Why Cyprus? We already have Israel as an ally in that region. Euros are too fickle to be counted on as individual nations, in any case, NATO is obsolete and mothballed along with the UN farce. New roles need defining and development these days. I'm still curious as to how Europe is 'paying the U.S.'s freight in Europe'. Any numbers out there for examination?
There are recent studies that do show deployments can be as quick or quicker from the U.S. as from bases like Ramstein and other European bases; I guess it depends on where they're being deployed to. Probably not likely to be needed in Europe for a couple of decades at least, so yes, maybe so. I would like to see a couple more carrier divisions, two carriers each, bobbing around in the Indian Ocean and the south Atlantic. And yes, I do know the difference between carrier division and a task force or battle group with only one carrier assigned.
Take your pick Belarus, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Isreal, US, Brazil, India, China, Japan and others are threats to European nations and their interest. Within Europe itself different nations threaten each other. This military rearmament of Europe's 7 main powers could be good or bad, it could cause multipule wars as it did in the past or groups of nations joining together into alliances as it did in the past. Europe's 7 main powers are Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Poland, then you have the Eurasian powers Turkey and Russia. They all threat each other. My current guess is the alliance of the UK, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Holland against France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Poland. With Sweden in a thrid group of not allied nations, as it's continental power has been shot since the great northern war.
Yes, from our view a European military is feasible, but Euros are still highly nationalistic; but so is the U.S.; it may be an intractable issue politically, but it shouldn't be.
Take France for example. No country is a serious threat to France including the US. France used to have over 1000 nukes. They currently keep around 300. There is just no point in having more. 300 nukes is sufficient to deter any threat.
Yes but you can only use nuclear weapons if they are used against you, nuclear weapons are political tools and are of almost no military value. The submarines the UK and France use as launch platforms for there nuclear deterrent are valuable in conventional military terms though. When I say rearm, I mean the capability to fighting long large scale wars against other foreign powers independent of allied help. No country in Europe today can do this. Only Russia, India, China and the US could do it. European armies, navies and air forces are far to small.
Yes but you can only use nuclear weapons if they are used against you This is false. The US used nukes against Japan without them being used on the US. No country is going to attack France knowing that if they do so in a significant way they will be destroyed by nukes.
The was before there was a international framework for the non proliferation of nuclear weapons. France overseas territories, like the UK does, but if they used nuclear weapons against a non nuclear power the whole world would turn against them. So the UK didn't nuke Argentina. French is attacked all the time by terrorists.
Because we could buy it outright and make it a US territory, thus eliminating the whole 'Euro' issue. And Israel is just too small and too close to too many hostile states, no defensive depth at all. This causes plenty of problems for the Israelis and we don't need that. I totally agree about NATO.
I'm not talking about France using nukes against a non nuclear power and I am not talking about a terrorist attack. France does not need a significant re-arming to fight terrorism. The question here is what is the "significant threat" such that France needs to re-arm. There is none. No country in their right mind is going to launch a "significant" attack against France. If a non nuclear country did launch a significant attack against France it would be the rest of the world ganging up on that country and not against France to avert nuclear war.
The Euro crisis is economic. Who exactly is going to be attacking who within Europe ? There is no European scenario that passes the giggle test and spending a bunch of money on unnecessary military equipment is not going to help the economic problems
The British had Malta, Cyprus and Gibraltar, they dominated the Med. The US would have to do something like that, otherwise Cyprus could be cut off from the US.
Look at the Falklands, they UK got limited support from a few nations, but many in the region supported Argentina. If one of the African nations tried to take a French territory the same would happen. France has threats, terrorism in Mali, the Libyan operation, France needed much help in both. - - - Updated - - - Civil war is more likely in Greece and Spain, but I wouldn't count out a European war.
The Great Depression was an economic crisis too, and it directly lead to the rise of fascism in Germany and several other European states. It worked for us, Roosevelt's rearmament programs were instrumental in reviving the US economy. But, it's not really any of my business, not being a European. Just don't expect us to save you from yourselves. Again.
The Balkans in the 1990's is an example of a situation that could have spread, and an economic fiasco would certainly hurt eastern Europe and destabilize it, along with the others you mentioned. Problem in Turkey, or an Egypt that shuts down the Suez canal is another Euro issue.
If Egypt shut down the Suez canal the US would be effected and have to do something about it. Turkey is less of a problem, unless they invade Greece or Greece attacks them.
The Brits and France have more than enough firepower to deal with tiny issues such as the falklands. Terrorism does not count and Libya is an offensive operation. Libya was not a threat to France. The issue here is one of scope. France (perhaps not the best example because they are a world superpower and the others are not) does not need re-arming. They have a huge military relative to smaller countries and Russia and China are not a threat due to nuclear. The Brits do not need re-arming. Perhaps some of the smaller countries in Europe have small military but what is the threat to their security ? These countries do not have nukes. The US has way too much stuff yet we still continue to build it anyway despite military analysts knowing the stuff obsolete. I'm talking aircraft carriers, destroyers, and manned fighter jets. There is no point in bankrupting a nation building up for a threat that does not exist.
You are right the Falklands was a small conflict which the UK nearly lost because we didn't have enough aircraft carriers and no artillery ships for shore bombardment to support landings. Our submarine and anti-submarine work was very good, because the UK military was trained and equipped to deal with Russian submarines in the North Sea. Right now the UK has no carriers and bombardment capability, fewer submarines and aircraft to support an operation. The UK really needs to rearm, more ships with a allround capability to fight wars and support landings. Libya was fought to kill Gaddafi and defeat the Chinese in North Africa, definate threats to Europe, the UK and France. No Russia and China are threats because they can give money and arms to groups, then those groups do terrorist or there allies in a country, Europe and the US do the same. It's all a matter of what you government wants the military to do, the UK government wan't the UK military to do things the government will not pay for. US carriers, destroyers and aircraft aren't obseolete they just cost to much money. So Iran doesn't threaten Saudi Arabia? Or North Korea doesn't threaten South Korea? Or China isn't threatening all of South East Asia? You want the US navy and air force to pull back, close all the bases and cut R&D spending? Ok you do that see what happens.
Agreed. Dangerous times ahead. These are not comparable situations WWII was WWII and after the war the US was the only economy left standing. The US is already spending 1/3rd of its Federal income on military.
ROFLMAO!! Do the terrorists know that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare Have you ever actually been in any kind of military? Source? Which includes about 75% of our surface combatants. So tell me, you've gone on at length about all the things we DON'T need, what is it you think we DO need?
