The differences between America and Europe

[Provost Harrison]

Isn't a move towards peace a good thing. The populations of the European nations are averse to war and see it as a last resort and really don't want to resort to it when necessary. But then there is that side of the human persona, greed, that fuels war, the arms race, sets one population against another. The desire to have more, and the capacity of a demagogue to play on that. Americans seem to be strange on this account, they seem to revere their leaders like a monarch or a beloved dictator, which seems quite alien to Europeans. Every action should be questioned, every motive scrutinised. I think we are heading in the right direction. It is slow, but perhaps with a bit of investment and nurturing of other populations of the world they will not constantly have to resort to war for scarce resources, ones which are in oversupply in the western world.

[Ecthy]

Provost has a point. We don't WANT TO BE powerful. The author puts military weakenss like a weak point in our societies, while that is just nonsense.

And GP, instead of trolling (didn't you read Siro's remark? I bet you didn't even read the article), you might actually consider replying to my points.

[Provost Harrison]

Hey, the 'sand in ones vagina' is my expression dammit!

[TCO]

you got it from me, little weergin.

[Provost Harrison]

Perhaps it is the realisation of a society that cooperation achieves more; why waste money and resources blowing things up, it's just money down the drain, when you can use it to build and increase prosperity and output. Prosperity and output I consider to be important in giving us the resources and capabilities to extent a good standard of living to the rest of society.

[Provost Harrison]

Did I hell, I saw it at another website

[chrono353]

cooperation leads to exploitation. i see this already among eu members. tho i dont think competition is a good idea. i think what ph says is mostly true. except I think the inherit rabid desire for power in europe is still there. maybe not as large as the problem, but the whole eu revolves around this concept of obtaining more power from its members.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Did I hell, I saw it at another website

They got it from me. Don't be a splittail about it.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
We don't WANT TO BE powerful.

No one, least of all the author, has said otherwise. The article mearly attempts to analyze the reasons behind that desire and the impact it has on the US/EU relationship from a neutral point of view. Your problem is that you seem to view the word weak as a loaded word with negative conotations.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DanS
"They're not riding your coattails on defence any longer, since there's nobody to defend against... "

You are mistaken. Europe is riding our coat-tails merely because they aren't chipping in for the creation of the Ultimate Ideal Western World (TM). To my mind, Europe is on the hook for an add'l 2% of GDP for "doing the dishes", laxer immigration laws, and friendlier trade terms to other countries

Why should they be on the hook? They don't get to decide your military policy, they shouldn't have to pay for it. I agree that they experience beneficial results from your military spending, but the effect is secondary (you're not defending their soil in any meaningful way). They are able to defend themselves, and that's all they want from their military. Everything else is just gravy...

Remember that there's again this feeling that your military is overbearing enough as is. They have no urge to help you be even more agressive by increasing your capacity even further.

[BeBro]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Bernd, you should have read the article, the author said very close to what you did.

Well, I read it now, it was indeed very interesting, and I´d agree with many (not all) things the author said.

However, enough reading for today...

[Ecthy]

I'm not. I have given examples for the author's negative attitude earlier, just noone bothers thinking about it.

[DanS]

KH: They are on the hook to do the dishes, if liberal Western values are to be spread throughout the world (that's what we're all after, right?). If they don't want to put the money into direct offensive capability, there is plenty of other stuff to do besides. Everything from being peacekeepers to helping build democratic institutions to giving direct food or monetary aid.

Ecthelion: The SU was communist. They get no props from us. Even if you think...

"while it was just the will to live on and safe lives on both sides."

...this wasn't the way the U.S. looked at it. Rather, it was a "crusade". This fits nicely with his power/weakness thesis.

One of the interesting points of the article was when he wrote about Roosevelt's attitude toward Europe. As a child of the Cold War, it was the first time it has really dawned on me that the U.S. would have looked at Europe in a different light once upon a time.

Very interesting. I think I'll go read the book he referenced.

[chequita guevara]

I thought it was a rather interesting and fair article. I bit long, though, since he seemed to be repeating himself a lot. There were a lot of assertions and it seemed short on facts, but it's an interesting argument.

[Ned]

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



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...

Ah. There is still hope!

Welcome aboard, ally.

[Ned]

The Euro's, as well as the Japanese, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians, are living under a defacto Pax Americana. They live within US alliances with an America strong enough and willing enough to defend them against any serious threat. It is little wonder that none of the countries feels the need to invest heavily in their military.

Yet all these countries feel they are a part of a larger community with the US and want a real say in what we do and how we do it in addressing the world's problems. If the US fails to address this need for the allies to have a say, there will come a time when the hostility of the "protectorate" against America will become so great as to again fracture the world into hostile and competing powers.

For the time being, periodic trips by our president to visit the capitals of our allies may be sufficient to hold the structure together. But, in the long term, we have to begin thinking about more formal structures, where the allies have a real say and have a corresponding "obligation" to support the decisions of their fellow allies.

The UN is obviously not this vehicle. Perhaps Nato is. But if it is to become the new security structure for countries operating under PAX Americana, perhaps should be expanded to include Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand at a minimum.

Then there is the issue of Israel.

[Kropotkin]

I mostly agree. However, the pax americana have almost lost its role for European countries as there's no real and grave threat to them after the fall of the Soviet union. This is possibly the beginning of larger conflicts since there's nothing strong enough as a clear and common enemy to unite them.

I do however think and hope that it woun't lead to any forms of military conflicts. First, there's no specific area that I can think of as a place and reason to start military conflicts. Second, a military conflict isn't benefitional for either side. There's a grave risk for economic conflicts that would damage the (global) economic system and turning the world into a post-communist Orwellian globe with three competing economic areas.

[Ned]

But, Kropotkin The United States is under attack now. Al Qaida has declared war. Radical islam is on the march.

When once upon a time the US was there for Europe in WWII and during the cold war, we need your support now. The defense of the "free world" is a matter of collective defense.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DanS
KH: They are on the hook to do the dishes, if liberal Western values are to be spread throughout the world (that's what we're all after, right?). If they don't want to put the money into direct offensive capability, there is plenty of other stuff to do besides. Everything from being peacekeepers to helping build democratic institutions to giving direct food or monetary aid

We may all be after it, but as has already been said, the Euros don't feel like you're going after it the right way. The path we take to get to our goals is usually what's fought about between friends, and if they don't think your method is worthwhile (or even worse, is counterproductive), then they have no obligation beyond sitting back and sniping from the sidelines.

They already do put men and money into peacekeeping. foreign aid, etc (much more than you guys do). Plus, the Americans are playing imperialist right now. Imperial powers have to pay for their own militaries. It's usually what ends up dragging them down...

You can't spend money on things that you've decided are in your interest and then ask others to chip in when they don't feel those things are in their interest. To a large extent, the Euro countries did get a bit of a free ride when you were protecting them from the SU (they knew they needed help doing it, and were quite willing to admit it, mostly). Things are different now. There's no need for a united front facing East, and there's much more disagreement as to "what's next"...

[Kropotkin]

Yes there's a so called "war" going on with a number of total wackos lead by some spoiled upper-class saudian.

I'm not really of the opinon that radical islam as a threat is best dealt with in a strictly military way. Meanwhile I of cource understand that the US needed to act after 9/11 for a number of reasons. But Bush have taken it a step futher. Saddam Hussein has little to do with radical Islam for example.

Also, the US was in Europe out of their own interest. I'm not sure if that many people in European countries sees it as in their interest to conduct warfare against anyone at the moment.

[GePap]

While the article is good, I don't buy it's premise for a second. There is a current, and rather old notion of overhyping the power of the US, or the power that the great powers have had over the last 300 years. Even the notion of 'Pax Americana' is sort of hypocrtical. How many millions have died from internal and external wars during the last decade? Hell, I can think of at leat one attempted genocide in which 1,000,000 people died. If this is a Pax Americana, I want my money back. Lets get a more hypothetical. Lets say China and India go to war tommorrow- that is, 1/3 of humanity decides to go to war. What if anything could the US do to stop this war from coming, or do to stop it? What if then this war drew in all of central and south Asia and Russia. Again, what could the US do? invade, economic sanction? Nuking them? MOst state in this world, and there are 180 of them, still act mostly for local or regionl reasons, becase as powerful as the US is, it is still thousands of miles away from most states, and while it has a large and powerfull military, the limits of this are becoming increasingly clear. Hell, think of it, the whole might of the US vs. an NGO, Al qaida. No brainer, right? What the hell could a group with an anual budget of what, 100 Million at most, and this is probably an absurdly high number, vs. the pentagon (which it hit) with a 280 billion budget. Yet almot a year later, everyone in the US is still quacking in their boots in fear of hypothetical attacks, and for all the huff and puff about Sadam, last time I checked, he is still in power, and we have not moved any hardware into position to ge him out. It might be many more months to get rid of him. If the US is so obviously and absudly powerful, a regular superman, why is sadam, after almost a year and 1/2 (God, its been that long since dufus 'won'!!!) of Dubya, still in power?

Is the US the strongest state in the world? No doubt. Does that mean that it can do anything it wants, at any time, anywhere in the globe, and that it will see its will imposed in any corner of the world? Absolutely positively not. The Europeans and Japanese are weaker (thought it is because they refuse to spend the money on military, not because of any inherent weakness) but because of this they act more sanely than us (even if they do act hypocritically), because they have come to see the limits of power in the moden world, something the US has yet, and in fact, refuses to do.

[chequita guevara]

The only government in the world that has the ability to stand up to the US is the Russian one, and only because of their nuclear arsenal. Not only is the US at the current apex of its power, it is still acendent. While we might not be able to prevent a regional conflagration, we could pound any single country (and probably more than that) into the medieval period. Do NOT underestimate the power of the US.

[Jac de Molay]

If the US is so obviously and absudly powerful, a regular superman, why is sadam, after almost a year and 1/2 (God, its been that long since dufus 'won'!!!) of Dubya, still in power?

Patience is a virtue, grasshoppa. The US and Europe will be there soon enough. Obviously, the current ME situation is not a good time to garner regional support for an attack. And a longer time-table works against Hussein in many ways. That old dog will have his day

Dave

[Kropotkin]

Nuclear weapons are all but useless in these days. You just can't use them in everyday international politics.

A country Afganistan already is medieval so who cares?

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The only government in the world that has the ability to stand up to the US is the Russian one, and only because of their nuclear arsenal. Not only is the US at the current apex of its power, it is still acendent. While we might not be able to prevent a regional conflagration, we could pound any single country (and probably more than that) into the medieval period. Do NOT underestimate the power of the US.

On a lighter note

che: you gave me a star wars flashback there for a second.

[chequita guevara]

Are you drawing a comparison between the US and the dark side?

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Are you drawing a comparison between the US and the dark side?

Well Darth Bush does have a certain ring to it. Nah, couldn't be.

[Kropotkin]

Since he's Bush Jr. I would think he's actually Luke Skywalker that has joined the dark side and his father is Darth. Just shows that in real life the good side never wins.

[Sprayber]

Ecthelion: I don't see why you got so upset about the article. Unless you can't take critizism about your country and it wasn't really critizism at all. It was a fairly neutral article. Too bad you didn't even finish it because you got upset.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Well Darth Bush does have a certain ring to it.

Have you ever noticed how Senator Joe Lieberman looks like Palpatine?