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The Welfare State & Military Power

post #1 of 7
12/4/09 at 9:06pm
Thread Starter 
AWESOME article. It says it all.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...965511326.html

Quote:
This is by now a familiar story, and a big part of the problem is the relative lack of military spending. Among the Western Europeans, only France and the U.K. spend more than 2% of GDP on defense, supposedly the NATO-mandated minimum. Nearly everyone else is below that. Germany, the continent's largest economy, stands at 1.3%. U.S. defense spending has been above 4% of GDP since 2004, having fallen to 3% after the Cold War ended.
Quote:
Such relative strategic weakness has made the Europeans more dependent on the American security umbrella, even as they resent it. But it also makes Europeans more disposed to avoid confrontation with adversaries like Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Henry Kissinger has put it, European leaders are no longer able to ask their people to make major sacrifices.

The overlooked culprit here is the rise of the modern welfare state
More at the link. Truer words were never spoken.
Europe depends on us for security all the while she hates us for it. How's that for grateful?
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post #2 of 7
12/5/09 at 11:24am
Let us not forget however that Germany was completely demilitarized following WW II, and furthermore that the Allies systematically dismantled much of any manufacturing industry that was even related to military applications.
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post #3 of 7
12/5/09 at 1:22pm
As this is an international forum with a multinational membership; it blurs the lines between the "us" and "them" a tad bit.

Does anyone else get the feeling that a nation that does things simply for the thanks they may (or may not) get, is doing things for the wrong reasons?
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post #4 of 7
12/5/09 at 7:53pm
Thread Starter 
I would be content with just, "don't bite the hand that helped you".

People moan and cry that America is the only civilized country that doesn't have free health care for all, well maybe if all these countries didn't depend on US for their security and we spent on defense what THEY spend on defense we would have more money to be a nanny state.

But then, who would the world go crying to in times of need? China? Russia? Iran? France?
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post #5 of 7
12/5/09 at 9:19pm
Perhaps if the US stopped insisting that European nations send their defensive forces to support US offensive operations around the world, their defense budgets would be sufficient.
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post #6 of 7
12/6/09 at 8:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skippymjp View Post
Perhaps if the US stopped insisting that European nations send their defensive forces to support US offensive operations around the world, their defense budgets would be sufficient.
Oh please, like the U.S. can force anyone to send troops anywhere.
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post #7 of 7
12/6/09 at 11:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckblv View Post
Oh please, like the U.S. can force anyone to send troops anywhere.
You don't follow the in's and out's of the arms trade, do you?
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