I read a very, very interesing article last week about this very topic. I can’t remember whether it was the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker or Harpers, but it was one of the three. I will try to pin it down.
Anyway, as an American, I’ve always just sort of bought into the belief that we are the biggest, baddest mofo on the block, in pretty much every meaningful respect and by several orders of magnitude. Also, that we’re pretty much gonna stay that way for at least a few more decades, minimum, when the likely contender to the throne we now occupy would be China.
This article opened my eyes to something I had simply not considered: the European Union. The argument was made quite convincingly that the EU is nearly there economically, and not far behind militarily. The point was made that unions of smaller states have a tendency to be much stronger than any individual state (see: United States of America).
I will really try to find the article, or perhaps someone else has it?
For now, I toss this into the ring for discussion. I hope to be back with more solid arguments from my reading.
Economically, perhaps. I believe the EU already has a larger combined GDP than the U.S. (although I think the U.S. per capita GDP is currently larger than the European per capita GDP).
Militarily, the Europeans still have a way to go. (A rather hypothetical point, since the U.S. is still formally allied with most of the EU member states through NATO.) While the European states have modern, sophisticated military forces, in terms of global hegemony they lack the power to project force across the planet. The European states don’t have the large-scale carrier and amphibious task forces, the long-range strategic bombers, the command and communications networks, and the logistical support to transport armies all over the planet. Also, they don’t have a single unified military command; the closest thing to a pan-European unified military command is NATO, which is of course dominated by the United States.
The Europeans are rich enough they could probably field a planet-dominating military force if they wanted to, but thus far I don’t know that there’s much indication that they have the desire to do so.
I read something that put this into perspective for me.
England either just finished building it’s only carrier or is about to. Their carrier will only hold EIGHT planes.
I think we have 7 or 8 carriers and each one carriers 60-80 planes.
Now besides England, I think only France has a carrier, and they seem to have a bunch of problems with it.
Any claims that the Europeans are catching up with us militarily need to be backed up with some numbers.
Otherwise…
We are still leaps and bounds ahead of the Europeans.
I actualy worked with French, English, Irish and Japaniese peopele at one point in time. Our job was to keep an online service up and running.
The most amazing thing I found was that the French would leave in the middle of an issue and just dissappear. The next French person had NO idea of what was going on so we had to bring him up to speed.
I found out a little later that France had Declared the work week to be 35 hours. France went so far as to follow computer companies exes home and then fine the people if they used their laptops at home. In other wrods, France is going to be a third wirld counrty soon unless they change things.
2 Kitty Hawk’s, 1 JFK, 1 Enterprise, and 9 Nimitz-class carriers. Not to mention our larger assault ships, which generally carry a air compliment equal to most ‘harrier carriers’.
Their opposition would be the De Gaul, which is on restricted operations due to a bent propeller. (And carrier props are nasty to repair, and their aren’t many ‘in stock’)
But it is a bit of a moot point. However much some Americans and some Frenchmen love to tear on each other, I don’t see an even remote possibility of armed conflict between the US and EU. (Except maybe over Israel…). Our economies are so intertwined that it would be economic suicicde, even for the victor. (Which, of course, would be the US ;))
And if it did come to blows, MEBuckner nailed it. America has spent the past 50 or more years on planning (and doing) how to fight large wars all over the globe; Hence, we havemore airlift then the rest of the world combined. (Ditto the militarized sealift). It would take decades for the EU to develop comparable capabilities. Their shining hope of airlift, the A400, is on rocky grounds for financial reasons.
Logistics defines conflicts, and the EU doesn’t have, nor soon will have, the sort of logistics capability to seriously challenge the US abroad, except, of course, in Europe.
The next war is a terrorism war.
US (Bush administration) own actions will see to that and the US-citizens can just be amazed and wonder: “Why us?”.
In that war the carriers are just targets.
Europe is much better in fighting terrorism, than US seem to be.
Sooner and later there will also be an economical war (or in fact, all wars are economical).
But it is also true, that EU tries to expand too fast too soon and this will weaken its powers/economic. Everything depends on who are the allies.
Even if EU is speaking most of the overproduction in the agricultural field, that is not the big problem in the long run.
Prosperity does not come from farming, even if food is naturally needed. Sooner or later there will be a balance in the production of food.
(my emphasis) Agreed, but it helps to get your facts straight in advance.
The UK (not England) has had three aircraft carriers in recent years. For political reasons, none of these were designed to be aircraft carriers in the conventional sense. They are primarily anti-submarine helicopter carriers with a complement of V/STOL fighters. I believe that two are currently still in service, one in refit. These are due to be replaced by two more conventional 50,000t designs carrying around 40-50 aircraft, likely to be either the new RAF Typhoon or the US JSF.
The French have one nuclear-powered carrier with around 40 Rafale-M fighters and Super Etendard strike aircraft. The Italians have the Giuseppe Garibaldi, similar to the UK’s ASW carriers but with a larger complement of aircraft, and are building the Andrea Doria, to be equipped with around 20 Harriers or US JSFs. The Spanish have the Harrier-equipped Principe de Asturias and are considering building a second.
Additionally, all the carriers in the world are vulnerable to attack themselves; comparing one against another is a pointless exercise when you throw in factors like land-based strike aircraft, submarines and so on. And, as Brutus suggests, armed conflict isn’t going to occur any time soon.
A “coalition” occupation of Iraq will certainly bring on many opportunities for the EU to turn the screws on the US. If Iraq turns out to be America’s west bank, we’ll be begging the Euros for assistance. After the recent diplomatic bludgening, it won’t come cheap.
Your title for this thread is still broken. Well, actually, it’s just incredibly and unconscionably offensive. Essentially, you’re comparing today’s United States to the Nazi regime of Hitler’s Germany.
What the Hell are you all worried about? The U.S. kicked the shit out of Iraq before w/ out even breaking a damned sweat. If all the big pussies had just shut up and let US get Saddam then we probably wouldn’t be in this crap now.
Iraq had a better military then than it does now. We have a better military now than we had then!
Wake up…if you keep putting this confrontation off it’s just going to get worse.
No, I don’t want a war. I hate f@#*ing conflict…But I can see what’s up. It’s gonna happen whether we like it or not. Israel can’t be restrained forever and shouldn’t. The US isn’t going to put up w/ too much more. If the Euro’s want a piece of the Middle East fine. If not get the fuck out the way. When Buckingham palace or the Eiffel Tower falls on your ass then you can bitch.
The “United States of Arabia” has a nice ring to it. Doesn’t it?
Where the women are free, there’s work for those who want it. Freedom of/from religion, open communication, democratic elections, hmmm pretty good for the most part!
Sorry if this sounds like a rant…thought I was in the pit.
Have no worries Stoid. The EU is founded on strictly anti-nationalistic principles. Even if such emotions would arise despite this the EU citizenry are at least two if not three or more generations away from developing a coherent and cogent emotional national union. Which we federalists in the EU hope will never happen since it would be counter to the very principles our Union is founded upon, and would constitute a failure of sorts if you consider that the chief raison d’étre for the Union is to prevent national strife and promote inclusion rather than exclusion, even beyond the European continent. Or if you like fearing EU jingoism is like dreading the threat of US Communism.
That being said you are way behind the facts as to the state of our political and economical union. The EU economy is not ‘almost there’ - it is a fact and it is a living vibrant single market. Its nature is somewhat odd and impenetrable when viewed through the glasses of old style economic unions. The quibbles of the Euro in the UK and Scandinavia might for instance make it look otherwise, but trust me when I say that these are details of a machinery and system that is just different than the US, but very much just as integrated across state borders.
If you look at sheer figures it has already been pointed out that this single market is larger than the US. It is also richer than the US, although not if counted per capita. The integration of the 10 new member states will make the EU by far larger than the US economically speaking, but also lessen the economic relative power per capita since our new member states will bring more people than money to the Union.
As far as military unity goes the EU is far from being on the US level and so it will remain for quite some time. Nevertheless we are only three months away from the stated date when we can mobilize an EU led standing army of 60.000 within weeks and the target date is apparently going to be held. A EU central command structure already exists. The ability for the council to effectively exercise any military power is pending the ratification of the Treaty of Nice, which is being held up by a referendum in Ireland.
I would also add that the EU government supercedes all member state governments and EU law supercedes national law. The fact that the member state governments make up part of the EU government and that the ‘ministers’ on EU level are not individuals, but parliament representations by the member states makes it a little hard to see this perhaps, even for our own citizenry. If you ask me it’s a flaw in the system that needs to be worked out, as it most certainly will eventually. Nevertheless, as soon as the Treaty of Nice passes (as it inevitably will, whatever a few million Irish might think) the EU is for all practical purposes a political federation, very much in the same way the US is – even if some member states don’t dare call it so for fear of political backlashes in their constituencies (read England, Sweden and Denmark).
And HappyHeathen how many times must I point out that the agricultural policy in the EU is not a ‘huge problem?’ It is a trifle of our economy and not even our largest budget post - if you look at state and Union budgets together it is disapearingly small. Sure it makes headlines and it’s a sore in some interstate relations, but all in all it’s just part of a very complex and yet functioning single currency model across heterogeneous fiscal environments. Check the value of the Euro to the Dollar…
Why put it off any longer? Invade France now! Why wait for France to further develop its cheeses of mass disgust? France has clearly shown that she is not on the right side of this issue, as her blubbering consent and approbation was not immediatly forthcoming. Hell, we still have the maps from the last time we pulled thier nuts out of the vice. With thier slothful and snotty attitude, you can bet the roads are still the same. And we wont have nearly the language problem we had in Afghanistan, a couple of battallions of high school French majors, and Paris is ours. We can sell it to the Germans and recoup our investment!
After all, what have the French done for anyone, ever? Aside from inventing oral sex, that is.
LaFayette, we are here! And your ass belongs to Daddy!
(1) If you knew it wasn’t the Pit, why did you post it?
(2) What does anything that you said have to do with the OP?
I would add that the possibility of a single European military capable of force projection beyond mainland Europe is not going to happen in the near future. The force Sparc mentions is a step in that direction but none of the EU states have large-scale transport capabilities to challenge the US’ abilities in that area. Additionally, any further moves to centralise EU military power are going to be hugely hampered by the logistical difficulties inherent in combining different equipment and different organisational structures (particularly when military procurement is a “hot-button” political issue, at least in the UK, which tempers any sensible decision-making).
I don’t think the respective military capbilities of the US and EU is a moot point. If the EU ever hopes to have as much influence in the world as the US, or if they wish to curb US influence then they’ll have to pony up for a large, transportable and capable military. Economic influence only goes so far.