What should the EU do about US power?

[ravagon]

At present Europe combined has no show whatsoever of matching the US. The unified political structure able to develop/procure/deploy a combined and fully integrated military machine is decades away. The US provides the glue that holds Nato together. Being the strongest member, other countries adapted/built around the US-based force structure. Even the FRG armed forces - defensive in nature given that this was intended to provide the stopping power to a WP move against Nato - designed their forces around concentrations of heavy US forces.
It would take a truly astronomical effort from within or threat from without to force a change in the European military structure in the absence of a US core fighting force at its heart.
Especially with the disappearance of the WP this is just not likely to happen at anytime in the forseeable future...

[el freako]

Originally posted by faded glory

...Its pretty much common sense. Every dollar you take from citizen, is a dollar less he spends. Which means he buys less products.Which means less manufacturing and services needed.

Your 'common sense' seems to believe that when government takes taxation from people it then destroys the money instead of using it to pay for products itself.

If you are instead talking about 'transfer payments' like pensions and welfare payments then again the money is not 'destroyed' but returned to different people who then spend it on products.

Originally posted by faded glory
I doubt many EU citizens are going to go along with the tax increase. Even if it is 3-5% (Which I dont think will come to within 100bil of us)

I agree that europe's citizens will probably not go along with any large tax increase to fund an offensive millitary force but your refusal to accept that the EUcould equal your spending is just not backed up by the facts.

Using the NATO definition of defence spending (so tat we are compating like with like) in 2000 the US spent $295bn compared to the EU's $175bn.

However, a 5% increase in the EU's taxation level would bring in around $205bn

That would put the EU's spending at $380bn, $85bn more than the US but still 'within $100bn of yours'

Originally posted by faded glory
we have the ability to double even triple ours

We are not in competition with you, and even if we were the relative sizes of our economies would count for far more (the EU's GDP is around 95% of the US's)

If the EU channeled the money it spends on it's common agricultural policy towards weapon procurement then that figure would rise to nearly $100bn a year - easily equal to the US figure.

The choice is Europe is to do it if we want to - there is no doubt that we could do it.

Originally posted by faded glory
You have hardly any military industry, most of Europe's military equipment and aircraft...along with the armaments comes from USA, or Russia.

EADS is the third largest defence contractor in the world by sales, BAe is the fifth.
And where on earth did you get the idea that most of our armaments come from abroad, if they did why does the EU have a trade surplus in millitary equipment.

You seem to just assume things without bothering to check up on them

[Saint Marcus]

We don't even need a defense budget as high as the US'. The Americans spend ****loads of money on overpriced and fairly useless equipment, that brings little extra value.

For instance:

Raptor: 90-200 million USD
Gripen, Typhoon, Rafale: 30-50 million USD

In performance, the latter three are slightly weaker in air to air combat, but a lot better at air to ground strikes. Plus, no country in the world that could be a potential enemy flies anything that outperforms the Typhoon/Gripen/Rafale fighters, so there's little need for better aircraft. Things like this cost the US a lot of money, and will add very little. By avoiding projects like these (and there are dozens of examples, the F22 is just the most obvious), the Europeans won't need as much money as the Americans, and therefor need a smaller defense budget to get an equally powerful military.

Every dollar you take from citizen, is a dollar less he spends. Which means he buys less products.Which means less manufacturing and services needed.

Gov takes money from citizens. Buys aircraft from that money. Pays the aircraft companies. They get more money. With that money they can invest. With those investments more jobs will be created. etc