European military and Popular Mechanics

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/is-nato-military-alliance-crumbling


"In the absence of enemy tanks at the border, many nations in Europe are
happy to let the military budgets subside, even without the economic
malaise. U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates summed it up neatly earlier
this year. "The demilitarization of Europe—where large swaths of the
general public and political class are averse to military force and the
risks that go with it—has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an
impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st," he
said during a speech. "Since the end of the Cold War, NATO and national
defense budgets have fallen consistently, even with unprecedented
operations outside NATO's territory over the past five years."

As for the lack of European military that the USA is whining about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_European_Union

Including reserves we have:
6.8 million personnel
6,800 main battle tanks
3,500 combat aircraft
1300 transport aircraft
7 aircraft carriers

[And about 600 nuclear warheads between Britain and France]

The real complaint seems to be that we have had enough of fighting US wars.

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/is-nato-military-alliance-crumbling


"In the absence of enemy tanks at the border, many nations in Europe are
happy to let the military budgets subside, even without the economic
malaise. U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates summed it up neatly earlier
this year. "The demilitarization of Europe—where large swaths of the
general public and political class are averse to military force and the
risks that go with it—has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an
impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st," he
said during a speech. "Since the end of the Cold War, NATO and national
defense budgets have fallen consistently, even with unprecedented
operations outside NATO's territory over the past five years."

As for the lack of European military that the USA is whining about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_European_Union

Including reserves we have:
6.8 million personnel
6,800 main battle tanks
3,500 combat aircraft
1300 transport aircraft
7 aircraft carriers

[And about 600 nuclear warheads between Britain and France]

The real complaint seems to be that we have had enough of fighting US wars.

Like WWI amd WWII and The Cold War? And that stuff in the Balkans?

Certainly that stuff in the Balkans.
As for the rest, the feeling is somewhat mixed in Europe.

 

[F. Bertolazzi]

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax:

Certainly that stuff in the Balkans.

Yeah, helping the Muslims in Europe was not that smart.

As for the rest, the feeling is somewhat mixed in Europe.

Yeah, there is still plenty of communists and a few nazis and fascists.

 

[Fred Abse]

As for the rest, the feeling is somewhat mixed in Europe.

Go take a look at the American cemeteries of two world wars in Europe.

Then, go look at the Australian and Canadian ones.

Then weep and give thanks.

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Go take a look at the American cemeteries of two world wars in Europe.

Then, go look at the Australian and Canadian ones.

Then weep and give thanks.

I will give thanks to those who died for a cause they believed to be
right. That includes all sides. Whether we should have fought at all is
a moot point.

 

[Fred Abse]

I will give thanks to those who died for a cause they believed to be
right. That includes all sides. Whether we should have fought at all is a
moot point.

What was the alternative? Nazi hegemony in Europe? Japanese hegemony in
Asia and perhaps Australia?

The British went to war in 1914 as the result of a treaty to protect the
sovereignty of Belgium, the USA later as a result of our legitimate
merchant shipping being attacked on the high seas.

The British went to war in 1939 as the result of the Nazi attack on
Poland, not that it did Poland much good.

The USA went to war in 1941 as the result of being attacked by Japan, who
had already overrun part of China, and were planning to overrun Southeast
Asia, the Pacific, and maybe Australia.

I think that made us the good guys.

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

What was the alternative? Nazi hegemony in Europe? Japanese hegemony in
Asia and perhaps Australia?

No.
Germany could not invade Britain.
The Battle of Britain and threat of invasion was over before the USA
joined in.

The USA would still have fought with Britain against the Japanese.
The nuclear bomb would still have been invented and used (at least on Japan)


Britain would have kept its Empire and would have avoided the horrendous
cost of WW2 (which we only finally paid for less than a decade back).

The Nazis would have fought the Soviets, and whoever won would be in no
condition to take on either the British Empire nor the USA. There would
have been a Cold War with 3 resulting superpowers.

The British went to war in 1914 as the result of a treaty to protect the
sovereignty of Belgium, the USA later as a result of our legitimate
merchant shipping being attacked on the high seas.

Shipping supplying Britain, while we blockaded Germany

The British went to war in 1939 as the result of the Nazi attack on
Poland, not that it did Poland much good.

We should not have done.

The USA went to war in 1941 as the result of being attacked by Japan, who
had already overrun part of China, and were planning to overrun Southeast
Asia, the Pacific, and maybe Australia.

I think that made us the good guys.

Probably.

 

[Nico Coesel]

What was the alternative? Nazi hegemony in Europe? Japanese hegemony in
Asia and perhaps Australia?

The British went to war in 1914 as the result of a treaty to protect the
sovereignty of Belgium, the USA later as a result of our legitimate
merchant shipping being attacked on the high seas.

The British went to war in 1939 as the result of the Nazi attack on
Poland, not that it did Poland much good.

The USA went to war in 1941 as the result of being attacked by Japan, who
had already overrun part of China, and were planning to overrun Southeast
Asia, the Pacific, and maybe Australia.

I think that made us the good guys.

Thats a matter of perspective. He who wins is the hero (and the one
who writes the history books), the loser is the villan.

 

[Rich Grise]

Thats a matter of perspective. He who wins is the hero (and the one
who writes the history books), the loser is the villan.

Yabbut, if it had gone the other way around, we'd all be speaking German. ;-)
Or Japanese. Or Jagermapanesan. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Yabbut, if it had gone the other way around, we'd all be speaking German. ;-)
Or Japanese. Or Jagermapanesan. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

You could be living in a High Castle

 

[F. Bertolazzi]

Fred Abse:

The USA went to war in 1941 as the result of being attacked by Japan, who
had already overrun part of China, and were planning to overrun Southeast
Asia, the Pacific, and maybe Australia.

Why Japan attacked Pearl Harbour? They were planning to invade the US or
they wanted to break free of the ABCD blockade? What the US had to deal
with that blockade? Just for defending Hawaii?

Think about this: when did the Great Depression end?

I think that made us the good guys.

No, what made you the good guys is what happended after the war.
No empire in history has been that benign upon the defeated.

 

[Fred Abse]

Fred Abse:


Why Japan attacked Pearl Harbour? They were planning to invade the US or
they wanted to break free of the ABCD blockade? What the US had to deal
with that blockade? Just for defending Hawaii?

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in an attempt to neutralize the US Pacific
Fleet, which stood in the way of their obtaining the raw materials
necessary to pursue their aggression. Fortunately, the vital
aircraft carriers were elsewhere at the time. When this was discovered,
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a Harvard alumnus, realized that the only way to
achieving the Japanese militarists' ultimate aims would be to "march into
Washington and dictate terms in front of the White House". He narrowly
escaped assassination at the hands of hardliners as a result of his
expressed views.

Think about this: when did the Great Depression end?

Given the choice between losing millions of Allied personnel, and a
continuing depression, I think mos people would have chosen the latter.

No, what made you the good guys is what happended after the war. No
empire in history has been that benign upon the defeated.

Apart from the word "empire", I wouldn't gainsay that.

 

[F. Bertolazzi]

Fred Abse:

Fortunately, the vital aircraft carriers were elsewhere

Fortunately???

Have you read anything recent about the day before the Pearl Harbour attack
or are you still believing what was on your History book at school?

Given the choice between losing millions of Allied personnel, and a
continuing depression, I think mos people would have chosen the latter.

Your Government, luckily, was of a different advice.

 

[Tim Williams]

They? Whose fault was it that Germany invaded Poland?

France and Britain, obviously -- France's reparations sucked their economy
dry in the 20's (look up Weimar hyperinflation) and annexed one of
Germany's biggest manufacturing centers (the Rhur). What were they going
to do, starve to death?

As for Poland specifically, well, I don't know what Poland was doing at
the time, but that sounds like a case of "beat up the weak kids in the
playground so you look tougher".

If you look at the history of the great wars in the last half a millenium,
you see they come up about once every century, with a new world leader for
about another century, until the next war comes in.

Easy way to think of it: economic and social factors build up. Little
wars release a bit, here and there. Every so often a big war kicks up.
It's like diode avalanche at low current. A noisy, chaotic, multivariable
system, similar behavior.

In the 16th century, it was the Dutch, or something like that. The seas
were controlled by the Dutch, French, British and so on alternately until
the beginning of the 20th century. By then, it was Britain's turn
(again!) to step down, and Germany was the aggressor this time (not having
made any important colonies yet, like the others all did).

What's bizarre about the 20th century is, the loser was not crushed into
destruction. Germany recovered fairly quickly and restarted the battle.
WW2 wasn't a war all its own, so much as a continuation of WW1 which
simply wasn't settled.

Now that it's a century later again, it's the US's time to step down,
which you *know* isn't going to go smoothly. The economy is already
starting to shit itself. It'll be a Wonder of the World if we're still on
top in even 10 years, let alone 50 or 100.

Moral relativism sucks, because it can be used to justify almost any
horror.

Moral absolutism sucks, because it can be used to justify almost any
horror.

Oooh, meta-relativism...

Tim

 

[Fred Abse]

Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere

Thanks. I've been trying to remember that expression

 

[Martin Brown]

MAD was at least vaguely civilised. Both governments and advisors (with
a few notable exceptions like Teller) fully understood that a nuclear
war against a well armed nuclear adversary was not winnable. The Cuban
Missile crisis got worryingly close to going hot but both sides played a
pretty good game of poker and war did not occur.

The Fischer vs Spassky Chess Match in Iceland became an iconic proxy for
the Cold War. Fischer won but became very odd later in life.

There was a brief period of real danger when President Reagan's Star
Wars Defence Shield was in vogue with the extreme Dr Strangelove types.
The reality was that at the time our best computers would not have been
able to beat an average Russian Chess Grandmaster played on a 8x8 board
with clear rules and no cheating never mind a global thermonuclear war.
I think WWI and the use of chemical weapons "A Higher Form of Killing"
as Haber called it was actually the nadir. There is a book by the same
name about chemical and biological warfare written by a young Jeremy
Paxman (the one of NewsNight for BBC2 viewers) and Robert Harris.

It didn't help that the most of the commanders in WWI thought that
cavalry charges into machine gun fire was sensible and brave.

The quality and quantity of the weapons sure changed. "Total War" is a
20th century invention.

I think Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Genghis Khan (to name just
three) would beg to disagree. The first of these invented spin too.

We should give thanks for the invention of DDT and the commercial
secrecy that surrounded it. Convinced that the UK also had some kind of
nerve gas Hilter never actually used Sarin or Tabun in the war. eg.

http://www.bluewaternavy.org/navydocs/cwimpasse.pdf
(there are some errors of fact in this article)

Retaliation in kind using Mustard Gas would have been possible, but
nothing like as devastating as the nerve agents that Germany had.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Jon Kirwan]

<snip>
There was a brief period of real danger when President Reagan's Star
Wars Defence Shield was in vogue with the extreme Dr Strangelove types.
The reality was that at the time our best computers would not have been
able to beat an average Russian Chess Grandmaster played on a 8x8 board
with clear rules and no cheating never mind a global thermonuclear war.
<snip>

What worried me the most about this initiative, at the time,
was the lack of time it would mean for leaders to cope with a
false positive. With satellites only a 100 miles overhead
and very, very little time to detect and respond, I couldn't
see how it was possible to avoid something terribly serious
happening due to an error. Sufficient time and systems in
play, it's almost inevitable.

I much prefer keeping things at a level where there is time
to make a phone call; or maybe even two.

Jon

 

[F. Bertolazzi]

Martin Brown:

MAD was at least vaguely civilised. Both governments and advisors (with
a few notable exceptions like Teller

Mainly Von Neuman (Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove).

Given the bigger population in History, the 20th Century was the less
cruent on record. "Just" 100 million victims, plus 10-50 M Kulaks.
Unless Mao really killed 70 M.

About the same total of the mass extermination of native Americans (North,
Center and South), or the slave trade.

Let's not forget the french revolution and Napoleon. I don't know much of
your civil war, but is it true that in Gettysburg 50.000 died?

The Hunns and Mongols were not that kind either.

I think WWI and the use of chemical weapons "A Higher Form of Killing"
as Haber called it was actually the nadir.

Well, much better than dying one week after having lost a limb.

I think Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Genghis Khan (to name just
three) would beg to disagree. The first of these invented spin too.

And bombing is much better than rape and looting.

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Martin Brown:


Mainly Von Neuman (Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove).

Herman Kahn

 

[F. Bertolazzi]

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax:

Herman Kahn

Dr. Strangelove did not support the doomsday device, but just the opposite,
the pre-emptive strike, as Von Neumann did.

As far as I know, Dr. Kahn did not speak with a strong foreign accent, nor
was forced to a weelchair by bone cancer. Von Neuman certainly did.