EPTNato or seriously the EU alone outmatches it several times in like any measure, BUT it is a big country and sanctions (normally lead by the US) hurt (eastern) europe while it doesn't do shit to the US.
European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1023
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Velr
Switzerland10900 Posts
Nato or seriously the EU alone outmatches it several times in like any measure, BUT it is a big country and sanctions (normally lead by the US) hurt (eastern) europe while it doesn't do shit to the US. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On December 28 2017 03:26 jodljodl wrote: First, regarding this article, https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-puts-germany-first-defense-politics-foreign-policy/. I wanted to ask if you guys know if politico.eu is a trustworthy source of information. Ive only read the first few sections when i came across the claim made by the author that the president of germany in 2010, Horst Köhler, was forced to resign. Which is a plain lie. He was not force to resign. In fact, his resignation was rather suprising, and chancellor Merkel even stated she tried to convince him to stay on longer. He justified his act by the "harsh" criticism he received for his statement regarding the deployment of troops. But, in no sense of the word, was he forced to. Secondly, i really don't get your point. For more than 4 years now, russia is leading a war of aggresion against the ukraine. The war may not be a "conventional" one but its a (unprovoked) war nonetheless. Just because people tend not to call it a war - for what ever reason - doesnt make it anything different. Theres russian weapons, russian soldiers and annexation of ukrainian territory. Putin admitted to that more than once. So, to argue theres no need for any kind of military self-defense capabilities for germany and its partners is worldly innocent, imo. One reason for maintaining military forces is deterrent. So, even though forces never were deployed does not mean they had no effect. You are right. This one sentence does not cover all the aspects of militaric needs. Its purpose is to contrast the actual motivations of (those) EE countries and their conservative leaderships, which are outlined in the unquoted sentences. If you take offense from it, read it as "All bullshit aside, it serves..." Germany is spending more than enough on military for its needs and even to serve international purposes. If people want defense from Germany, I advise for a more general, consentual political and social integration with them. In the end it just depends on the price people put on nationalistic pride. They can't have both, but it is a free world, they are entitled to choose right-wing romantics over real solidarity, freedom and material wealth at any point. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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Nixer
2774 Posts
Does it really matter when you can essentially leech off the US (and with quite a comfortable buffer zone)? Probably not. Without the US? Now that's a little more bleak. Is the 2-20 target necessary to achieve? Depends how you count and where you spend it of course but regardless probably not. | ||
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FuzzyJAM
Scotland9300 Posts
For some countries I kind of get it, but for Germany (and Britain and many others) there is zero reason to have a strong military. Except, of course, we get to be players on the world stage! So we can spend billions getting involved in dubious wars! Super! | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22412 Posts
On December 28 2017 16:48 FuzzyJAM wrote: The question was more: what will having new military equipment actually do for the German public? How will it benefit people more than spending on health or education or infrastructure? For some countries I kind of get it, but for Germany (and Britain and many others) there is zero reason to have a strong military. Except, of course, we get to be players on the world stage! So we can spend billions getting involved in dubious wars! Super! Will it do much for the German (or English or French) public? No. Is it a safe precaution when a nearby power has shown it is willing to resort to open aggression? Yes. The reignited desire for a stronger EU military is not because it wants to get involved in some old fashion wars but because it has an active aggressor nearby in Russia that needs to be deterred. Sure its unlikely that Russia would try anything military against the EU but when the cost of being wrong is high enough ( look at the situation in Ukraine), its worth being cautious. | ||
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FuzzyJAM
Scotland9300 Posts
On December 28 2017 20:25 Gorsameth wrote: Will it do much for the German (or English or French) public? No. Is it a safe precaution when a nearby power has shown it is willing to resort to open aggression? Yes. The reignited desire for a stronger EU military is not because it wants to get involved in some old fashion wars but because it has an active aggressor nearby in Russia that needs to be deterred. Sure its unlikely that Russia would try anything military against the EU but when the cost of being wrong is high enough ( look at the situation in Ukraine), its worth being cautious. But NATO spends 15x as much as Russia already. Increasing that to 17x or whatever is not going to change anything. I'd say cost benefit analysis makes a pretty strong case for spending a very large portion of the military budget on, e.g. healthcare, which we know for a fact would save and improve millions of lives, over increasing our already insane military spending on the off chance that this will make Russia less likely to invade... wherever people think it's going to invade. The thing that is often missed: the cost of being wrong and spending too much is absolutely massive. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9302 Posts
On December 28 2017 09:13 Nyxisto wrote: I don't even understand the logic of tying this to the completely arbitrary 2% GDP number or whatever. What are we going to buy with it and where are we going to send it? Nobody is asking for spending the whole promised 2% on missiles pointed at Moscow, You can buy stuff to protect your interests such as ensuring free-trade routes or preventing regional instabilities, which are also certain to negatively impact your ability to safeguard trade, jobs and income. • Some money could be spent on peacekeeping in regions where refugees come from. I understand that Europeans don't want to "get dirty" in hot places like Syria, but there are countries in Africa where Americans, Saudis, Russians and Israelis aren't involved. • Some money could be spent on developing our (European) air force. I think it's important to be able to do stuff like the air strikes in Libya without American assistance. Having more ships to protect trade routes would also be cool. • More money spent on developing our own weapons means less money going into the American military industry. I think a lot of posters here would want that. How will it stop Russia from doing anything it doesn't do already given that we already have military superiority? I'm guessing that by "we" you mean NATO. Do you consider the US reliable? Do you think we have military superiority without them? | ||
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TheLordofAwesome
Korea (South)2656 Posts
On December 29 2017 02:38 Sent. wrote: Nobody is asking for spending the whole promised 2% on missiles pointed at Moscow, You can buy stuff to protect your interests such as ensuring free-trade routes or preventing regional instabilities, which are also certain to negatively impact your ability to safeguard trade, jobs and income. • Some money could be spent on peacekeeping in regions where refugees come from. I understand that Europeans don't want to "get dirty" in hot places like Syria, but there are countries in Africa where Americans, Saudis, Russians and Israelis aren't involved. • Some money could be spent on developing our (European) air force. I think it's important to be able to do stuff like the air strikes in Libya without American assistance. Having more ships to protect trade routes would also be cool. • More money spent on developing our own weapons means less money going into the American military industry. I think a lot of posters here would want that. I'm guessing that by "we" you mean NATO. Do you consider the US reliable? Do you think we have military superiority without them? Very important questions to ask, considering that the current president of the US hates NATO and doesn't want to honor Article 5. Especially since the most likely aggressor against NATO is Russia, whom the US president has displayed a disturbing amount of affection for. EDIT: Just noticed it says you are from Poland. Not surprised that someone on NATO's eastern frontier is more worried about the Russians than someone in western or central Europe. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On December 29 2017 02:38 Sent. wrote: I'm guessing that by "we" you mean NATO. Do you consider the US reliable? Do you think we have military superiority without them? No I don't consider the United States reliable, and yes I do think we have military superiority without them. Modern warfare is so destructive (and there are two nuclear powers on the European continent), that direct military confrontation makes no sense. Also the European continent including Russia is geriatric, we don't even have the capacity for giant land warfare any more. What is possible is what we've seen in the Ukraine, which is hybrid warfare, political propaganda, ethnic strife, and so forth. Which flies vastly under the radar of NATO and traditional military conflicts. Russia has been moving towards this stuff anyway because it's much cheaper and more effective than going to war, it even gets you into the White House! I'd agree on the importance of peacekeeping missions and strategical support for African countries, that would be money well spend. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
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FuzzyJAM
Scotland9300 Posts
On December 29 2017 04:14 Nyxisto wrote: I'd agree on the importance of peacekeeping missions and strategical support for African countries, that would be money well spend. Peacekeeping is probably a fine expense, but the force is in total about 100k personnel and has a total budget well below $10 billion. It's an utterly tiny military expenditure. And if the concern is to help out nations in difficulty, hundreds of billions spent on aid is going to be vastly more cost effective than military spending. | ||
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A3th3r
United States319 Posts
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mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
On December 29 2017 09:47 A3th3r wrote: Spain is not a rich country & neither is Russia. Russian military spending is the highest in the world as a percentage of G.O.P. They spend so much on weapons & so little on food that they are going bankrupt! citation needed | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On December 29 2017 09:47 A3th3r wrote: Spain is not a rich country & neither is Russia. Russian military spending is the highest in the world as a percentage of G.O.P. No, it's Saudi Arabia (if we discard some small countries) | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On December 29 2017 04:07 TheLordofAwesome wrote: Very important questions to ask, considering that the current president of the US hates NATO and doesn't want to honor Article 5. Especially since the most likely aggressor against NATO is Russia, whom the US president has displayed a disturbing amount of affection for. EDIT: Just noticed it says you are from Poland. Not surprised that someone on NATO's eastern frontier is more worried about the Russians than someone in western or central Europe. I will echo everything here. The US is not reliable. We are war weary and don’t trust our government or media. I don’t know if the government could rally public support for allies in NATO. Our congress does not have your back. And from some of the reports about how their elections were financed, I would be worried that some of them might soaking up some Russian dollars. And whatever shape the Russian power grab takes, it won’t be a full scale, Red Alert 3 style invasion. It will be them performing peace keeping mission into some country they helped destabilize. Or pushing into an eastern block country that they are pretty sure won’t cause NATO to push back. They are going to push into whatever version of 1938 Czechoslovak they can find and see how you , the EU/NATO, respond. It is going to be designed to make all of us question if this is the time to push back with force or line up tanks on the border. So you best have some tanks ready to roll when that happens. | ||
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FuzzyJAM
Scotland9300 Posts
On December 30 2017 03:48 Plansix wrote: I will echo everything here. The US is not reliable. We are war weary and don’t trust our government or media. I don’t know if the government could rally public support for allies in NATO. Our congress does not have your back. And from some of the reports about how their elections were financed, I would be worried that some of them might soaking up some Russian dollars. And whatever shape the Russian power grab takes, it won’t be a full scale, Red Alert 3 style invasion. It will be them performing peace keeping mission into some country they helped destabilize. Or pushing into an eastern block country that they are pretty sure won’t cause NATO to push back. They are going to push into whatever version of 1938 Czechoslovak they can find and see how you , the EU/NATO, respond. It is going to be designed to make all of us question if this is the time to push back with force or line up tanks on the border. So you best have some tanks ready to roll when that happens. Is there a reason to prefer Western power grabs to Russian ones? Is Libya doing any better than eastern Ukraine? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On December 30 2017 07:19 FuzzyJAM wrote: Is there a reason to prefer Western power grabs to Russian ones? Is Libya doing any better than eastern Ukraine? I find the contrast between the EU/West/NATO and Putin's Russia to be pretty stark, honestly. The EU/West/NATO is a collection of democratic nations that all are trying to make war not happen any more, to varying levels of success. Putin stole a whole lot of money from the Russian people and then murdered a bunch of people until all the remaining super rich people were under his power. And now he crushes anyone with a reasonable chance of getting power and constantly wins the fake elections his nations hold. I don't really understand how people can look at current Russia under Putin and think that person getting more power and influence would be great. Russia alone could change the face of the internet in the next 5-10 years. God help us if China jumps on board with the same tactics. But for the sake of argument: People get some level of agency in one under the west. Not under Russia. Ukraine may have been facing problems, but at least it was a trying to be democracy. I don't know what to call it now, except for distressed. Libya seems to be improving, if on at the glacial speed that nations improve, especially in the Middle East. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22412 Posts
On December 30 2017 07:19 FuzzyJAM wrote: Is there a reason to prefer Western power grabs to Russian ones? Is Libya doing any better than eastern Ukraine? Why ask that when the post never even mentions Western power grabs? | ||
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FuzzyJAM
Scotland9300 Posts
On December 30 2017 07:36 Plansix wrote: The EU/West/NATO is a collection of democratic nations that all are trying to make war not happen any more If you seriously believe this then I think our understanding of diplomacy by Western states is so different that there isn't much chance of worthwhile discussion. War is immensely profitable to large swathes of very powerful people, and often wars are politically expedient domestically, and wars allow for expansion of power in particular areas. For me, it's clear these influence much of our foreign policy. | ||
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