"The prosperity of national economies is guaranteed by trade. Trading takes place across the world and relies on free access via trade routes that must be protected.
If those routes are compromised by other nations along the way, unfairly restricting or taxing goods, there needs to be a resort diplomacy or ultimately force of arms to keep them free. The alternative is to starve, endure cold and generally be impoverished.
You may not like it, but the world is linked together by trade. The UK economy in particular is heavily integrated into the global trading network.
UK government policy is to maintain the viability of its trading network guaranteed by treaties and trade agreements. But this is underlined by having a navy that has global reach as an insurance policy."
I was merely pointing out how well Germany has done in the last 60 odd years WITHOUT an effective military of any size or strength.
It is a question of continued authority. How much attention will S American and South Asian countries give to UN proclamations when they are not represented at the top table as they become major economic powers and two fading powers- France and Britain retain theirs.
The SC was based on Nuclear Weapons- a stupid idea now. Surely the SC should have representatives from non-US America, South Asia, Africa and so on.
The Bundeswehr topped out at close to half a million men under arms during the cold war. That’s hardly negligible. Having said that they only spend 1.2% of GDP on their military these days.
Relative Peace??? The twentieth and Twenty first centuries have seen more real wars than any previous centuries- and many more deaths in wars.
1905-1914 and 1945-1950 were quite war free.
Then we had Korea, Indonesia, East Africa, Suez, Vietnam, Israel/Egypt, Cambodia, Laos, and then a short term lapse from 1975 to 1980 and since then, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria.
@Pjen, I’d argue the USNC hasn’t had credibility for a long time if ever. During the Cold War the US or USSR typically vetoed each other constantly (the Soviets walked out in protest once and later learned that was strategically unwise since it vacated their ability to block all action from NATO countries through the UNSC.)
I agree Germany has forged a path where it spends very little on military matters and does not engage in overseas adventurism. I was just confused when you used the phrase “total ban on armed forces” as that made it sound like they had no military at all ala Iceland.
I would agree the UK should focus on its own interests in military affairs and not those of the United States, although I contend they often align. Stuff like Suez, the Falklands, and the Bush lead Iraq war show those interests are not always aligned and it can be both important to have some level of independent action while also important not to just follow the U.S. lead (as Blair did in Iraq.)
I don’t know enough about the UK budget to say what the appropriate amount of military spending is. I do think around 2.5% of GDP where it is at now seems reasonable to me, and would suspect the UK forces might need reorganized to reflect changing realities more than they need more budget cutting.
The U.S. on the other hand could afford to cut ours spending down to like 3-3.5% of GDP and we’d still be the biggest spenders in the world by a vast margin.
The UK has the same order of magnitude of budget in fourt equal place with Saudi Arabia, France and Japan- 60.8- 58.7 billion with the UK at 60.8- not a clearcut fourth at all.
At much greater risk now of not being able to get retrospective assent from Parliament or the country. That was Blair’s downfall- he lost the assent of the country and then lost office.
Yeah, let’s have the mentality of ‘well at the moment they don’t have the capability’ attitude and see where that gets us. Having an independent military capability gives us the choice and freedom (if we want too use that) to do things in our national interest.
I would like to know why, due to an economic downturn and some budget cuts, this constitutes the UK and France as ‘fading powers’
economic downturns and downsizing of the military happens all the time, in fact, the downsizing in the military is only happening due to the relative peace in world affairs (barring the middle east) which is guaranteed by the US umbrella, I can guarantee if that was removed, we’d be looking at an even bigger UK military budget to make up for the short fall.
The UN was created this way on purpose. It is not a world government, it is a forum where countries on the verge of war can talk about issues. Of course the UN will do nothing if the “great powers” don’t all agree, because otherwise the great powers wouldn’t join in the first place. Stalin wasn’t going to join any organization that had pretentions to intervene in internal Soviet affairs.
The UN is a talking shop where the WWII allies plus China try to regularize their disagreements via diplomacy rather than shoot each other. China and Russia threatening to veto UN action in Syria is an expected feature of the security council, not a bug. It never was and was never supposed to be anything else. If you want supranational governance then look to the European Union, not the UN.
Because you are an island nation with interests that span the globe while German isn’t and has different and more localized strategic needs? The different in your defense budget is basically you HAVE a blue water navy while they don’t. The other difference is basically Germany is sponging off of NATO and to a lesser extent the US, optimizing their own budget by letting others pay their share of the cost to keep the world safe for Western Civilization™ and make sure all their trade and resources that they can’t get locally are protected so they can make more money.
Germany’s main trading partners are all in the EU, leaving aside the US…and I don’t think we are their number one trading partner, more a lucrative side line. Aside from oil, I don’t think that Germany is really dependent on anything they would need that they can’t get outside of the union. The UK, however, DOES have extensive trading partners outside of the mainland (China, South East Asia and India spring to mind, besides their trade relationships with Australia, Canada and the US of course) and also rely on overseas strategic resources beyond what Germany needs. Also, I don’t see the Brits being as cool with sponging off of the US and NATO to protect your interests for you…and you’d need to more fully join the EU AND be in a more dominant position such as German and France are to take advantage of the other benefits Germany enjoys, which I don’t see happening.
You aren’t Germany. That’s the bottom line, so wishing you were or wishing you enjoyed the same position they have is fruitless. I suppose you could just give in and let the US and NATO carry all the water for you and protect your interests. It works for other countries in Europe after all, so that’s a viable option for you…as long as you are willing to just go along with what they say and do in your name I guess. Notice we didn’t ask or consult with Germany extensively in discussions about what could or would be done wrt Syria.
Germany has for its existence been primarily a land power, the UK hasn’t and can’t be due to it being an island dependent on trade over sea lanes.
Also, it’s defence budget is negligible in effecting the terms of its trade balance.
Please how explain how not having a navy to protect the Falklands wouldn’t make a difference.
Russia defense budget is 90 billion dollars and it is the largest country in the world, it’s army is 3 million (in taking the reserve) that amount of money is not alot of investment to spread around. Where as the UK military spends 60 billion over a much smaller force, it seems to me that Russia is basically 3rd Division, not the UK at all, and we can project power alot more effectively than they ever have.
I think the UN serves good purposes, I was responding to Pjen who was pushing the concept of UN as world government, with EU like or greater powers sort of thing and where more and more countries have “permanent SC status.” Maybe that wasn’t what he was arguing, but it seemed his initial posts were very much in the vein of “world government rah rah!” Like you say, in terms of that sort of thing the UN is basically a joke. I wasn’t actually insulting it when I said it was a League of Nations body–while it failed to prevent WWII the League served some purposes just as the UN does. But people who expect(ed) it to be anything more are deluding themselves.
It’s also worth noting, there is a contradictory line of thought. There are IR idealists (I won’t use the term “liberals” because people will think I’m being political) who feel great powers have an obligation to “do something” about humanitarian abuses.
These are people that said we should have been there in Rwanda with boots on the ground, that advocated getting involved in the Balkans to stop ethnic cleansing and some who say we should be in Syria to stop humanitarian abuses. Strangely this same group of people feel international action in regards to such things must go through the UN.
But it simply cannot be, those two beliefs are not compatible, because as long as China and Russia (who care nothing about human rights in other countries) have permanent SC member status the UN simply cannot be viewed as the appropriate body to respond to humanitarian abuses.