betiko wrote:I just don t see any possibilty to ever witness a war against other nations on western country soil in the next century. People have been working hard for peace after ww2.
The only real threat are crazy fundamentalists. Perhaps we ll witness some hard core shit in the next few years that will make september 11 look like a joke.
But nation to nation? I trust that all major powers are ruled by cynics but not mad men. Diplomacy and economical threats will always prevail. The brits and french still have a powerful army, if anyone needs to get stronger it s the germans. No one fears the germans anymore in europe.
Their economy is in much better shape. They are the economical leader, they should be the major military power of europe.
Sheesh, Germany needs to get more powerful? They are the third most powerful nation militarily in Europe right behind England and France. In gross terms the three are about equal. For instance, Germany has more active military personnel than England and only 21,000 fewer troops than France. France and England outpower Germany in aircraft but air power is the only category that Germany lags behind the other two. They all have virtually the same number of tanks. Germany even has more naval power than England. England only has 66 active naval units where as Germany has 81. Germany also beats both France and England in terms of number of citizens who are fit for active duty by 6 million+ over England and 8 million+ over France. Not only could Germany hold her own against any European nation, she could quickly turn it around and kick the shit out of either France or England in a stand up one on one fight.
Lots of good info here on military power in the world as of 2015-
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... 7j6Xfze3Wwbeitko wrote:I trust that all major powers are ruled by cynics but not mad men.
Your trust is misplaced. Sociopaths gravitate toward politics, it's one of the most desired jobs by sociopaths. There is a greater than 50/50 chance that any given politicians is a sociopath and most world leaders have at a minimum many sociopathic tendencies if not outright sociopaths proper.
beitko wrote:Diplomacy and economical threats will always prevail.
And that's not even remotely true.
Economic threats are acts of war. The US as the holder of the world reserve currency has shown how badly that power can be misused. The US instead of viewing such power as a privilege and a responsibility instead uses it as a weapon. Our use of this power of being the sole issuer of the world reserve currency can be traced to virtually every modern conflict since 1948. Economic threats often turn into shooting wars because nations get hemmed into a corner and have no other choice. See Japan in the 1930's for instance.
beitko wrote:Their economy is in much better shape. They are the economical leader, they should be the major military power of europe.
Oh I agree with you here, and Germany already is a powerhouse in terms of European military power. The thing I'd point out is that the European powers have no ability to project power without the help of the US. That shit has to end. The EU is as big as the US is. It's well past time that Europe stands up on her own feet without relying on the US to project the power needed to secure European interests. Libya for instance, had not a damn thing to do with the US. It was in Europe's interest to intervene in Libya but Europe couldn't project the power needed without the US getting involved. Now look at the mess there, the US should never have had to dirty her hands in that debacle.
You poor Europeans, you have no idea. Machiavelli spelled it out all so long ago. A nation isn't a nation if it can't defend itself on it's own merits and power. Europe is dependent on the US for protection, thus, Europe is not in charge of her own destiny. You may think you are, you may trick yourself into believing you are, but in reality you have no choice but to ultimately do what the US tells you to do. That ain't freedom, man. History is replete with example after example of nations, kingdoms and civilizations who relied on someone else and ended up regretting the misjudgment.
Europe should be strong enough to beat back at a minimum the Russians without need of the US having to get involved. Russia wouldn't have a chance of beating the US in a conventional war, that is Russia could never take over the US and occupy her militarily. And the US doesn't need any help at all from Europe in this regard. The same cannot be said of the Europeans though. Russia would roll right through Europe if it weren't for the fact that the US would get into the fight and beat the Russians back. Until the day comes when Europe can stand on her own without help from anyone else, she'll always just be a satellite of the US.
Europe is our bitch and she fetches when we say fetch because you are too weak to even defend yourselves against a real enemy and lack the power to take the fight to your enemies if ever the need arises.
You are also short sighted in your belief that strong economic ties keep the peace. It certainly helps but there is a small problem. Europeans are good at cutting each other's throats, always have been, always will be. So in the good times and even mediocre times, those economic bonds are probably good enough to stave off major conflicts between European powers. The problem is, you are deluding yourself that the economic status quo will never change. Those economic ties that bind are also the rope that will hang you if a thing such a major currency collapse, major depression and other such economic events. It is not a question of
if such things will happen, but it is a question of
when those events will happen. There is absolutely no logical basis in believing that currencies can't collapse completely or economies can't die sudden deaths, because those events
always happen eventually. Europe isn't even a hundred years out from her last major conflict, but enough time has passed to delude yourselves into thinking what happened before (over and over and over and over again) won't ever happen again.
It will. It's just a question of when and what will trigger the shift in paradigm.
Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 4:04 am
