Occupation of Iraq -- Where Is Europe?

[monkspider]

I don't understand why anyone here thought it would be Europe's responsibility anyway.

[DanS]

When I think about this too hard, I have us exiting our European alliances.

At least, we should revalue them. Europe not wanting to get involved in Iraq indicates to me that they don't really value our alliance and security umbrella highly. This is understandable, given the European (at least Western European) perception that there are no immediate threats to them. We, in turn, think the security umbrella that we provide to Europe is quite valuable. Perhaps more valuable than it actually is. Certainly something to take a fresh look at.

I don't understand why anyone here thought it would be Europe's responsibility anyway.

Because the US provides Europe with a defense that is unavailable elsewhere. Inherent in this relationship is that Europe will look favorably on American military-related or nation-building requests when they receive them (nothing is free). Of course, this isn't specific to the Iraq war, but we can measure in real time the value that Europe places on the relationship by what it is prepared to offer. Not much = not valuable.

Our Asian alliances and our UK alliance are proven to be valuable by what they have offered. They grok what's going on. PM Howard said it flat out. He knows where Australia's bread is buttered. Same with Korea and Japan.

Canada is sort of a special case. They're trying to skate by on the cheap. Well, there's nothing we can do about that.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Nice troll, but a bit too run-of-the-mill.

No oil for you Osterreich!

[GePap]

The US protects the Europeans from what today? From Milosevic? He was never a threat. From Saddam? (I don;t buy the "Saddam would take over the ME an collapse western economes as he moved to rule the world" bit. He offered to be our man in the ME, like we used to hasve with the Shah). International terrorism? The threat to the EU from ths is smaller than that to the US, and EU counterterrorism is as good as that of the US (which is not saying much)

Our Asian alliances and our UK alliance are proven to be valuable by what they have offered. They grok what's going on. PM Howard said it flat out. He knows where Australia's bread is buttered. Same with Korea and Japan.

Maybe that is becuase Asia, unlike Europe, is rife with tensions today. And yet the contribution that the Aussies could make overall is far less than any of the big EU states, SK hasn;t contributed anything since Vietnam.

[Urban Ranger]

What's to discuss? Old Europe doesn't want any part of occupying Iraq, and New Europe is incapable of doing so.

The so called "coalition of the willing" are just a bunch of countries that want part of that 7.6b pie from Uncle Sam.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by DanS
GePap: Those are precisely the questions. Lately, we've assumed that Europe would take over of the occupation/peacekeeping. It's just a lot of wishful thinking that we've indulged ourselves in for the last 8 or 9 years.

Well, seems like a lot of asses were made out of u and me.

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!

As for not airlifting tanks - since when were tanks instruments of peacekeeping?

Tanks are OFFENSIVE units. Using them defensively makes them sitting ducks.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by DanS
When I think about this too hard, I have us exiting our European alliances.

At least, we should revalue them. Europe not wanting to get involved in Iraq indicates to me that they don't really value our alliance and security umbrella highly. This is understandable, given the European (at least Western European) perception that there are no immediate threats to them. We, in turn, think the security umbrella that we provide to Europe is quite valuable. Perhaps more valuable than it actually is. Certainly something to take a fresh look at.

I don't understand why anyone here thought it would be Europe's responsibility anyway.

Because the US provides Europe with a defense that is unavailable elsewhere. Inherent in this relationship is that Europe will look favorably on American military-related or nation-building requests when they receive them (nothing is free). Of course, this isn't specific to the Iraq war, but we can measure in real time the value that Europe places on the relationship by what it is prepared to offer. Not much = not valuable.

Our Asian alliances and our UK alliance are proven to be valuable by what they have offered. They grok what's going on. PM Howard said it flat out. He knows where Australia's bread is buttered. Same with Korea and Japan.

Canada is sort of a special case. They're trying to skate by on the cheap. Well, there's nothing we can do about that.

Matey, there's your solution. Pull all your units out of Europe and you'll have all the toys you need for the Middle East... at least for a couple of years.

Of course we don't value the US military bases in Europe. The Soviet Union no longer exists. Not to say we resent US forces in Europe - but hey, if you've got business elsewhere, then sure, YOU'D better deal with it.

It's called a "peace dividend".

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Cruddy


As for not airlifting tanks - since when were tanks instruments of peacekeeping?

Tanks are OFFENSIVE units. Using them defensively makes them sitting ducks.

Of course tanks are peacekeeping units. Place a couple in a troubled town and everyone will be a lot more peaceful.

The psychological impact of tanks is huge.

[Ted Striker]

Chinese use them pretty good on their own population.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Cruddy

It's called a "peace dividend".

Though keep in mind a base closing can have devastating effects on the local economy.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Chinese use them pretty good on their own population.

If we had M1s in Somalia, Aidid's filthy militia would be slaughtered on that day.

[Spiffor]

Someone in this thread wondered why Europe cannot act on its own, independently from the US. Well, that's what we are beginning to do, by not sending troops to fix your mess. Europe is beginning to follow its own international interests, which are now proven to be at least partly different with America's thanks to the pre-war diplomatic crisis.

Indeed, I think DanS is right that our relationship should be reevaluated : the EU progressively feels less and less obliged to the US, and we should stop the "Alliance" nonsense that comes right from WW2 and cold war. Rather, a partnership where diverging interests are acknowledged as well as converging interests would be a much better solution.

Times are changing, and the best thing to do is to change with them. Unfortunately, the EU has still too little political unity to present a coherent project, so the status quo must still go on for now.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by DanS
When I think about this too hard, I have us exiting our European alliances.

So you finally accept my point of view.

"Europe not wanting to get involved in Iraq indicates to me that they don't really value our alliance and security umbrella highly."

What alliance? Bush has flushed the remains of that alliance down the toilet. You are miscalculating if you think that that "security umbrella" means "Europe will look favorably on American military-related or nation-building requests when they receive them". You have to offer something else for that.

For EU defense policy, it's developping. The reaction force's deployment capacity of 60.000 means that about 200.000 troops out of about 2 million are integrated. The total force strength will shrink, the integrated part will grow, at some point they converge.

The real hampering problem is whether EU defense policy follows the British or the French model. I'm all for the french model, but for the time being there will to have to be some sort of compromise. But you can count on Bush and co to push us in the direction I want; they leave us with no alternative.

European defense projects... well, what was the problem with the Eurofighter? Cost overrun - hell, a problem totally unknown to military procurement elsewhere. Development started 1988, and it got delayed by a couple years mostly due to cost cuts. Oh yes, what a failure.

[VetLegion]

Cruddy: You're missing my point. Europe has plenty of Armor and a fair amount of fighter planes but they don't have the ships and tranport planes needed to send large amounts of these forces rapidly to deal with emerging regional threats like Bosnia or Kosovo. It simply can't get enough of the right kinds of forces to where they need to be fast enough to be effective. To do this Europe will have to fund several new projects so it can build up it's capabilities and deal with these situations without always having to ask Washington for help everytime something comes up.

Bolding is mine. Oerdin, what rapid reaction are you talking about? Bosnia went on for years. It and Kosovo are perfect examples of EU diplomatic failures and European disability to get political will to act.

If they had the political will, it would have been easy. Do you know your geography? Bosnia is 3 hours drive from Vienna, Kosovo a little more.

If you look solely at number of troops and equipment required to beat Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia, you can see Austria could have done it herself.

And that is even without mentioning using the proxies on the ground, aka choosing a lesser evil, like US did with Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

So no, it was not the lack of weapons and spending, it was lack of will.

[HershOstropoler]

Agree with one exception:

"you can see Austria could have done it herself"

We couldn't. Yes, our military sucks that much.