Peaceful Europe 'a security threat'

alex73

Mr Gates has repeatedly urged European members of Nato to boost their defence budgets and to find ways to modernise their forces.

Bottom line of the story is that the US wants europe to stary buying arms from US!!.

There is always an agenda, and Gates agenda is not a Security Threat.

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/world-news/peaceful-europe-a-security-threat-2076018.html

thebman

lol imagine being anti-war.

Better than the other option!

OS119

thebman wrote: »

lol imagine being anti-war.

Better than the other option!

foolish answer.

Germany being anti war in 1939 would have been a good thing, the Soviet Union being anti-war in 1941 would have been a very bad thing.

Gate's point, a rather good point for those who manged to grasp it, was that many in Europe have made a policy decision that defence spending is unneccesary because they don't like war - an decent analogy would be to decide that Health spending is unneccesary because you don't like illness.

Gates is suggesting that the very reluctance to spend - and as importantly co-ordinate - on defence capabilities and policies, as well as a reluctance to 'police' Europe's back yard, actually makes larger scale, future wars more likely, not less.

two important points. i) wars do not start because of military capability, they are political and economic issues that develop into wars because of a perception of a lack of military capability, and the perception of a lack of will to use that military capability. ii) wars get nastier the longer they continue - having a well equipped military not only means that its less likely to be used in the first place, but that any conflicts it is involved in will be over with quicker than they otherwise would have been and that they are therefore more likely to stay as 'wars of governments', rather than escalate into 'wars of the people'. wars of governments usually have specific, attainable goals with cut off points, wars of the people usually end in Genocide and utter destruction, as well as fundamentally changing for the worse those societies engaged in them.

wars happen when societies collide over political and economic issues and one sees military or political weakness in the other, unless you plan on eradicating politics and economics - and can power the world with hope, and feed and water it with idealism - then wars will continue.

thebman

OS119 wrote: »

foolish answer.

Germany being anti war in 1939 would have been a good thing, the Soviet Union being anti-war in 1941 would have been a very bad thing.

Gate's point, a rather good point for those who manged to grasp it, was that many in Europe have made a policy decision that defence spending is unneccesary because they don't like war - an decent analogy would be to decide that Health spending is unneccesary because you don't like illness.

Gates is suggesting that the very reluctance to spend - and as importantly co-ordinate - on defence capabilities and policies, as well as a reluctance to 'police' Europe's back yard, actually makes larger scale, future wars more likely, not less.

two important points. i) wars do not start because of military capability, they are political and economic issues that develop into wars because of a perception of a lack of military capability, and the perception of a lack of will to use that military capability. ii) wars get nastier the longer they continue - having a well equipped military not only means that its less likely to be used in the first place, but that any conflicts it is involved in will be over with quicker than they otherwise would have been and that they are therefore more likely to stay as 'wars of governments', rather than escalate into 'wars of the people'. wars of governments usually have specific, attainable goals with cut off points, wars of the people usually end in Genocide and utter destruction, as well as fundamentally changing for the worse those societies engaged in them.

wars happen when societies collide over political and economic issues and one sees military or political weakness in the other, unless you plan on eradicating politics and economics - and can power the world with hope, and feed and water it with idealism - then wars will continue.

That has nothing to do with being Anti-War or anything I said TBH.

European countries spend money on defense. Your acting like no money is spent on defense. They don't spend money on defense like they are going to go to war tomorrow or going to invade other countries and need the tools to achieve that because that isn't what they are doing or what they plan to do.

If attacked, there is a defense force there in pretty much every country in the EU with the advantage of it being on their soil if attacked so even if they are attacked by a superior army, they know the terrain better. You don't need the ability to invade another country unless your going to do it like America does as it considers securing other countries resources it needs to be defense.

I wouldn't consider that defense myself.