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There are no rivals near by in europe.
And this is exactly why all those militaries havn´t stocked up huge amount of weapons.
Just for example Denmark is not in danger to lose its sovereignty because of the simple fact there is no country near by who would attack them.
Of course if you want to play war in north africa those weapons would be needed.

IMHO...

This is exactly what I'm talking about - using the fact that no nation has been sabre-rattling at their border for 50 years as an excuse to have a pathetically weak military that can't even drop bombs for a couple months from the air without running out of budget money to buy bombs. They might as well have no military in that case and just put a nice dress on. A nation that buys munitions on an ad hoc basis can only participate in wars that are more like firepower demonstrations. Their budgets become dedicated to internal social spending, and if ever they are attacked (forget that it's too late then anyway), they simply could not cut spending, raise taxes or borrow enough to put up any significant fight. The one-carrier fleet of some countries is another bad joke. It's not for national defense, it serves to prop up national pride and participate in the occasional political intervention, since in a war, that carrier could get sunk, and along with it the hopes for national defense.

Over the years, the geo-political situation changes, and a neutered military can not simply wave a magic wand and instantly become a force to be reckoned with - it takes constant training and development and a large ongoing investment, e.g., the U.S. military. As far as no "near" rivals - that doesn't hold water in today's modern world. If it did, America could get by with little or no conventional forces if it relied on the isolation of two nice big oceans and pitifully weak neighbors.

Well i get your point.
And from an american point of view it does make sense.
But the european point of view is totally different.
The worst danger for european countries have allways been
other european countries.
And this threat has definitely gone in the EU.
Beside maybe the french (because they love their little wars in africa) usually nobody stocks up weapons for the simple reason you don´t need them for your defence nor have most european countries any interesst to get involved in military conflicts outside of europe.
This is why libya has really caught me by suprise too (and i´m pretty shure the european militaries have been as suprized the moment those politicians told them pleas start bombing libya ;-)
Won´t last long anyway because you can´t defend this bombing campain very long back at home because the people are against it. (even the french puplic don´t like it and it has ruined whats was left of sarkozys popularity).
As said like the US the EU does not need many weapons to defend them against outside threats.
Most europeans just have enought from wars at all.
(and beeing 10 years in afghanistan with no end in sight did not really help to change that view ;-)
Of course this means most of the countries have little to no capacity to fight an offensive war araound the globe.
But since the politicians would get eaten alieve anyway from their own population back at home they can not pull this of anyway even if they would wish.
So why prepare your self with offensive capabilities when the people back home would not let you use it anyway?
I guarantee you that the european afghanistan commitment was definitely the maxium the US could have got.
(Because if europe would send more soldiers there would definitely role some politician heads in their home country.) Without nato there would not be a single european soldier still in afghanistan.
I guarantee you this.
But Ok there was the world trade center and the US asked for help.
People understood this back then.
But as said this war was NEVER (not even in the beginning popular in europe).
Most europeans would rater sit aside and watch 10 genocides in africa before they would send just a single soldier.
Because most europeans have zero interesst in wars outside of the continent.
The this is none of our buisiness statement is pretty common.