Posted on 02/11/2002 3:00:53 AM PST by kattracks
Patriotic, applause-drenched occasions have become routine since 11 September. And what President Bush actually said the other day superficially sounded pretty routine too, as he made the easiest sales pitch imaginable in America – the Pentagon's military budget.
"We will not stop until the threat of global terrorism has been destroyed," he told cheering US servicemen at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, weighing in again against what he terms the "axis of evil", a description Europe denounces as simplistic nonsense. "The message has been made clear to the enemy. It has been made clear to the world. It is being delivered by the finest military ever assembled, the United States military."
But the facts behind the flag-waving are anything but routine. The relative quality of the US fighting man may be a matter of debate. America now accounts for 36 per cent of global defence spending – a share the historian Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, has pointed out, is the largest portion of global defence spending seen by a single country. Not even the Roman Empire could claim so much.
To put things into perspective, the $48bn (£34bn) increase in the Pentagon's fiscal 2003 budget is close to one and a half times as much as the entire annual defence spending of Britain or France. America's defence spending now exceeds the 15 next-largest military budgets combined.
And if anything this gap is growing. In recession-bound Europe the pressures are to cut, not expand, defence expenditure. Russia, traditionally the second-biggest spender, is desperate to divert resources into other areas. Many of the other big spenders, such as Taiwan and Saudi Arabia, are virtual client states of America, buying American weapons.
Meanwhile the US continues to widen its superiority in electronic warfare, in precision-guided munitions and in the unmanned drones that are becoming weapons platforms in their own right.
The imbalance between America and the rest of its allies is raising dark questions for Nato. At last weekend's Wehrkunde meeting of defence officials in Munich, two questions underlay the complaints about America's perceived unilateralism and aversion to prior consultations with its allies: can the Alliance function without America, and does America need Nato in any case?
Afghanistan illustrated the dilemma perfectly. On paper there was a "coalition"; in practice only Britain, Australia and Canada made any meaningful contribution. Washington drew two lessons from the Kosovo war: that air power can win wars; and that you do not run wars by committee.
Mr Kennedy argued that the decline of great powers – Spain, France, Britain and most recently the Soviet Union – was due to military overstretch, and the taking on of commitments that simply could not be sustained or financed. But on both scores, America looks safe.
It maintains scores of bases overseas, and thanks to 12 – soon to be 13 – aircraft carrier groups can project power almost immediately to any corner of the globe. But it is not an imperial power in the old sense, occupying great tracts of territory as did Britain or the Soviet Union. Indeed, as Afghanistan shows, America does not want overseas entanglement. Get in, win the war, then get out and let others provide the permanent peace-keepers, runs the new Bush doctrine.
And as Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, pointed out this week, "$379bn (£270bn) is a great deal of money, but it accounts only for 3.3 per cent of GDP." America's 2003 budget is in deficit but only by 1 per cent of GDP – virtuous by European standards.
All this is happening as America continues to pour tens of billions of dollars into vast, baroque weapons programmes – the new stealth F-22 fighter, the Comanche helicopter, and the uprated F/A-18E/F fighter, not to mention missile defence. These weapons are of little relevance for the crushing of the "axis of evil" whose three members, Iran, Iraq and North Korea, have a combined military budget of just $12bn.
Of course Afghanistan was a push-over, a poor, war-ruined country pummelled at will by its opponent in a military mismatch equivalent to Manchester United playing a pick-up village football team. Future foes, perhaps Iraq, will not be so swiftly overcome. China will undoubtedly become a more important military player. But for the foreseeable future the world must live with a Pax Americana, enforced by the mightiest military in history.
It's nice to hear, but remember the old saw, that Rome wasn't lost in a day.
It's nice, too, to hear these things from people who live in a country that knows a thing or eight about the subject, too.
All this is happening as America continues to pour tens of billions of dollars into vast, baroque weapons programmes – the new stealth F-22 fighter, the Comanche helicopter, and the uprated F/A-18E/F fighter, not to mention missile defence. These weapons are of little relevance for the crushing of the "axis of evil" whose three members, Iran, Iraq and North Korea, have a combined military budget of just $12bn.Of course Afghanistan was a push-over, a poor, war-ruined country pummelled at will by its opponent in a military mismatch equivalent to Manchester United playing a pick-up village football team. Future foes, perhaps Iraq, will not be so swiftly overcome. China will undoubtedly become a more important military player. But for the foreseeable future the world must live with a Pax Americana, enforced by the mightiest military in history.
Which is it? We're building weapons we won't need because the enemies are too easy, or we can't judge ourselves a success in Afghanistan because the enemy was so easy and they will be a lot harder in the future?
Which is it? Are we over-prepared, or underprepared? These two paragraphs, in quick succession, illustrate that the writers of this "article" can't make up their collective europansy "minds".
What idiots.
What a bunch'o'barfalot.
Now they're telling us they know the proportion of Roman Empire military spending compared to global military "spending" in the ancient world.
They just hate America, that's all, and they line up a bunch of rubbish-bins full of random "ideas" in an attempt to make us look bad. They don't make us look bad. They make themselves look like idiots.
Europe = Stupid
The fundamental equation of the 21st century.
America now accounts for 36 per cent of global defence spending
And who else is going to do it? Everytime there's a problem in the world who do they call? US, it's our men and women who shed their blood, it's our money that pays for almost all the protection of other countries manly the EU countries. And then they whine when we use it to protect ourselves and in protecting ourselves the rest of the world is a safer place. Sheesh......what a bunch of jealous green eyed dolts.
Of course it was a pushover. Ask anybody. Take a look at almost any newspaper say, around October 11, to see the unanimous chorus of journalistic voices saying "of course the US will kick the Taliban's butt."
Seems to me, all I heard about then was "quagmire."
"All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth.... could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Jamais reculez un pouce á tyrannie!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! Never give an inch to tyranny!)
LoanPalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Seems to me, all I heard about then was "quagmire."
Exactly right.
The Europeans are themselves hurling headlong into a quagmire of mediocrity: they are turning their backs on individual sovereignty - and worse, turning their backs on their individual cultures and heritages - in an effort to mount a European Union worthy to sit at the High Table. In essence, the European Union is an expression of elitist envy - envy of the United States; envy of the economic potential of the Pacific economies. The Eu wants the United States taxpayer to furnish its military shield, to subsidize its socialist programs and most important of all, to defer to its 'wisdom'. At the end of the day, the European Union will be governed by the edicts of unelected bureaucrats growing fat in Brussels and corruption and discontent within the EU will be widespread. There will be no synergy established by such 'unification' - only sorrow.
You left out a part of the equation.
Europe = Stupid + Gutless
The fundamental question of the 21st Century: When will the Europeans mind their own damned business, and stop trying to tell America what to do?
And what do these countries have in common besides a shared language, set of laws and values, democratic tradition, shared intelligence assets? English speaking democracies know who their friends are.
They can talk all they want. We do not have to listen and are under no compunction to follow. We have chosen to lead, they have not.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Jamais reculez un pouce á tyrannie!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! Never give an inch to tyranny!)
LoanPalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
As a recent survey of europansy sheep discovered:
Q: Why do you bleat when you're scared?
A: Because we're sca-a-a-a-ar-ed!
Q: And why do you bleat when you feel safe?
A: Because it's fu-u-u-u-un!
(Europansy brand sheep. You can't beat 'em with a stick!)
Truer words were never spoken. It's enough of a hassle to have Congress wanting to be involved.
I know I'm being picky, but it's Monday morning so what the he__.
If you're going to quote old saws, quote them correctly:
Rome wasn't built in a day.
No matter how much you might like to.
(Words of another British scribe we Americans should bear in mind)
Nothing like the brave words of a hamster jamming, limp wristed, cheese breathed she-he to get all the beautiful people claping their soft hands.
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