At 14:23 5-2-2003 -0800, Gautam Mukunda wrote:
So, where should we cut the spending? Education? Public Health Care? Social Security?> >All of Europe could certainly spend more on the military. > > But again, where is that money supposed to come from? Raising taxes? > A "Marshall Plan" for Europe's military?How about cuts in non-defense spending? That is an option, after all.
There have been plenty of cuts in non-defense spending over the years -- with terrible results. Cuts in the Education budget have forced schools in smaller communities to close down, and have lead to a large shortage in teaching staff -- because only the very idealistic still want to do that kind of work for that kind of money. Cuts in the Public Health Care budget have lead to a shortage in nursing staff (same problem as with teachers) and long waiting lists for medical care. Worse yet, ICU beds which could be filled remain empty because we don't have enough nursing staff to look after ICU patients. Cuts in the Social Security budget have lead to increased poverty and a widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Indeed, God didn't do that. Our socialist/social-democratic history however does mandate that we take proper care of those of our citizens who for whatever reason cannot take care of themselves.God did not mandate that Europe swaddle its people in a welfare state.
Until I see some official documents from the Dutch government stating that this is why we are cutting the defense budget, I will stick to the explanation that the current state of the economy is forcing us to cut the budget.> It isn't really a choice -- it's the economy. The economy isn't what > it used to be, and we all feel the consequences of it. It's not just > the Defense Department that's feeling the consequences, other > departments are feeling it as well. And so does the private sector > -- newspapers are filled with reports of mass lay-offs, companies > going belly-up, and stock values dropping. The American economy isn't exactly doing that well either (although, to be fair, it's doing far better than Europe is). Defense is usually considered the _first_ priority of a government. If the Netherlands is willing to cuts its defense budget during a time of global turmoil, it just might possibly be because it knows that its security needs will be taken care of by someone else...
As I don't have data on the deployment strength of the various European countries, I'll take your word for it that the combined European countries have less than 1/4 the deployable combat strength of the US. However, that does not mean that a future European military will not be able to reach that level. As I've said before, our problem is that we don't have a European military but are stuck with a number of countries which all have their own military. European combat strength would greatly benefit from forming a European military.> You're overlooking something here: the US is *one* country, while > Europe is a collection of countries. Each country has its own > military, there is no "European military". Because of that, there is a > lot of overhead, which alone costs a great deal of money. That problem > could be solved by creating a "European military", but despite > international military cooperation, it will be several years before we > have accomplished that. A fair point. Europe is almost as large as the US. Assume that its inefficiencies mean that it is only half as effective at spending military money - given how inefficiently the American military is run, such a level of incompetence would boggle the mind, but I'll accept your premise that Europe is capable of heroic measures in that department :-) That would give all of the European countries combined 1/4 the deployable combat strength of the United States. This it does not have - not anywhere close to it.
Guess we were too busy elsewhere in the world. I don't have the data about other European countries handy, but I do know where the Dutch are (and have been) operating.In Kosovo European forces flew _less tan 10%_ of combat missions. Europe's (non-British) contribution to the no-fly-zones over Iraq? 0. To the defense of South Korea? 0. To the defense of Taiwan? 0. I leave you to tell me how 0 compares to the 1/4th that is a bare minimum.
At the moment there are 1,957 Dutch troops on foreign deployment:
* 1,118 military personnel in the Balkan region
* 825 troops in operations related to the international fight against terrorism (458 in Afghanistan (ISAF), 27 in the Middle East, 340 elsewhere)
* 1 military personnel for UNMEE
* 12 military personnel in the Middle East for UNTSO
* 1 military personnel in Moldavia (OSCE)
* 825 troops in operations related to the international fight against terrorism
Source: http://www.mindef.nl/nieuws/media/170701_dailynews.html
Previous missions (since the second Gulf War) include:
* 1990-1991: Iraq - Kuwait (Second Gulf War)
* 1991-1998: Iraq (UNSCOM)
* 1991-1999: Angola (UNAVEM, CMATS, UNOPS)
* 1992-2000: Cambodia (UNAMIC, UNTAC, CMAC, UNDP)
* 1993 : South Africa (UNOMSA)
* 1993-1995: Mozambique (UNOMOZ)
* 1993-1994: Rwanda (UNOMOR, UNAMIR, Provide Care)
* 1993-1996: Haiti (UNMIH)
* 1994-1996: Georgia (CVSE/OVSE)
* 1994-1996: Former Yugoslavia (ICFY)
* 1994-1996: Task Force Mostar
* 1995-1996: Israel/Syria (UNDOF)
* 1997-2001: Albania (MAPE)
* 1998-2001: Cyprus (UNFICYP)
* 2001 : Macedonia (Essential Harvest, Task Force Harvest)
* 2001 : Djibouti (Apache detachement for UNMEE)
* 2002 : Macedonia (Task Force Fox)
Source: http://www.mindef.nl/missies/ (in Dutch, not in English)
We don't put *all* our money into such things, we happen to be more convinced than the US that it's the government's responsibility to look after its people.> Further, much of our tax money (probably a far higher proportion than > in the US) goes to some other hugely expensive thingies like Public > Health Care and Social Security. Budgets cuts in *those* areas already > lead to a lot of protest, but if the government decides to take money > away from Public Health Care and Social Security, in order to fund the > military, all hell will break loose over here. Once again, a choice. There's no natural law that says that Europe has to put all its money into such things. You _choose_ to do so.
We don't spend anything on our own? You think that deploying European troops and hardware doesn't cost us any money? And what exactly is your definition of "collective goods"?I'm not even saying that Europe was wrong, actually. Given the US's willingness to pay all of the costs of collective goods, it is somewhat logical of Europe to not spend anything on its own.
See the list of Dutch operations I provided above. I'd say participating in all those operations definitely qualifies as a commitment of resources.It is just _not_ logical for a Europe that refuses to spend to nonetheless demand a voice in international politics that is not backed up by any commitment of resources.
The Europeans see things differently. In fact, they speak very highly of the Dutch logistics capabilities in particular. As international military cooperation in Europe increases, the Dutch are more and more becoming the key player when it comes to logistics operations. The local Air Force base here has even been chosen to become a major hub for European military transports.> There is more to warfare than just actual combat. Well, there's supply and logistics. But while European combat forces are actually decent - maybe a generation behind their American counterparts - European logistics capabilities are, well, incapable. Nonexistent, actually.
It is foolish to underestimate your enemies, but it is also foolish to underestimate your allies.
Of course they haven't! Until fairly recently they weren't *allowed* to operate abroad, so they didn't have *any reason* to spent money on sea and air-lift capabilities. Sure, they are allowed to operate abroad now, but creating sea and air-lift capacities sufficient for worldwide deployment is not something you accomplish in a few years.The German army inside the borders of Germany is actually quite formidable. Outside of Germany it is a nonentity, because Germany hasn't spent on the sea and air-lift capacities to get them somewhere and supply them once they are there.
The Bush regime appears to think differently -- otherwise there wouldn't be a "War Against Terror".I would point out, however, that despite your impassioned (and absurd) rhetoric, the _American_ military was designed to defend _your_ borders. Not ours - there are no threats on ours.
I am not calling those $400 billion "small change", I am saying that 100 million Euros (or dollars) is a far greater drain on the Dutch military budget than on the US military budget.> >Someone has to protect South Korea from North Korea. Someone has to > >protect Taiwan from China. Europe (again, outside of Britain) has > >chosen to make _no_ contribution to these two things, among many > >things, among many others. > > Cost has a lot to do with that. For a small country like The > Netherlands or Belgium, spending 100 million Euros on deploying its > troops to Farawayistan is a far greater drain on the military budget > than spending 100 million dollars would be on America's military > budget. For us, it's a hell of a lot of money; for the US, it's small > change. Even for the US the $400 billion that we do spend is not small change.
The US defense budget is 400 billion. The Dutch defense budget is 7.3 billion. You do the math.
The only thing unreasonable here is your constant Euro-bashing. :-(But fine. I accept that it is true that Europe does not have the economic resources of the US. That doesn't change the fact that we are the ones who _actually are_ paying the costs and bearing the burdens of policing the globe, and you _actually are not_ - even though you derive benefits from our efforts. If we do all the work, take all the risks, and pay all the costs - why should we listen to people who do none of the work, take none of the risks, pay none of the costs, derive much of the benefits, and actually make it _harder_ for us to do the work instead of helping? That doesn't seem a little unreasonable to you?
The US does not do *all* the work, thus does not take *all* the risk, and do not pay *all* the costs. For example, the Dutch participated in the second Gulf War (deployments in the Persian Gulf, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates), thus took some of the risk, and al that cost us 462 million guilders. AFAIK we never were reimbursed by the US. The same goes for all those other countries and all those other missions: did some of the work, took some of the risk, paid part of the costs.
And then, mr. Mukunda, was a totally uncalled for low blow.> Our militaries are useful alright -- but we have different ideas about > what the military should be used for. Well, pretty obviously that idea doesn't include defending women and children in Srebrenjica.
You must be well aware of the reasons why things went so terribly wrong. You know, sending troops without bothering to first find out what you're sending them into, not providing them with sufficient training for the mission, and then sending them in without the proper weaponry. And it also didn't help that our allies refused to send air support when we asked for it... :-(
Well, Colin Powell doesn't seem to think we "could add nothing but hot air". Today the Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs met with Colin Powell in Washington; precise details of what was discussed have not been revealed, but we have been told that Powell explicitly asked for Dutch military support if and when the US actually goes to war against Iraq.But, well, so what? If Europe did support us it could add nothing but hot air, and our politicians are quite capable of supplying us with sufficient quantities of that.
The Dutch are likely to provide that support, given what else was announced today: just like with the previous Gulf War, the Dutch will be protecting our Turkish ally against possible Iraqi attacks. We'll be sending them three Patriot installations and some 370 troops. For now, duration of the deployment is set at six months. Given what we did during the previous Gulf War, there are probably going to be more Dutch troops and hardware heading for the Middle East.
A little more appreciation of our contributions would be appreciated.
Jeroen "Make love, not war" van Baardwijk
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