small force won't work and the situation isn't serious enough to justify killing millions of people and leveling entire urban areas, you have very little choice but to shrug and accept the inevitable.

That leaves the European powers open to a lot of nasty situations, most of which they've been able to avoid worrying about only because the US is full of jingoistic muscle-flexers. As such, the Americans are willing to intervene in any situation that might threaten the prosperity or stability of Europe, and and do spend enough money on their huge military that they have options like "destroy your surface to air missile batteries overnight, but leave the rest of your country intact."

That's basically luck, and the European powers can not and should not count on it remaining true indefinitely. Which means that some day they may run smack into the problems I've described above, and be forced to basically shrug and accept things that no nation would want to permit, because they lack the power to do anything about it without grotesque overkill.

Insofar as Europeans recognize and accept this as part of the cost of doing business under their current strategy, I understand their motives and respect them as adults who choose to do things in a way that I would not.

[Rabid]

Tell me if you think I'm wrong, but I think that this in-between you are talking about may be possible to achieve by reinforcing and integrating to the military as a military tool our intelligence assets, and reinforce the usage we do of "commandos" and infiltrated cells.

May it be that what it'd lack in Shock-and-Awe would be compensated by equal-to-superior effectiveness ?

[Sidewinder]

Tell me if you think I'm wrong, but I think that this in-between you are talking about may be possible to achieve by reinforcing and integrating to the military as a military tool our intelligence assets, and reinforce the usage we do of "commandos" and infiltrated cells.

May it be that what it'd lack in Shock-and-Awe would be compensated by equal-to-superior effectiveness ?

Unless cloning is perfected, you're unlikely to have sufficiently competent "commandos" in sufficiently large numbers, for this. Even the US Army had to "scrape the barrel" to bulk up its special operations forces- something I know from personal experience. (I know several people who passed the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment's "Night Stalker School," despite physical and emotional limits that should've disqualified them, because the regiment was desperate for men and women.)

[Skgoa]

It's not so much a conscious sense that it is better to submit than to fight, or a fear of danger, or a desire to force America to foot the bill for pursuing Europe's interests. It's more like... a decision to step back from thoughts of war, and to step back so far that waging a war effectively becomes very difficult. Europe seems to have tried to remake itself as a 'civilian' continent.

I think I need to dig into my strategic pop corn reserves.

Edit: Man, if I quoted all the bullshit, it would be almost the whole thread...

[Simon_Jester]

Skgoa,

While I may be full of shit in what decisions European nations make about their militaries, I'd argue that the decision I think they're making is probably a good idea to some extent- America goes too far to the other extreme, having become so much of an armed camp that it undermines our democracy.

But think for a moment- what would the opposite of American-style interventionism look like? How would it manifest? I'd expect small, relatively low budget forces that lack the resources to do heavy-duty expeditionary warfare. As a matter of foreign policy, the nation would pursue 'soft power' means of negotiation, rarely threatening to resort to physical force to get their way. They wouldn't get entangled in the disputes of remote countries, or not easily and not on a large scale. If they did deploy troops, it would be as part of a group, with widespread international consent or acceptance of their actions, and in environments where casualties are minimal and very little brute force is required.

Which seems to be a pretty good match for the foreign policies of Europe: civil-economic-democratic society first, with the military-industrial-security complex in distant second place when it comes to setting priorities.

Contrast this to, say, the "Prussian militarism" of the Second Reich, to pick an arbitrary example.

[Skgoa]

I was actually more concerned with the implied surrender-monkey-ism and "amurrika has to have a strong military because those EUnuchs are cheap cowards", tbh. You are ascribing hidden meanings to our relatively low belligerence, that simply aren't there. The US wants to be world hegemon, we don't. It's that simple.
And I don't mean that as a personal attack, but when I read things like "when you have a military that is only big enough to defend yourself, you can't get into other people's business that easily", I want to reach through the monitor, shake whoever wrote that and scream "THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT!" Add to that that stupid meme about "Europe" not having succeded in Lybia without the US... reality check: the rebels won, your argument is invalid.

[Block]

Add to that that stupid meme about "Europe" not having succeded in Lybia without the US... reality check: the rebels won, your argument is invalid.

And rebels lose without outside help. Outside help doesn't do enough to slow down Qaddafi's forces without US support. How is that a reality check?

[Simon_Jester]

Skgoa, I think you're confusing me with other people.

There is a sliding scale of militarism in societies. At one end you get the "garrison state" which exists for war; at the other, extreme pacifism. I think the nations of Europe have made a deliberate choice to move towards the peaceful side of the scale, and the budget and organization of their military has changed accordingly. As long as the people and leaders of those nations accept and understand the consequences like responsible adults, I don't care, and I don't criticize.

I was actually more concerned with the implied surrender-monkey-ism and "amurrika has to have a strong military because those EUnuchs are cheap cowards", tbh. You are ascribing hidden meanings to our relatively low belligerence, that simply aren't there. The US wants to be world hegemon, we don't. It's that simple.

..."Implied surrender-monkey-ism?" "EUnuchs?" What the hell?

I think Europe's relatively low belligerence has a single, simple, un-hidden meaning: European nations don't want to fight very much. They don't want wars, they don't want to be equipped for wars, except for the defensive deterrent force they do maintain, which would perform fairly well at stopping anyone from actually invading them.

Fine.

As long as they don't try to keep up the pretense of being able to do things they cannot do, and as long as they aren't kidding themselves about their capabilities, fine by me.

And I don't mean that as a personal attack, but when I read things like "when you have a military that is only big enough to defend yourself, you can't get into other people's business that easily", I want to reach through the monitor, shake whoever wrote that and scream "THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT!"

I know it's the point, I came right out and said so. As long as you are aware of the possibility that someone else's business will become your business, and are willing to accept whatever cost comes from someone else meddling in your business in ways you can't respond to, that's your call.

to that that stupid meme about "Europe" not having succeded in Lybia without the US... reality check: the rebels won, your argument is invalid.

This makes no sense.

The rebels were besieged in their strongholds and getting slaughtered by attack helicopters until outside forces imposed a no-fly zone over Libya. They only succeeded in counterattacking and beating Qaddafi's forces after Qaddafi lost control of the air. So the Libyan rebels won- were dragged back from the brink of total defeat- by foreign intervention.

The question is then, how was the intervention possible? Who did it, and who was essential to it being done? And every single fucking person actually in this thread has limited their remarks to "the Americans had to launch most of the missiles on the opening day of the intervention." That is not the same as "Europe failed in Libya." That is "The European powers lacked the assets and equipment to deliver that missile strike."

The problem is that without the missile strike, all the subsequent air operations over Libya would have been more dangerous and difficult. So without the presence of the US Navy, it would have been much harder for the other nations involved to protect the Libyan rebels and give them air support.

Which, if European nations want to be able to do what was done in Libya without American help, is worrying.

If European nations are quite content to leave such problems alone, treating them as some foreigner's internal domestic problem, then there isn't an issue for them and they don't need to worry about it.

[ChaserGrey]

As one of the people I think Skgoa is referring to, let me clarify my stance. There is nothing inherently virtuous about having a strong or weak military, but it does affect a country's ability to project power. I realize that may be part of the point of a defense policy, but there are two drawbacks: 1) In an age of global trade a nation's ability to defend its way of life and ability to pursue an independent course in the world may require more than just the ability to maintain its borders, and 2) Not being able to project power worldwide (or even regionally) means you may have to accept things happening in your backyard that you would really, really rather not see happen.

If various European countries accept both (1) and (2), fine by me. Not my place to tell them how to live. Thing is, in the post Cold War era we've seen that there are some things they're not prepared to see happen, such as ethnic cleansing in Kosovo or the destruction of the rebel movement in Libya. Whereupon the U.S. cranks up, supplies the ISR and firepower to knock out air defenses and coordinate the campaign, lends munitions when domestic stocks give out, and generally provides the capabilities that Europeans have chosen not to have. The campaign ends, we're thanked kindly for being such nice allies, and then are lectured once more on our insufficient social safety net, and why do we spend so much on the military anyway?

I don't regard a particular country as somehow unmanly or "eunuched" if their military can't do force projection. That would be pretty silly. I'm frustrated because I think many folks within Europe don't appreciate just what a total lack of power projection capability means, and that the U.S. continues to insulate them from the full strategic consequences of the choices they've made.

Lonestar, I haven't given up responding to your comments on LCS, but it's been a rough week at work and I haven't had time to draft a long response. I have moderated my stance somewhat- based on your points about mine warfare it sounds like we'll need to buy at least a dozen or so one way or the other. I remain unconvinced that mass production of the current designs is a good idea.

[Kane Starkiller]

When talking about causes American "militarism" as opposed to European "pacifism" it's important to note the lessons US and Europe (or rather France, Germany and other European major powers) learned from history.

For US its birth was a result of a successful application of force which not only resulted in its independence but in acquisition of roughly 2 million km2 of territory. Further military actions against native americans spread US influence west, pressure and incursions into Florida forced Spain to cede it thus US acquired area the size of England with minimal effort and losses.
Mexican-American war again bestowed US with over 2 million km2 of territory with minimal losses. War against Spain removed it from Western Hemisphere and further improved US position in Atlantic and Pacific. Another military adventure got US the Hawaii the most strategic location in Pacific making sure that there are no staging points against US in the Pacific.
Then there were WW1 and WW2 which greatly enhanced US strategic position and power throughout the world while massively weakening all competition. Only recently with Vietnam did US experience a major defeat.

If we then look at the last 200 years of European history (roughly the lifetime of US) we can see a very different picture. France tried to conquer Europe under Napoleon and after many years of war and huge losses it ultimately failed and was defeated. Germany tried to expand in Europe two times and both times was soundly defeated each loss resulting in a huge reduction of its territory. After WW2 what was left of Germany (west) was about 45% of the pre-WW1 German Empire territory. France was victorious in that it preserved its borders but at a huge human and economic loss. Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire were completely fragmented and ceased to exist. A big counterpoint is obviously the building of European colonial empires however all of them ultimately collapsed meaning that from current perspective they cannot be regarded as a success not to mention that their collapse is much more recent thus much more ingrained into the collective psyche of European nations than their acquisition.

Thus the Americans and Europeans learned very different lessons for history. While the Americans pretty much moved from military victory to military victory each bestowing them with huge gains, Europeans learned that the very best one can hope for in a war is that your borders remain intact with the inevitable price of millions dead and economy in ruins.

[Skgoa]

Yeah, that kind of summarizes it. War is but one tool in a pretty big toolbox and - this is imho the number one lesson - it's always the one with the highest cost.

Add to that that stupid meme about "Europe" not having succeded in Lybia without the US... reality check: the rebels won, your argument is invalid.

And rebels lose without outside help. Outside help doesn't do enough to slow down Qaddafi's forces without US support. How is that a reality check?

The US reduced their involvement after a short time. "Europe" stayed on the job. The rebels won. And if that wasn't enough to convince you that what actually happened in reality is also possible, we didn't even go to a wartime footing or cut back on other commitments. How exactly does that allow for a ""Europe" could not have done it without the US" thesis to hold up?

Skgoa, I think you're confusing me with other people.

No, I was summarizing how this thread comes across. I quoted you not because you are the worst offender, but due to the casual arrogance you displayed.

There is a sliding scale of militarism in societies. At one end you get the "garrison state" which exists for war; at the other, extreme pacifism. I think the nations of Europe have made a deliberate choice to move towards the peaceful side of the scale, and the budget and organization of their military has changed accordingly. As long as the people and leaders of those nations accept and understand the consequences like responsible adults, I don't care, and I don't criticize.

The military budgets of non-US industrialized nations don't reflect anything special. They are based on analysis and predictions regarding realistic future needs. E.g. Germany: we just built the priciest IFV ever. We are in the process of building the priciest frigates ever. (That don't do anything more than the frigates we have, but they can be forward deployed for 2 years at a time.) We only recently abolished conscription because we wanted to cut cost. Our navy run a very ambitious drone project in the 90ies that mostly died due to the tech not being there, yet. European armed forces aren't shrinking due to a "small government" type reduction, they are getting leaner to be better at expeditionary warfare. Because that is what we are going to do for the foreseeable future. Why exactly do you think Germany of all places would have put amphibs into their long-term naval planning, otherwise?

I was actually more concerned with the implied surrender-monkey-ism and "amurrika has to have a strong military because those EUnuchs are cheap cowards", tbh. You are ascribing hidden meanings to our relatively low belligerence, that simply aren't there. The US wants to be world hegemon, we don't. It's that simple.

..."Implied surrender-monkey-ism?" "EUnuchs?" What the hell?

Once more: adressing the whole thread. Those are terms americans often use when they need to demonstrate their inherent superiority.

I think Europe's relatively low belligerence has a single, simple, un-hidden meaning: European nations don't want to fight very much. They don't want wars, they don't want to be equipped for wars, except for the defensive deterrent force they do maintain, which would perform fairly well at stopping anyone from actually invading them.

Fine.

As long as they don't try to keep up the pretense of being able to do things they cannot do, and as long as they aren't kidding themselves about their capabilities, fine by me.

The problem with that being of course, that "Europe" participated in Iraq 1, Iraq 2, Afghanistan, Lybia, Kosovo, Falklands... We are not only able, we are also willing. European armies are pretty badly equiped for stopping invading forces, we have based our procurement on participating in NATO. If what you claim were true, why would any european nation buy Joint Strike Fighters? Why would so many amphibs and carriers get built in Europe right now? Why would the A400m even exist?

And I don't mean that as a personal attack, but when I read things like "when you have a military that is only big enough to defend yourself, you can't get into other people's business that easily", I want to reach through the monitor, shake whoever wrote that and scream "THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT!"

I know it's the point, I came right out and said so. As long as you are aware of the possibility that someone else's business will become your business, and are willing to accept whatever cost comes from someone else meddling in your business in ways you can't respond to, that's your call.[/quote]
Oh, don't give me that passive agressive bullshit. So european nations don't have the overkill at their disposal to unilaterly bomb anyone they don't like into the ground. Yet somehow european interests and interventions/peace keeping missions do succeed. Turns out, we are an alliance and are all willing to do our part.

to that that stupid meme about "Europe" not having succeded in Lybia without the US... reality check: the rebels won, your argument is invalid.

This makes no sense.

The rebels were besieged in their strongholds and getting slaughtered by attack helicopters until outside forces imposed a no-fly zone over Libya. They only succeeded in counterattacking and beating Qaddafi's forces after Qaddafi lost control of the air. So the Libyan rebels won- were dragged back from the brink of total defeat- by foreign intervention.

The question is then, how was the intervention possible? Who did it, and who was essential to it being done? And every single fucking person actually in this thread has limited their remarks to "the Americans had to launch most of the missiles on the opening day of the intervention." That is not the same as "Europe failed in Libya." That is "The European powers lacked the assets and equipment to deliver that missile strike."

And that right there is the disingenuous part. "Europe" could have committed more forces, since those exist. We didn't, because the US had anounced they would do what they did and because it would have cost more. Both in terms of money and political capital. But that the US participated in the operation is no prove that it would not have succeeded without US involvement.

The problem is that without the missile strike, all the subsequent air operations over Libya would have been more dangerous and difficult. So without the presence of the US Navy, it would have been much harder for the other nations involved to protect the Libyan rebels and give them air support.

Which, if European nations want to be able to do what was done in Libya without American help, is worrying.

So? War is worrying, news at eleven!

If European nations are quite content to leave such problems alone, treating them as some foreigner's internal domestic problem, then there isn't an issue for them and they don't need to worry about it.

Nice tautology there, but it doesn't actually have anything to do with what we are discussing.

[Skgoa]

As one of the people I think Skgoa is referring to, let me clarify my stance. There is nothing inherently virtuous about having a strong or weak military, but it does affect a country's ability to project power. I realize that may be part of the point of a defense policy, but there are two drawbacks: 1) In an age of global trade a nation's ability to defend its way of life and ability to pursue an independent course in the world may require more than just the ability to maintain its borders, and 2) Not being able to project power worldwide (or even regionally) means you may have to accept things happening in your backyard that you would really, really rather not see happen.

If various European countries accept both (1) and (2), fine by me. Not my place to tell them how to live. Thing is, in the post Cold War era we've seen that there are some things they're not prepared to see happen, such as ethnic cleansing in Kosovo or the destruction of the rebel movement in Libya. Whereupon the U.S. cranks up, supplies the ISR and firepower to knock out air defenses and coordinate the campaign, lends munitions when domestic stocks give out, and generally provides the capabilities that Europeans have chosen not to have. The campaign ends, we're thanked kindly for being such nice allies, and then are lectured once more on our insufficient social safety net, and why do we spend so much on the military anyway?

I don't regard a particular country as somehow unmanly or "eunuched" if their military can't do force projection. That would be pretty silly. I'm frustrated because I think many folks within Europe don't appreciate just what a total lack of power projection capability means, and that the U.S. continues to insulate them from the full strategic consequences of the choices they've made.

Two things, really:
1) That the US has a lackluster social safety net is not due to it's military might. Even a tiny reduction could pay for single payer healthcare, etc., or you could just adequatly tax the super-rich.
2) Isn't the US<->"Europe" dynamic a chicken vs. egg problem? European nations depend on the US because the US is explicitly saying that we can. It's like Google's "cheaper than free" strategy, there is no good argument against taking the offer. As long as the US wants to be (seen as) the undeniable leader of the alliance, they will have to continue to actually be it. Yes , that's a tautology, but that's what is, fundamentally, behind this. You want to spend less? Then do it. But don't come crying when NATO falls apart or does things you don't like.

[Block]

The US reduced their involvement after a short time. "Europe" stayed on the job. The rebels won. And if that wasn't enough to convince you that what actually happened in reality is also possible, we didn't even go to a wartime footing or cut back on other commitments. How exactly does that allow for a ""Europe" could not have done it without the US" thesis to hold up?

Because time is an issue Skoga. European forces could not have done enough quickly enough to stop Qaddafi's forces from reaching Ben Ghazi without the US opening the door for them. If they had unlimited amounts of time, sure the countries involved could've eventually reduced the air defence network and started bombing Qaddafi's forces effectively, but the real world doesn't work that way, things had to be done quickly or it was pointless.

[Rabid]

European defense strategies are from the ground up axed around their participation to NATO.

So it's a bit of a lol when people "criticize" us because we can't act alone without the US. That's the damn point of the Alliance in the first place.

[Simon_Jester]

European defense strategies are from the ground up axed around their participation to NATO.

So it's a bit of a lol when people "criticize" us because we can't act alone without the US. That's the damn point of the Alliance in the first place.

From the US point of view, the 'point' of NATO is not, and was not for at the least several decades, to prevent European militaries from acting alone without US support.

If European militaries choose not to act alone without US support, that's their choice. It may have unintended consequences as the US domestic situation forces a scale-back in American willingness and ability to get involved in foreign wars.

And it seems like I can't even talk about this without getting jumped by people who feel that the honor of France/Germany/elsewhere has been stained.

Add to that that stupid meme about "Europe" not having succeded in Lybia without the US... reality check: the rebels won, your argument is invalid.

And rebels lose without outside help. Outside help doesn't do enough to slow down Qaddafi's forces without US support. How is that a reality check?

The US reduced their involvement after a short time. "Europe" stayed on the job. The rebels won. And if that wasn't enough to convince you that what actually happened in reality is also possible, we didn't even go to a wartime footing or cut back on other commitments. How exactly does that allow for a ""Europe" could not have done it without the US" thesis to hold up?

Because someone had to launch a hundred cruise missiles in one night to make the battle plan work. Who, exactly, was going to do that? You do not get the same result in war from delivering 20% of the firepower every day for five days that you get from delivering 100% of the firepower in one day. There are times and places where one is better than the other, and when you're trying to save a bunch of ragtag guerilla freedom fighters from being annihilated by a well equipped but low-morale army, that's when you want to break out your Sunday punch

Skgoa, I think you're confusing me with other people.

No, I was summarizing how this thread comes across. I quoted you not because you are the worst offender, but due to the casual arrogance you displayed.

Then I must say that I resent your use of terms and arguments I never used, as if you were responding directly to me, when you were in fact responding to a nebulous category of people who have as much to do with the shape of the strawmen you construct in your own mind as with the reality.

The military budgets of non-US industrialized nations don't reflect anything special. They are based on analysis and predictions regarding realistic future needs. E.g. Germany: we just built the priciest IFV ever. We are in the process of building the priciest frigates ever. (That don't do anything more than the frigates we have, but they can be forward deployed for 2 years at a time.) We only recently abolished conscription because we wanted to cut cost. Our navy run a very ambitious drone project in the 90ies that mostly died due to the tech not being there, yet. European armed forces aren't shrinking due to a "small government" type reduction, they are getting leaner to be better at expeditionary warfare. Because that is what we are going to do for the foreseeable future. Why exactly do you think Germany of all places would have put amphibs into their long-term naval planning, otherwise?

As I noted, European militaries are often well trained and equipped- they're just small, or tend to be, and represent a medium to low share of GDP. In this case, size matters, because it has huge effects on what you can do with the force you've built: half the ships operating for twice as long will not achieve the same results as twice the ships fighting for half as long.

Because of the small overall sizes of individual European national militaries, and the lack of a coordinated scheme for fitting the militaries into a single continental force ("okay, Britain builds the carriers, Germany builds the amphibs, France builds the armored divisions, and everyone else chips in for the Eurofighters" or something like that), the militaries of Europe are only suited for expeditionary warfare when they're piggybacking with someone else. All the European militaries combined could, with a lot of pushing and shoving and 'figure it out as we go along,' support each other and work together... or they could piggyback on the US, individually or in groups.

I was actually more concerned with the implied surrender-monkey-ism and "amurrika has to have a strong military because those EUnuchs are cheap cowards", tbh. You are ascribing hidden meanings to our relatively low belligerence, that simply aren't there. The US wants to be world hegemon, we don't. It's that simple.

..."Implied surrender-monkey-ism?" "EUnuchs?" What the hell?

Once more: adressing the whole thread. Those are terms americans often use when they need to demonstrate their inherent superiority.

And yet no one in the thread said those things. You seem to want us to have said them, but we didn't.

I call this a strawman.

The problem with that being of course, that "Europe" participated in Iraq 1, Iraq 2, Afghanistan, Lybia, Kosovo, Falklands... We are not only able, we are also willing. European armies are pretty badly equiped for stopping invading forces, we have based our procurement on participating in NATO. If what you claim were true, why would any european nation buy Joint Strike Fighters? Why would so many amphibs and carriers get built in Europe right now? Why would the A400m even exist?

1)

And I don't mean that as a personal attack, but when I read things like "when you have a military that is only big enough to defend yourself, you can't get into other people's business that easily", I want to reach through the monitor, shake whoever wrote that and scream "THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT!"

I know it's the point, I came right out and said so. As long as you are aware of the possibility that someone else's business will become your business, and are willing to accept whatever cost comes from someone else meddling in your business in ways you can't respond to, that's your call.

Oh, don't give me that passive agressive bullshit. So european nations don't have the overkill at their disposal to unilaterly bomb anyone they don't like into the ground. Yet somehow european interests and interventions/peace keeping missions do succeed. Turns out, we are an alliance and are all willing to do our part.

Look, Skgoa, I'm trying to be realistic here. The US is not in good shape. We've fucked up our domestic policy, we've fucked up our foreign policy. Our politics are a basket case, our economy is a shambles. That affects the armed forces now. Just maintaining the US military at the relative peak of dominance it enjoyed in the mid-1990s is forcing us to spend an incredible amount of money: the whole reason this 'interactive budget cutter' exists is because we're reaching the limit. Just replacing the Cold War-vintage stuff on a one for one basis is getting too expensive, even for the jingoist chest-thumpers.

So if you're looking forward to 2030 or 2040, one thing that must be considered is that the US might simply cease to be in any position to act as a unilateral alliance-leader, that it will no longer be able to provide whatever assets and capabilities the European militaries choose not to cultivate because they can get those things from the Americans for free.

After that happens, Europe will have to be able and willing to look at a world where it cannot count on anyone else to provide it with the transport planes or intelligence-gathering or conventional airstrike capability it wants and chose not to pay for. Which means Europe must either accept a reduced ability to make its wishes relevant to hostile parts of the world, or must spend more money to keep that ability.

I live in a country I expect to be in decline for most of my adult life, and I don't want to see the bulk of the Western World shackled to it as it goes down that road.

If you think that's condescension, I can't help you.

And that right there is the disingenuous part. "Europe" could have committed more forces, since those exist. We didn't, because the US had anounced they would do what they did and because it would have cost more. Both in terms of money and political capital. But that the US participated in the operation is no prove that it would not have succeeded without US involvement.

If the assets were available to quickly demolish the Libyan air defenses, if the logistics permitted them to be fielded without the use of American equipment and ships and planes, then I am not being disingenuous; I am simply wrong.

Am I wrong?

The problem is that without the missile strike, all the subsequent air operations over Libya would have been more dangerous and difficult. So without the presence of the US Navy, it would have been much harder for the other nations involved to protect the Libyan rebels and give them air support.

Which, if European nations want to be able to do what was done in Libya without American help, is worrying.

So? War is worrying, news at eleven!

This is totally incoherent. Did you just see "war" and "worrying" in the same paragraph and decide to make a one-line joke about it?

I'm not going to try and repeat or explain this bit, because I think it stands alone as it is. I may be flat-out wrong about what the European air forces and navies involved in Libya could have done without US participation, but that impacts the premises, not the reasoning, of the argument.

If European nations are quite content to leave such problems alone, treating them as some foreigner's internal domestic problem, then there isn't an issue for them and they don't need to worry about it.

Nice tautology there, but it doesn't actually have anything to do with what we are discussing.

Doesn't it? I thought we were talking about the size of the US military budget, the size of European military budgets, the fact that the large US military budget is unsustainably large and is going to be cut, and the fact that the European military budgets don't add up to give them capabilities to replace what they'll lose if the US stops providing free backup.

Which it may have to, because our domestic policy is a mess.

[Siege]

It could be just me but I genuinely don't get this tangent. NATO is what it is because it works really well this way. For example in Libya the USA, which is the leader of the alliance because everybody thought - for various reasons - that it would be a good idea it would be, kicked in the door, and the Europeans then took over and finished the job. Score one for freedom, multilateralism and apple pie!

So what's the problem exactly? That Europe, such as it is, couldn't have done it without the USA? Well, maybe it couldn't have. Then again it didn't have to, did it? Because the USA is right there, and it has a military several times the size of everything else on the planet. That's just a fact. It'd be silly not to assume that when push comes to shove, that military will probably see some use. Another fact: military cooperation within the EU is fraught with political difficulties that won't be sorted out for some time. Expecting the EU to "pull its weight" militarily is not only a very nebulous expectation indeed, it also completely ignores the aforementioned difficulties, which are very real and very serious matters. If there was an easy answer to questions like "how do we combine an astute joint foreign policy with a national veto" or "how do we jive subordination of troops to multinational taskforces with the German constitution" then somebody in Brussels would've foud it by now. They didn't, so there probably isn't one.

And as long as there is no such answer, European militaries will probably continue to be relatively small, because everything else is unaffordable. I suppose that's unfortunate in a way, but nobody ever said that integrating a continent full of countries was going to be easy, or for that matter quick. And this is something the United States' leadership is probably aware of, hence why NATO was set up the way it was. And what an extraordinary success it proved to be! It won the Cold War, it intervened in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya... Were they mostly American operations? I'm sure. But so what? Are we really faulting an organization purposely set up the way it was for being what it is? Or is this really actually about groups of ill-educated Europeans and Americans shouting epithets at each other for all kinds of supposed moral failings like not providing social security nets or not militarizing enough? 'Cause if it's the latter, that strikes me as pretty silly, and not actually really having all that much to do with the subject of why Western militaries are what they are.

[Simon_Jester]

Speaking for myself, I'm content with the situation as long as everyone goes into it eyes open. No American should expect European countries to spend the same percentage of GDP that the US does, as long as the US goes out of its way to play "alliance leader" with Europe. No European should expect that if the US stops playing "alliance leader," Europe will be able to retain overseas intervention capability without paying for it.

I think most of the clued-in people on both sides of the Atlantic understand this, but in certain sectors (again, on both sides) you get irrational things like "haha, look at the feeble sanctimonious idiots!" Or "are you calling us a bunch of gutless EUnuchs? You want a piece of me? Come on, let's fight about it!"

I don't like that; I think we should be able to keep our discussions rational when we talk about threat analysis, what's going on in the world, what can or should be done about it, and what the future of militaries is in a world that will hopefully remain on the whole peaceful.

[ComradeClaus]

But why do european countries purchase items that they'll never use?

like germany bought hundreds of taurus cruise missiles (which are only usefull for smashing bunkers, since "cluster bomblets & thermobarics are evil") and several Ubertech uboats (a waste of money since surface ships are faster & more versatile) but at the same time, won't even commit resources it has, to aid it's allies? (MBB 105/PAH-1 gunships, UH-1 transports & leopard 2s not used in A-stan) And note, the a400 is taking forever & is less capable than the C-17, which britain decided to order... they got their deliveries from the US promptly. oddly, germany put more priority on the Typhoon, rather than new transport planes & helicopters, which need replacement (their C.160s, UH-1/ Ch-53s are 40 years old) urgently while cutting orders for the A400 & NH90 [both are complete shit, 20+ years to develop an airplane?! america can do kit in 10, the Nazis (me-262, & Fa-223) in just 5/6 years. But the modern Luftwaffe needs SOMETHING that it actually uses]. the other EU countries who buy British/ French are in the same leaky boat.

For the US military, I'd cancel the Ford Class UberCarrier & replace the Enterprise/Nimitz series (as they wear out) by an Enlarged wasp class LSD (basically, one large enough to deploy F/A-18 E/F & A-10s) carries marines AND guarantees air supremacy/ pulverizes ground targets at a fraction of the cost of F-35 & Ford.

The LCS is shit, a new version of VLS-equiped Perry would've been a better vessel

Cancel the F-35. I don't care how much money it wastes, a hundred million dollar plus, SINGLE ENGINE Uberjet is useless in almost all military scenarios. Tell Lockheed & Boeing to make more A-10 clones (we have the blueprints for them still, right?) as for needing stealth, HARM equipped UCAVs are much cheaper & more expendable for SEAD. W/ cruise missiles to take out enemy runways & aircraft shelters, there's no need to work w/ UberJaeger like F-22 or EuroFail Typhoon (Germany should just buy F/A-18s, more capable & they'll get deliveries much faster)

For the new bomber, make a bomber variant of the C-17 (turn a truck into a bomb truck) For a new tanker, just put hose & drogue & moar fuel (worked fine on KC-130) on C-17 (why buy airbus?)

LSD/CVs, some Burke Heavy Missile destroyers, lots of VLS Perry Frigates, along w/ a small force of Ohio SSGN & SSBN are all that's needed for the Navy, the Marines should be integrated as the Navy's land combat force (SEALs/ Force RECON merge too.) though allowed free reign in procuring their equipment (AH-1Z & UH-1Y are epic!)

for the air force, F/A-18E/F/G (F-16 & F-35 suck) & multi-role C-17s (transport/ tanker/ bomber/ AWACS/ J-STARS) Keep those lovely C-130s in production too. And maybe some C-5 type giant transports for special-purposes. (Light, medium & heavy "trucks") Maybe make an AC-17 or AC-5

Assign the A-10s to the Army (& make an AMRAAM carrying version [look-up shoot-up] to dominate the airspace above the battlefield), they'll be more efficient under the chain of command that needs them the most. & make a troop carrier version of Abrams to replace bradley (like Namer/Merkava APC) as well as a piston engined Abrams variant (the turbine has too many disadvantages, sucks too much gas, too much sand & it's hot exhaust is bad for friendly infantry in urban combat)

Finally, replace the fucking M-16/ M-4 w/ a lightened (synthetic folding stick, rather than wood), smaller caliber (6.8 is good) M-14 in designated marksman & carbine variants (w/ a removable barrel, bipod & C-mag/ quadstak for SAW). Far cheaper to make something that exists & works, than spend years designing new shit.


No need to reinvent the wheel if it still works

[Beowulf]

But why do european countries purchase items that they'll never use?

like germany bought hundreds of taurus cruise missiles (which are only usefull for smashing bunkers, since "cluster bomblets & thermobarics are evil") and several Ubertech uboats (a waste of money since surface ships are faster & more versatile) but at the same time, won't even commit resources it has, to aid it's allies? (MBB 105/PAH-1 gunships, UH-1 transports & leopard 2s not used in A-stan) And note, the a400 is taking forever & is less capable than the C-17, which britain decided to order... they got their deliveries from the US promptly. oddly, germany put more priority on the Typhoon, rather than new transport planes & helicopters, which need replacement (their C.160s, UH-1/ Ch-53s are 40 years old) urgently while cutting orders for the A400 & NH90 [both are complete shit, 20+ years to develop an airplane?! america can do kit in 10, the Nazis (me-262, & Fa-223) in just 5/6 years. But the modern Luftwaffe needs SOMETHING that it actually uses]. the other EU countries who buy British/ French are in the same leaky boat.

For the US military, I'd cancel the Ford Class UberCarrier & replace the Enterprise/Nimitz series (as they wear out) by an Enlarged wasp class LSD (basically, one large enough to deploy F/A-18 E/F & A-10s) carries marines AND guarantees air supremacy/ pulverizes ground targets at a fraction of the cost of F-35 & Ford.

The LCS is shit, a new version of VLS-equiped Perry would've been a better vessel

Cancel the F-35. I don't care how much money it wastes, a hundred million dollar plus, SINGLE ENGINE Uberjet is useless in almost all military scenarios. Tell Lockheed & Boeing to make more A-10 clones (we have the blueprints for them still, right?) as for needing stealth, HARM equipped UCAVs are much cheaper & more expendable for SEAD. W/ cruise missiles to take out enemy runways & aircraft shelters, there's no need to work w/ UberJaeger like F-22 or EuroFail Typhoon (Germany should just buy F/A-18s, more capable & they'll get deliveries much faster)

For the new bomber, make a bomber variant of the C-17 (turn a truck into a bomb truck) For a new tanker, just put hose & drogue & moar fuel (worked fine on KC-130) on C-17 (why buy airbus?)

LSD/CVs, some Burke Heavy Missile destroyers, lots of VLS Perry Frigates, along w/ a small force of Ohio SSGN & SSBN are all that's needed for the Navy, the Marines should be integrated as the Navy's land combat force (SEALs/ Force RECON merge too.) though allowed free reign in procuring their equipment (AH-1Z & UH-1Y are epic!)

for the air force, F/A-18E/F/G (F-16 & F-35 suck) & multi-role C-17s (transport/ tanker/ bomber/ AWACS/ J-STARS) Keep those lovely C-130s in production too. And maybe some C-5 type giant transports for special-purposes. (Light, medium & heavy "trucks") Maybe make an AC-17 or AC-5

Assign the A-10s to the Army (& make an AMRAAM carrying version [look-up shoot-up] to dominate the airspace above the battlefield), they'll be more efficient under the chain of command that needs them the most. & make a troop carrier version of Abrams to replace bradley (like Namer/Merkava APC) as well as a piston engined Abrams variant (the turbine has too many disadvantages, sucks too much gas, too much sand & it's hot exhaust is bad for friendly infantry in urban combat)

Finally, replace the fucking M-16/ M-4 w/ a lightened (synthetic folding stick, rather than wood), smaller caliber (6.8 is good) M-14 in designated marksman & carbine variants (w/ a removable barrel, bipod & C-mag/ quadstak for SAW). Far cheaper to make something that exists & works, than spend years designing new shit.


No need to reinvent the wheel if it still works

Wow... I don't know what to say to the last half. You can't make a super carrier any smaller, really. I mean, you could, but it wouldn't be appreciably cheaper, while being much, much less effective. If you enlarge a Wasp class (well, beyond the fact they're straight deck ships designed for helicopter use, rather than angled deck required for real carrier ops), you effectively have an entirely new ship. So you'll have to do all the detail design all over again. Oh, and all of the long lead items for the Ford have already been ordered. You need to consider whether it's cheaper to finish off the Ford, or come up with a insignificantly cheaper, crappier substitute. Oh, and A-10s aren't carrier capable. I mean, you may be able to land one on a super carrier, but you'll end up using the entire deck. And they're not made of marinized materials. So they'll fall apart (as in literally bunch of metal scrap) after a couple years.

The LCS is shit, but it's what we've got. They're figuring that they shouldn't have to make any more changes to the blueprints of the LCS-1 class after the LCS-5 is built. For the job that the Perry does, the LCS can do the exact same thing (acting as a helicopter hangar on the high seas). The thing about the LCS is that it's not just replacing the Perry, and so if you get a Perry replacement, you've still got to replace the other ships too.

The A-10 is dead. It's doubtful we've got the production capabilities to build another one from scratch. The manufacturer went out of business shortly after the last one rolled off the line. The Fairchild-Republic didn't even expect to get the contract in the first place. You couldn't fit a radar to be able to control an AMRAAM on one either. There's no place to put it. The nose is gun, cockpit, refueling port and other avionics.

Almost every single reasonably high performance Western fighter now costs over $100m. Example: 18 F-16s to the IqAF would cost about $4.2 billion. Now, some of that is support equipment and spare parts... Still over $100M if you count half the cost as not flyable airframes. The F-18E/F isn't much, if any cheaper. Last budget request was $2.66B for 28 aircraft, or just shy of $100M each.

A bomber variant of the C-17 is great... if all we need to do is drop bombs on third world countries that can't fight back. A tanker variant of the C-17 that just adds a hose and drogue unit is useless for the USAF. Essentially no aircraft is setup for probe and drogue refueling. Bombers can't even suck down enough fuel that way for it to be worth it. We're not buying Airbus anyways. Boeing got the KC contract. And no, you're not going to manage to replace all the F-16s with F-18s in a reasonably quick enough manner to get away with hose and drogue fueling.

I don't even know why I'm responding. Most of your ideas are so bad they're not even wrong. Being wrong implies that they're in the same reality as being right.

[Sidewinder]

Most of your ideas are so bad they're not even wrong. Being wrong implies that they're in the same reality as being right.

Unfortunately, Congress and the DoD is FULL of ComradeClaus-type idiots- those with ZERO knowledge of how the military, and the industries that support it- work.

I wonder if it's possible to set up an apprenticeship or other training program for newly elected political leaders, to teach them how the real world works BEFORE they have a chance to fuck up their own nation?

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, that was a nice solid chunk of stupidity there.

The problem is that there's a certain type of milgeek who makes a fetish out of certain ideas: "A-10s are AWESOME. 5.56mm NATO ammo is for PUSSIES. Fighter jets should be CHEAP. Planes should be designed in FIVE YEARS." And they reinforce each other, because they're really simple and you can write long diatribes about why you think they're true, even when you're a complete idiot.

Hell, I used to believe most of the things like that myself at some point. I just learned more and realized how silly some of them were.

So Claus reads a badassoftheweek.com article on the A-10 and decides that now he knows it's the best thing ever to happen to US military aviation or whatever. Or he reads some disgruntled halfwit saying that we should never have gone from the M-14 to the M-16, same thing happens. And he just does not know the context to judge those ideas. Hell, I'm lucky if he sees that there's anything out there for him to know, because military hardware decisions can be remade without looking at the reasons why the decisions were made in the first place, right?

[Skgoa]

Simon_Jester: Yeah, I was trolling. It was hyperbole and unfair. But it did achieve what I wanted: it changed the debate. Because before it was a self-congratulating circle-jerk.

Having said that, I am going to break with convention and note quote, because that would fragment our posts ever further.


European ability to intervene (in Lybia)

1) On 19 March 2011, french aircraft flew a combat air patrol over Benghazi and attacked tanks at 16:45. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op%C3%A9ration_Harmattan) The US and Britain launched their Tomahawk attack on the Lybian air defense network at 21h. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Odyssey_Dawn)
2) Note the incredibly low numbers of attack aircraft that were commited in the first days: France: 17, UK: 16, and I am not even going to count the rest. I hope you believe me when I tell you that these countries could have deployed more, if they had felt the need to. There actually was no race against time to save the rebels.
3) The US spend 1.1 billion dollars on this war. That is, simply put, not a price "Europe" is willing to pay.


The size of european armies/picking up the slack

America is the king of overkill. Europe isn't but claiming that european armies are (relatively) small is just false. The US wants to be able to fight huge wars, even though those are extremely unlikely. If america reduced it's military spending, european nations would probably raise their spending a bit to get capabilities they would lose access to, in that you are correct. (And it's happening right now.) But not by as much as you think. There is a disparity in what the US and Europe see as necessary. Most american bases and forward deployed troops would go unreplaced, simply because we see no point in e.g. occupying Afganistan or stationing troops in Asia.
That's why I think saying "if you don't spend as much on your military as america, you have to accept that you have no power to influence what happens in other countries" is disingenuous. There are many UN peacekeeping missions the US is not part of. Those are the missions we like. And if the US can't do their special brand of liberating in the future, than that's a net positive for the world. But it also has only minimal impact on european ability to participate or lead peacekeeping efforts. We are already building more carriers and amphibs, we are building transport and tanker airplanes.


Lack of coordination

Actually, we have an EU agency for that and most aquisition programs are transnational joint-buys. There is also a certain degree of specialization in the alliance. (Brits are the best at ASW, Germany has a "flying OR", etc.) But this can only go so far, because the NATO treaty actually binds all members to commiting a certain number of forces, each. E.g. German has to have 17 ocean-going escorts. Even though we don't have anything for them to escort, ourselves. BTW it was always the US' role to get and secure air dominance. That's why the Eurofighter is a multi role fighter and the F22 is an air dominance fighter.
It's a system that works and that everyone is happy with. So most european countries can't invade most non-NATO countries in the world unilaterally... but why should we care? We are an alliance and that won't change.


edit: damn, were did all these post get from?

[Skgoa]

And to answer the questions about why Germany buys these things:
- A400m: it's a tactical transport that is big enough to act as a limited strategic transport. It will replace our C-160. The C-17 is a big strategic transport that we don't need, since NATO has several in a joint-owned pool.
- UH-1: we are getting NH90.
- CH-53: There is no alternative on the market. We could modernize them again but development of Ch-53K has only recently been started. Boeing and Eurocopter are jointly working on a new Heavy Transport Helicopter. At the moment it looks like it's going to be an enlarged CH-47.
- Our U-boats are used to insert special forces, to police the north sea and as commercials for other countries, so taht they buy our boats. And we are pretty good at selling U-boats, since ours are the best non-nuclear ones.

[Zaune]

- A400m: it's a tactical transport that is big enough to act as a limited strategic transport. It will replace our C-160. The C-17 is a big strategic transport that we don't need, since NATO has several in a joint-owned pool.

Wouldn't that create some problems if you needed a full-size strategic transport for an operation independent of NATO? I realise there aren't many likely scenarios where that might be necessary, but if your government is only taking likely scenarios into account when making defence procurement decisions then they're doing it wrong.

[Simon_Jester]

I may be wrong, but it seems to me like the modern German military doesn't really plan to fight any war that doesn't involve much of NATO being on their side.

That's a grand strategy decision. They're choosing not to bother with certain possibilities, things that they think are unlikely. By doing so, they seem to be trying to reduce the risk of getting involved in aggressive foreign wars again, which Germany has had more than enough of.

EDIT: To clarify, that decision is made at a level above military procurement choices. Basically, when you buy military hardware, first you decide what you want it for, then you decide what to buy. If Germans decide they never want to fight a war without NATO backing, then their choices on what kind of transport planes to buy would follow from that.