Simon: That's what hegemony means. Is the US
complaining because it's top dog? How many times
have I heard (not on Lit-Ideas) that the US has
the biggest and best military in the world. If you
want boasting rights fine, but there are
responsibilities that go with it.
Eric: I think most US citizens would prefer
military equivalence with a strong Europe if it
meant better schools, roads, etc., than being a
global gunslinger. Our oldest traditions are those
of self-defense (with an "s"). Only later came the
imperialist phase of booting out Spain and Spanish
Mexico. Then back to self-defense until the two
European World Wars.
Simon: Don't forget how many millions of Europeans
died in both world wars. Europe, continental
Europe especially, has an understadable phobia
about militarisation and wars. Can you blame them?
Eric: Fine to have a phobia if it means not to
return to fascism. Not fine to have a phobia if it
means putting the military onus on an ally that is
so widely resented.
.... As a united European entity, the EU should
have military responsibilities on par with its GNP.
Simon: This is the nub I think. The EU has a
policy on European defence. (spelt with a 'c').
It's military is measured for those purposes. The
US has a military that is measured by the need to
defend US interests. hese are two different
concepts, the one being essentially geographic,
the other being globally economic.
Eric: Yes, the *nub* and kernel. Europe can ONLY
follow a policy of self-defense because the US
protects European economic interests in the course
of protecting its own. Were the US to suffer a sea
change into something more populist and strange,
stop protecting its economic interests, then
Europe would HAVE to do so.
Simon: The US had a choice once the Cold War was
over. It could have scaled down its military in
keeping with the diminished threat from another
superpower. However it chose not to, and since
Bush came into power, it has increased spending on
the military.
Eric: We did cut down a lot after Gulf War I. All
kinds of hardware went into mothballs forever.
Plus Clinton reduced a lot of the maintenance
budget on the military hardware we had, making us
look at lot more formidable on paper than in
praxis. For example, we claimed to have X amount
of M-1 tanks, but because of maintenance cuts,
only X minus Y were actually usable, and the same
thing applied across the military arsenal.
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