[coldtea]

>What if the European countries had to had to pay for their own defense?

The European countries pay big bucks for their own defense, thank you very much.

And the US doesn't provide any defense at all. It merely uses its pressure to get the European countries to participate in its inane crusades and wars, from Korea to Iraq, which are for it's own interests.

Plus, defense against what? The only thing that brings any trouble to European countries is mostly aligning with US interests in some wars (e.g EU got some terrorist attacks by islamist groups in revenge for this -- few and far between in any case).

Not to mention that what the US officially considers "threats" are either lies (like Bush's WMDs in Iraq) or BS third world countries that couldn't harm a duck even if they wanted to (and which could not care less about having any war with Europe) but happen to be rich in oil or other resources.

[electromagnetic]

I think when the UK paid 1/20th of the cost to R&D Trident 2, but got 1/5 of the orders, I'd say yeah that was pretty heavily subsidized by the US to have an ally country with stealth-nuclear capabilities.

I also think you have absolutely no clue who international politics works by your blatant naivety. There's a lot more at stake than "access to oil". FYI Iraq showed oil reserves far superior to that of Saudi Arabia, and FYI Saudi Arabia has a military far exceeding most European states (UK, France and Germany obviously excluded due to the amount they do spend, but the Saudi Air force exceeds the UK for active combat air planes). Iraq with more money than Saudi Arabia and an intense hatred for the US/Europe would have been a massive fucking deal. Saudi Arabias royal family however is on good terms with the US government, and I'm sure the US didn't want a regional war between Iraq and Saudi Arabia locking down all Middle Eastern Oil production to ever be a possibility.

The War in Iraq was less about getting our hands on Iraqi oil, but getting their Regimes hands off of Iraqi oil. Had they been left alone since before the first gulf war, allowed to buy Russian hardware and build a military superior to that of Saudi Arabia, the region would be under their thumb and so would a massive chunk of the western worlds oil supply for military purposes. Not to mention they would have been well within the budget range to develop nuclear weapons without ever having to test like North Korea.

The US also didn't sit around and leave Europe high and dry in conflicts like the Kosovo War, because following your logic why should the US be dragged into a purely European conflict. Basically, because the US gives a shit about keeping its allies in place and stable and their enemies crippled and weak, which is what the rest of the world is trying to do too.

So when NATO countries have a vested interest in keeping a country down (Iraq) because it developing a military will support an old adversary (Russia), you can bet they'll tell the public whatever they fucking want to justify a situation like the Cold War never gets the opportunity to arise.

It's a sad state of affairs that crippling the development of foreign countries is in our own best interest, but personally I enjoy my way of life and the world isn't a John Lennon song.

[coldtea]

>I think when the UK paid 1/20th of the cost to R&D Trident 2, but got 1/5 of the orders, I'd say yeah that was pretty heavily subsidized by the US to have an ally country with stealth-nuclear capabilities.

"Subsidized to have an ally country" is completely different to "subsidized" (as in, "we did them a favor"). Plus, did they get those 1/5 of the orders for free? If not, I can't see how the fact that they paid 1/20th of the cost of the R&D comes into play at all. Do you expect them to pay the R&D on top of the price they buy the stuff?

Plus, the UK is not "Europe". Heck, they're considered mostly US lackeys down in the "continent", what with Blair and all.

>I also think you have absolutely no clue who international politics works by your blatant naivety.

I don't think Americans not in the government have any clue of international policy. For one, their access to good information is extremely limited, and most of their coverage (from news to books) comes from officially sanctioned party lines (with some faux-heretics thrown in for good measure). Even the american leftists have very mediocre analysis and take for granted a lot of ideology.

>There's a lot more at stake than "access to oil". (...) The War in Iraq was less about getting our hands on Iraqi oil, but getting their Regimes hands off of Iraqi oil.

So the well known situation with Saudi Arabia aside, that people in Europe (where we actually read newspapers and discuss international politics all the time, and not just what our government wants to bring into the spotlight to prepare the public consensus for some aggressive foreign policy) know even in High School, you wrote all that just to come around to that it's all about "access to oil"?

>Had they been left alone since before the first gulf war, allowed to buy Russian hardware and build a military superior to that of Saudi Arabia, the region would be under their thumb and so would a massive chunk of the western worlds oil supply for military purposes. Not to mention they would have been well within the budget range to develop nuclear weapons without ever having to test like North Korea

And that makes the business of a sovereign country something the US has any say in it because?

>The US also didn't sit around and leave Europe high and dry in conflicts like the Kosovo War, because following your logic why should the US be dragged into a purely European conflict.

The US shouldn't have been involved at all in the Kossovo war. They just wanted to establish Kosovo as a protectorate, and have a solid base in the Balkans. If the European people had their say (instead of our governments) they would have told the US to go and shove their participation in this conflict.

>So when NATO countries have a vested interest in keeping a country down (Iraq) because it developing a military will support an old adversary (Russia), you can bet they'll tell the public whatever they fucking want to justify a situation like the Cold War never gets the opportunity to arise.

We really hope something like the Cold War does arise. The Cold War was an era where none of the two bloody superpowers could do as it pleased. The so-called "balance of terror" worked in the favor of smaller countries (hence the tons of sovereignty and anti-colonial fights all around the third world). Now we just have one global cop, which does as it pleases, invaded who they like, takes care of its interests by stepping down on sovereign countries and such. Let's hope China can play the counter-balance in the future. (Sure, China has it's flaws. But the counter-balance does have to be totally progressive or democratic. Just as the US is not. It just have to be there, and stand as a limit to the other's power0.

>It's a sad state of affairs that crippling the development of foreign countries is in our own best interest, but personally I enjoy my way of life

Sure. Who wouldn't, if his country fucked up the world for him to enjoy cheap gas, financial domination, et al?

[electromagnetic]

Thanks for the point by point there, but you basically just confirmed my initial opinion that you really have no clue beyond your own media-infused bias of the situation.

I don't think we have to introduce your head to your ass, because I think they're well acquainted with each other.

Boo hoo, US evil, blah blah.

[coldtea]

>Thanks for the point by point there, but you basically just confirmed my initial opinion that you really have no clue beyond your own media-infused bias of the situation.

Ironic, coming from a citizen of the same country where 80% of the people believe in "miracles" ( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1240075... ) and a large percentage cannot point their country on a map, much less a foreign country. Heck, it's the country the Presidents and political candidates are even know to do grave mistakes on international affairs, even confusing whole countries with others on camera.

>Boo hoo, US evil, blah blah.

I don't believe in "evil". I'm rational. US is just ruthlessly pursuing it's interests, and fuck everybody else (literally). Including fuck them with illegal and unethical means (from invading a sovereign country to drone murders). You can afford it when you are top dog. It's not like European colonial powers on their day behaved any better.

[electromagnetic]

No the irony here is you again completely proving my point by you assuming I'm American just by my "defending" them. I'm British, and I live in Canada. But again, your head has already met your own ass very intimately.

[ownagefool]

That's a complete non-answer, which is usually done by a person with the same issue you're accusing the parent of.

Trident is a sore point for the UK for several reasons:-

> It's not an independent nuclear deterrent, we're on a US leash even if we try to sell it otherwise.

> They're based in Scotland, a country within the UK which has fairly low support for nuclear weapons, which the primary elected party are dead against having them, going as far to make it a platform for the independence vote in 2014.

> We need to buy them and pay for upkeep. Theres talk of £100bn costs to renew the things, and I believe the lions share of that goes right back to the US.

I can't tell you whether or not it was subsidised, but I doubt it was when you get down to it and the comparison you are making isn't completely apt.

[arethuza]

The prospect of getting rid of Trident is the #1 reason why I'm going to vote for independence next year.

[ownagefool]

Having politics done at the local level by people who live in and are invested in Scotland is the #1 reason I'm going to vote for independence.

Not being a viable target for nukes is just the icing on the cake.

It's a shame all polls suggest we're rather content being ignored by the status quo though.

[malkarouri]

"Saudi Arabia has a military far exceeding most European states"

Speaking about knowledge of international politics, this statement is simplistic and arguably wrong. Saudi Arabia does have one of the largest military budgets in the world, but that does not translate to better or more military. It translates to buying more equipment and giving more money to the weapons industry in the US, the UK and other countries. The US is the main beneficiary, so it is kind of like protection money.

In particular, Saudi Arabia is far from the biggest military force in the Middle East in practice. Israel, Egypt, Iran, and Saddam-era Iraq are/were all far stronger. The last fact is the reason that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait invited the US and the coalition when Saddam invaded Kuwait, despite the loss of face. And it is the reason the US is military active in the Gulf region: Saudi Arabia is nowhere near Iran military speaking..

[malkarouri]

Saudis spend the most money on hardware, yes. But the hardware is left unused, and the sole reason for it is as a token in lieu of payments for US and allies.

The Saudi Arabian army does not project any power in the region, and is not a player. Saudi Arabia is not even able to support its allies in Lebanon against Iran-backed military players.

[amalag]

So actually we can say Saudis spend the most money on the most expensive hardware.

[miloshadzic]

It sucked to be bombed for three months but now that I realize it made an improvement on your quality of life I feel much better!

[electromagnetic]

Not to be an ass, but Iraq was leading to either another war with Iran, or a war with Saudi Arabia as the Ba'athist party was at odds with both, or just another genocide. The Iraq-Iran war caused (depending on the figures) over a million deaths and at least a trillion dollars in economic damage. The extreme high estimate for the Invasion of Iraq sits at 100,000, and 1/100th the civilian casualties of the Iraq-Iran war.

Personally it didn't improve my quality of life one bit, I had friends and family get deployed over there and I would have preferred they weren't for their and my own sake. I was opposed to the war, I was calling the WMD claims bullshit from the start. I know why the war happened, but I'd have rather our people have been kept out of it and just let Saddam and Ahmadinejad fucktard it out by killing hundreds of thousands of their own people.

I don't know if you're actually Iraqi, or just trying to make a point, if you are I'm sorry for my callousness, but I honestly don't think my friend should have had to be in a Hummer that got hit by an IED because the Iraqi government had a history of going apeshit with mustard gas on civilian populations, just because my government didn't want some retard fiesta in the Middle East to put us into a great depression when the oil industry and all derivative industries halt.

[yequalsx]

Your view of Iraq's military capabilities and of it's military potential in 2000 is badly wrong. Iraq, by 2000, was a shell of its former self militarily speaking. The sanctions, no fly zones, and complete domination of its military in the early 90s ensured this.

Saudi Arabia, after the first Gulf War, was not in any way threatened by Iraq. Saudi Arabia supported Iraq in its war with Iran.

It is most interesting that you point out Iraq's usage of mustard gas. Said usage occurred during the Iran/Iraq war. The usage was supported by the U.S. until it was applied to Iraqi Kurds. Then there was some moral posturing but the weapons, support, and money kept flowing to Iraq so that they could continue the fight with Iran.

[miloshadzic]

I'm from Belgrade, Serbia.

[FireBeyond]

"I think when the UK paid 1/20th of the cost to R&D Trident 2, but got 1/5 of the orders, I'd say yeah that was pretty heavily subsidized by the US to have an ally country with stealth-nuclear capabilities."

That's a little one-sided. You forgot to mention that the US got the ability to build military bases on UK soil for no rent / charge.

[arethuza]

That's one of the more rational explanations of the causes of the Iraq war that I've heard....

[electromagnetic]

The Iran-Iraq war caused around a million deaths and a trillion in economic damage in the region. If Iraq went against Saudi Arabia, and started bombing the crude oil transports again, we'd be potentially looking at a Great Depression in the US and globally as it would shut down the massive oil refineries in the US gulf, and associated oil-derivative industries like having massive effects on US shipping.

Personally I don't think my friend should have had to be in a Hummer that got hit by an IED (he's fine, well tinnitus but I got that from a Motorhead concert) because Saddam liked bombing civilians with mustard gas, but given my work is solely dependent on petroleum products I kind of like having a job right now.

[throwawayG9]

TLDR:

> personally I enjoy my way of life

[solistice]

The sum of European defense spending is about as high as that of the US, but it's defense efficiency is at about 10% of that of the US due to duplicate hardware and parallel organisational structures.(I went to a Model UN Conference a couple of years ago, and our comitee wrote a resolution on establishing an Unified European Defense Force, and those numbers came up somewhere in my preliminary research, but I'm too lazy to dig them up again). What's intresting is that there are Community Medical Centers in the US, which offer the same medical procedures as regular hospitals, by the same doctors which are paid the same wage ,for 2,5k $ instead of 25k$ afaik. But then they don't charge 25$ for a disposable syringe that cost 50 cent to buy and 5 cent to produce.