Poor European defence spending.

What is NAFTA?

Since NATO wouldn't be in this war just Europe, Turkey wouldn't get involved, the Europeans know what Turkey would try and do in Syria, so they wouldn't want Turkey in Syria. You know the Ottoman Empire and the Kurds. According to Robert Fisk to the US doesn't want to go into Syria. So that leaves Europe and some Gulf states. There is also Israel, Lebanon, Iraq all to worry about, either spill over or them being taken into a ethnic war.

2 land bases can also be attacked and taken out of service. So submarine launched cruise missiles or if the Europeans had any some cruisers could help out. Then the aircraft can be sent in from the air bases, carriers and helicopter carriers to support the rebels.

 

Yes so the operation needed additional aircraft, jets from Charles De Gaulle and naval Apache attack helicopters from HMS Ocean, plus a French Mistral class amphibious assault ship with Eurotiger attack helicopters. So European air forces couldn't do the job.

Nobody in the west wants Turkey to invade Syria or even be part of a intervention.

It could have been done by Storm Shadow, but it was done by navy launched Tomahawks and US stealth bombers.

Really you think Europe could defeat Egypt? Have you had a look at the Egyptian military in the past year or so, their country maybe be falling apart but they aren't.

No it's because they don't spend enough on defence, many of them less than 1% of GDP.

 

Because they are subsidized by the US.

They can afford to not spend on defense because we defend them free of charge.

In the case of Turkey-Syria, Turkey would not have to be directly involved to allow Europe to use its airbases.

And yes, the Europeans could defeat Egypt. Egyptian army training is awful. So is their Air Force's. Their navy would get wiped out within days of a conflict beginning and I would be seriously suprised if Europe took any losses themselves. Once, the Egyptian navy and air force are downed, there is nothing stopping the Europeans from landing a beachhead force and then superior follow on forces.

 

So why is the EU planning "To alleviate the existing European Air-to-Air Refuelling shortfall and to make the ACQUISITION/operation of an Air-to-Air Refuelling capability more affordable for pMS. Pooling of DEMAND FOR COMMERCIAL OPTIONS will reduce costs, LEASING EXISTING CAPABILITY will lead to income generation for those with assets, and PROCURING a range of assets together from A400M conversion equipment to Airbus A330s will enhance capability"

and;

"TOMORROW: work will be done to take stock of the progressive fielding out of old platforms and of the Libya lessons; of the planned PROCUREMENT programs;"

But not one word, literally, about 'deploying' anything. You see, the 'coordination/cooperation' they're talking about is in procurement, not deployment. Failure to coordinate tanker procurement programs is how Europe ended up with 10 different airframes to perform the same mission. Which means nobody can work on anyone's jets except their own and zero commonality for spare parts. Joint procurement programs like Tornado and Typhoon were created to alleviate this problem in combat aircraft, maybe now they'll start applying it to support platforms.

And one other thing, 40 tankers were deployed to support Unified Protector, 10 European and 30 US, so if Europe had deployed their entire tanker force of 42, they could have supported the operation without US assets, assuming they could maintain a 95% serviceability rate. But there is no way in hell they could have supported any more aircraft committed to the operation, as you maintain.

 

Actually I think Europe would be thrilled for Turkey to step up. It would not look so much like an entirely European issue if a Muslim majority country was involved.

Turkey frankly has more motivation to stop the violence in Syria than any European country, and has the forces and location handy. The question is whether Turkey is willing to get bogged down in Syria.

I don't think Turkey will participate- but I think NATO would ask them to.

 

I agree with you, procurement is the main problem. When you have every nation building operating a different class of frigate, with different armaments and systems. Some want American systems and armaments others want a mix of European or national systems and armament others like the French have almost nothing American on their ships. One of the reasons why their ships aren't as good as the UK's. The nearest Europe has come to having a common asset is the Typhoon, the French were close enough to staying on board with the program, then it would have been the 5 major European nations using it.

I really don't see how common procurement could work, some nations aren't wealthy enough to afford state of the art modern aircraft and ships, so they get older Russian exports. The best we can hope for is the 5 major European powers to have common procurement, but the Germans now see a huge export market, as do the French and British, so they will keep building different armaments. I think the main problem is that private business gets in the way of procurement and R&D cost, like we in the UK are building the Type 26 frigate, it's about the same size as the Type 23, so why are we designing a whole new ship when we could just do new builds of the Type 23 and fit it with new systems and armament inside just about the same hull, we could save £2-3 billion this way. We are doing it because of the possible export market like Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, Philippines, Canada, Australia and so on.

 

paranoia of epic proportions ...

 

I agree too that is paranoia nowadays to talk about North Africa as a threat, NA countries are too weak politically, they are lacerated by too many political factions and tribal assets to mantain a military struggle against a EU country. Also techically no one of them, neither Egypt (that is the strongest north african country), can handle a comparison against northern mediterranean countries, ok, they have f-16s and lot of M1 tanks but the mainteinance and training issue exists, how they can be a credible threat for any european country? How many f-16 can fly? How they can defeat Eurofighters, Rafales and greek f-16s? How can a Navy composed by patrol craft and missile boat can survive a match against french, italian, spanish and greek navies probably without controlling the airspace too? Tunisian navy is composed by 2nd hand european coastal boat of the 70's, air force is made by 12 f-5s. New lybian army is mantained alive thanks to italian and french supplies and doesn't succeed even in mantaining control of the country. Algerian air force is operated by 2nd hand ukraine and belarussian migs and sukhois...

 

This will never happen, and mostly for political reasons.

How often have we seen nations build really crappy equipment, because it is better politically then buying something superior from another nation? Or buying something inferior from one nation, because it does not/can not/will not buy them from another country?

I largely do not care much about Europe. For the most part I see it as a giant sewer, where most (not all, but most) have their head so far up their rear interface that they really do not have much of a clue about the real world, or their place in it.

European: We are peacefull! We have not had a war in over 50 years!
Me: What about former Yugoslavia?
European: Oh, that does not count! They are... not in the EU!
Me: Blech.

 

I agree it will almost never happen. The three reasons are military, economic and political. The militaries of different European nations have different requirements, they have different sized economies and most would rather building something for more money in their own country than buy from a foreign nation, or in some cases buy from a foreign nation for economic reason rather than building something better in their own nation. This happened a few times in the cold war to the UK both in the military and civilian aviation sector's, buying American when the British thing was better but cost more, then on the navy side when we should have been buying American we build things in the UK in such small numbers that they cost far more than they should, as we currently see with the Type 45. Or we plan and cancel things, then come back to it 50 years later and find out we will have no aircraft carrier for 6 years, as with the Queen Elizabeth class carrier planned in 1963 cancelled the same decade when the Labour government got into power, along with a mach 2 capable Harrier. People in the UK really are annoyed with our new carriers, the Type 45 and Type 26, but still the "nationalists" defend them. Then you have the F-35 program total brown bag, many would rather get F-15's. We also would rather be investing the money from the F-35 program into UCAV's for stealth ground attack or bombing.

What is Europe's place in the world?

From what I watch from the Eurofiles, they think Europe is a shining beacon for peace, human rights and democracy, much the same way some Americans think and the way the British used to think. Europe has lost it's inward competiveness with the rest of the world because of the EU which hasn't stopped wars in Europe and couldn't do so even if it wanted to. Also what about the terrorists groups in Europe they haven't gone away with the EU. Really the EU in many way is the problem holding Europe back. The UK want's to have a renegotiation and referendum on the EU, so the EU leaders threaten the UK and say they don't care if the UK leaves. This is why I will never support a EU military. I watched a debate on France 24 English about the UK leaving the EU, they had an American who was working in Europe on and asked him why the UK see's the EU differently to the rest of Europe, he said it was because the UK wasn't occupied by the Axis powers in WW2. I mean why was this Anglo-American on the show, he knows nothing about the UK.

 

I think it is a matter of different priorities. The euros seem to be content with spending enough to defend themselves. We like to spend money so we can attack others. Who is more right?

 

I would classify it more as "are able to", as opposed to "can attack" others.

We most times spend a great many years between conflicts, and in the last 40 years they have generally been short affairs, over with in weeks to months. And even though we occupy the huge part of a continent, we have to be a Naval power, because most of our threats come from overseas. So because of that and our alliances, we must have the capability to send our forces anywhere in the world.

 

I look at it as the difference between the UK and Ireland. The UK really pays for the defence of Ireland, but the UK doesn't mind because that way Ireland never becomes a military threat. I know the issue are very different, but the overall idea is the same. The US doesn't mind spending loads of money projecting power to defend other nations, because that way they can never threaten the US.

 

That is an interesting thought.

 

Well, we seem to use the attack option fairly often. If you have a big hammer, everything looks like a nail…

I don’t think most the threats come out of nowhere. Often we create them ourselves. Occupational therapy for the military industrial complex…

 

We do? Can you actually name more then a handful of times that has been used in the last half-century? And to make it more interesting, when the US attacked first, and before engaging in almost endless rounds of diplomacy first?

Sure, you can easily distort a great many things from history and make them look a totally different way then what they were. But you really have to look at the entire picture first.

 

A handful of times are more than enough. It is more than any other country. We don’t think about it much, but every time we engage in a war somewhere a lot of innocent civilians die.

There are the big wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam (including the spillover in Laos and Cambodia). We did of course send some diplomatic cables but we really, really wanted those wars effectively making the diplomacy irrelevant.

Perhaps we should stick to attacking tiny countries such as Grenada and Panama and come up with very clear goals of what it is we want to achieve.

 

Sorry, this shows me that you have no real grasp of history other then what you learned in propaganda.

I suppose you are one of those that believes we invaded Vietnam. And you freely ignore a decade of Iraq ignoring UN resolutions, as well as blatantly ignoring UN demands.

 

What did the US contribute?

 

The British and French went to Africa. It was the Americans who didn't.

And to say that the Americans pay for European defence is ludicrous.

 

Who is going to attack and invade Europe, the USSR is gone and Russia wants to join NATO? The active threats are pretty low. And most nations simply don't have issues Switzerland has a strong defense for its size and is neutral, the British and French have decent militaries and most other nations have some sort of defense force.

Unless aliens invade I don't see them having many issues as free nations.

 

We do pay for Europe's defense. Our interventionist military and massive spending on things like nuclear aircraft carriers, fleets of midair refueling aircraft, and other power projection assets and then we allow the Europeans to use them free of charge. That is subsidization because it allows the Europeans (and our other allies) to use assets that they don't have to pay for or build themselves.

 

Fighters and refueling craft. Ships. Cruise missiles. Plenty of things.

 

We flew 25% of all the missions in the war and provided 75% of the air refueling tankers. The US and Italy provided all the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense aircraft that sanitized Libyan airspace during the first three days of the war.

- - - Updated - - -

ROFLMAO

 

Oh? I guess those were not US aircraft doing and supporting missions in Libya a year or so back then. It was all an illusion.

Or playing games with the Libyan Navy and Air forces for the last 20 years over the "line of death".