December 8, 2002
STILL A SLEEPING GIANT:
Europe's dreams of muscle dashed: The EU's hopes of becoming a defence superpower are looking less realistic (Ian Black, December 6, 2002, The Guardian)[A]s transatlantic tensions mount over Iraq and the "war on terrorism", the signs are that the EU's faltering attempts to get its own act together are in a state of serious crisis. It is only two weeks since Nato - the institutional embodiment of European-US relations for half a century - decided at its Prague summit to build new military capabilities that would allow it to meet the strategic challenges of the 21st century.The main intention is to narrow the gap between the US and Europe - in big transport planes, modern ships, precision-guided weapons, hi-tech surveillance equipment and secure communications. This kit is intended for use either by the alliance or by the EU, if there is a conflict, say in the Balkans, in which the US does not wish to be involved. Eleven of the union's 15 members are also in Nato.
So the decision by Germany to slash its military spending comes as a grave if predictable blow to these already slow-moving efforts. If Europe's biggest country and economy cannot do more to help it punch above its weight, some gloomy analysts believe, then the whole project may simply be doomed. [...]
The figures show just how stark the contrast is: Germany spent 1.5% of its GDP on defence in 2001, compared with an average of European Nato members of about 2.1%. Britain and France spent 2.5% and 2.6% respectively while the US spent 3.2%. And after September 11 US spending was increased by a staggering $48bn dollars (£31bn) for 2003, more than any European annual defence budget.
What is truly staggering about all this is how little we spend on Defense now, as this chart shows:
We'd have to more than double our spending just to reach the historic average. That's one reason all the catterwauling over George W. Bush being a big government liberal is truly silly. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 8, 2002 11:24 PM
This chart makes Reagan's political accomplishment clearer -- his military buildup of the early eighties is the only instance of a peacetime buildup in modern American history. In all other periods without active war, the defense budget has been declining.
Posted by: pj at December 9, 2002 10:01 AMAs it should
Posted by: oj at December 9, 2002 10:43 AMWhat's missing from that graph is infantry.
In 1947, the U.S. realized that the citizens would not stand for or pay for an Army of 3 million to 5 million men, nor could the labor-short economy afford it. So it opted for the much cheaper Big Bang theory.
The USSR (and to a later and lesser extent, China) could not do the same for 2 reasons: 1. it needed to garrison a restless empire. 2. it could not match the U.S. or Britain machine for machine so needed to overmatch man for man.
It was a double bind. The USSR was even more short of labor than the USA, so the military/economic gap had to widen, almost no matter what policy the U.S. pursued.
Added to all that was the never-solved problem of Soviet agriculture.
The USSR had collapsed long before Reagan was elected, though it had its residual Strategic Rocket Forces to make it dangerous still.
Reagan's military spending did nothing to widen the gap. All the money on Star Wars will someday have been well spent, but it hasn't produced any workable systems yet. The billions spent on worthless Aegis cruisers reduced naval power, they did not enhance it.
It wasn't real weaponry or tough talk that brought down the USSR. It was its empire and its own sclerosis.
Harry - I agree with your last paragraph - but Reagan's firmness may have deterred military adventures in the dying decade, and impressed upon the dictators the inferiority of Communism. By 1989 they didn't have the heart to fight for it.
Posted by: pj at December 10, 2002 8:58 PMThat might be true, but impossible to know.
But it was lack of infantry that kept Bush I out of Baghdad and nothing else.
I was hoping Bush I had explained that to Bush II, but
apparently he hasn't.
I'd like to see a graph of what U.S. military expenditure
would have been, v. GDP, if we had had to maintain
a 3-million man army.
Certainly if we had, GDP would have been lower, maybe
even much lower.
So we pay for the hardware to protect, e.g. Canada, but
we end up dependent on these freeloaders for infantry.
You can win a battle without infantry. The graph shows
we could like anybody and everybody with one hand behind our backs. But you can't win a campaign -- at least not if you're going to round up a lot of prisoners or have to hold a lot of country -- without infantry.
This is not understood in Washington, or Arlington either.