The differences between America and Europe

[Saint Marcus]

someone has sand in his vagina...

[Saint Marcus]

btw, I mainly liked the accurate analysis of European weakness, and not from a bigotted point of view.

[Ecthy]

Is that your argument? I can counter it: I don't have a vagina. Thank you.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
btw, I mainly liked the accurate analysis of European weakness, and not from a bigotted point of view.

That's because you're west European. Anything realted to Soviet must be not only bad but truly Nazilike. Therefore, any forme of realistic diplomacy with them must be a sign of mental weakness.

[Saint Marcus]

I can counter it: I don't have a vagina. Thank you.

Could have fooled me. PMS anyone?

That's because you're west European.

And you are?

Anything realted to Soviet must be not only bad but truly Nazilike. Therefore, any forme of realistic diplomacy with them must be a sign of mental weakness.

can you clarify?

[Saint Marcus]

tell me why you are angry at the author or the article? You think the article is pro-US right? Well, I'm probably the most bigoted anti-American and pro-European here on poly, and I don't see the bigotness in the article at all. Sure some parts are over simplifications, or blown out of proportion, but in general it isn't a bad article. I'd give it a 7/10 for content. Just short of your average The Economist article, but still makes for some nice reading.

[Chris 62]

You should read the whole thing Andy.

It's kind of pointless to decry something you didn't bother to read all the way through.

[TCO]

Andz has sand because he is an Eastie. We need to restrain him from kililng sprees.

[Saint Marcus]

I do think that some things are a bit to simplistic. Like Europe not willing to take out Sadam, simply because Europe can't do it alone.

That is part of it, however (as the author also notes) Europe choses not to have that kind of power needed to take out Sadam.

And it's of course, only (a small) part of the reason for not wanting to take out Sadam.

[BeBMan]

Lazy German as I am, I only read Siro´s summary. Some thoughts:

Europe’s military weakness has produced a perfectly understandable aversion to the exercise of military power.

While it is true that Europe´s military is not as strong as the US military, I do not think that the second part of that quote is correct.

I´d rather say this aversion has not much to do with our military, but with Europe´s "warlike" history - Europeans had the most devastating wars on their own soil, Americans had not.

Especially Germany was rather "pacifistic" after WWII, first under pressure from the Allies, who did not want a new threat from Germany again, then because we accepted und understood our role in WWII, and so the post-WWII Germany tried to make sure that it would never become a threat for its neighbours again. Our "pacifism" was mainly self interest, the end of WWII teached us something...

But after the unification the will to use military is higher than ever after WWII. Amazingly the decisions to participate with military force on the Balkan, or in Afghanistan were made by our "left" Schroeder government - their political background is classically much more "pacifist" compared to our conservatives.
You can complain that most of the German troops do "only" peacekeeping, but also this is "exercise of military power" and a drastic change from Germany´s "no troops outside NATO territory"-policy before the 1990ies...

I think the main difference to Amerika is that we see the military option as the last option, not necessarily the best one, and not isolated from political or economical efforts. "Exercise of military power" as the author says does perhaps reduce or even take away certain threats (which is of course important, therefore you´ll not find a single whining from me about US troops in Afghanistan), but it rarely solves entire conflicts.

Perhaps the will to use military is higher when you have the stronger military like the US, I can´t answer that, but sometimes a use of military force can rather create new problems, so the question if Europe should do that more is a bit pointless for me - we will do it, when it serves our interests, and when it solves more problems than it creates, but not to appear simply as military giant...

[Chris 62]

Bernd, you should have read the article, the author said very close to what you did.

[Ecthy]

I'm not surprised at all about how noone actually replied to what I said. Once again, you guys stick to platitudes.

[TCO]

I responded to you...

[Ecthy]

you said it's because I'm an Eastie... I'm talking about my analysis on the article.

each article has its tone. not its tones. I recognised the tone of this one, and reading more of it will only make me sicker.

[TCO]

Definite sand problem...