Will the europeans ever be powerful?

Is it just me or do the Americans not appreciate the British involvement in Iraq or Afganistan????

If Europe is so pathetic in terms of Military - Why ask the Brits for their help?

Mr Bush and Mr Blair invaded Iraq on a Political Wim, So how about we show some gratitude?

Maybe we are proud to have the welfare system which the USA lacks totally, such as a National Health Service for everyone to use, or a proper benefits system????

Birthrate, birthrate, birthrate...


Yes, the EU will be strong for a few years. The problem with it, though, is that the birthrate among Europeans is so low that it cannot naturally replace its population. Not only are the Europeans literally dying out... they've embraced a way of life that isn't even interested in creating progeny.

So, yes, the quality of life is better in some european countries than it is in the US. The average Europ[ean is better educated than the average american. In the end, though, Europeans are failing in terms of basic biology. If a naturalist was to describe europe in biological terms, he would be forced to describe it as a population in decline.

So, no, Europe will never be more powerfull than the US.

Immigration from muslim countries is the only thing that has kept europe viable so far. If europe ever does become strong... it will only be because it is has reached a point where it is no longer european.

Unfortunately, I think onlyinmydreams is correct. Us Europeans are in decline, but hopefully, before the muslims can release their fury on the World, there'll still possibly be the US, or upcoming superpowers like China, India and Russia to keep them in check

Only big problem again is just that big group of elder people get out from job market, while smaller number of people enters it, this cause huge pressure to welfare systems, but theres counter measures taken on this, stocks probably have greatest role on this to work, so if China growth for example would slowdown it would be felt in EU area, still i think EU stayes competive long as there welfare to secure everyone has right for high education and get to school on their best skills and gain degrees, in US public school would rarely come in question, but still theres large numbers of low educated people who cant really effect their life same way as in welfare system that doesnt look for wallet, but instead provide everyone equal change to learn. What comes to numbers, i think world already has too much people and i can assure technology will replace problems in manpower, you dont need 1000 people in assembly line, instead you have well educated technicians and R&D group to increase effiency and make new products with much less manpower. Everywhere slogan seem to be cost effiency and human is the one that is easily replaced.

Foreign labor is generally used on areas that are hardest to get people work with, services etc. without need of high education and i dont wanna totally generalise, but mostly it follows this path, until they have gained higher education and then gain higher work status in society. But future will show how EU get pass this era, US doesnt suffer work force loss strong as EU.

Add US multicultural solidarity in EU and vice versa EU social politics to US and you got two strong candidates.

Europe is not alone in this countries like Japan are having the same problem and they know it. Why do you think Japan is making such a large push with the humanoid robots right now? They are going to play a important role in their future work force.

Perhaps something like Japan has in mind for its future can help other developed countries facing the same problem.

[edit on 30-1-2005 by ShadowXIX]

Eh the british have good reason I know for a fact I dont want europe to have power in its present state it more corrupt than our own gov and we dont at moment even get to elect the ppl in EU. Until its non corrupt directed for all the ppl and not individual nations trying to get there own benifits out of anothers lose.

In my opinion the EU will be truely powerful when its democraticaly elected and for all the ppl.

Firstly i find that comment racist.
Secondly there is no " xenophobic distrust of the French" , I really want to know where you got this idea from, since we already have helped each other in the past and still do hell we even done SAR operations and wargames and exercises with them.
Thirdly we , British , dont want to loose our individuality.

Britain and its military are great and all Americans thanks the British!

I think this is more than a little over the top with the backlash against Europe's lack of support for US war efforts.

Europe is persuing a different way of doing things than America. They have gotten sick of fighting major wars. They might support a revolution here or there in Africa, especially the French, but for the most part Europe got the hint after 2 centuries of colonialist wars followed by two world wars and a small-scale but messy skirmish with China afterwards.

I don't always agree with the Europeans and at times I believe war to be an unfortunate necessity of this point in the evolution of govermnent/politics, but I believe we are shifting away from it slowly and the Europeans are sometimes admirable for their attempts to press this development into being.
Think about it. 60 years ago Europe fought the most recent and bloodiest in a series of nationalist wars. How many times have Britain, Spain, France, Germany, and Russia been at it in the last 300 years in various combinations? In a relatively short period of time they have gone from that, to a place where war amongst them is unthinkable. It's an admirable achievement, even if they are a little premature in treating the world as if the strategic situation everywhere mirrored the stability of Europe.

Europe has the political clout to get things done abroad because they don't abuse the privlidge and they don't routinely piss off China and Russia just because it's fun. If Europe did have to go to war they have the modern forces trained to NATO standards and can contribute more than they usually do (they just don't do it for us because they don't agree with us). In a major war, Europe acting as one can almost rival America's production. Who do you think is making our machine guns, tank cannons, and chobham armor?

Long story short, you are dead on target about Europe having horrible cuisine, but everything else you said was somewhat misguided. I'm not attacking you personally, I'm just saying that you can't believe everything that the media says when they are venting their frustration at European policies.
By the way, since we're choosing or favorite nations based on cuisine, I believe that either Mexico or China will be the dominant cullinary power of the next century.

EU powerfull, huh.
They only exist in theory taking in consideration few aspects...more related to economy.
The biggest example here;
Just take a look back and remember some EU countries didnt take in consideration their engagement and join US in the Iraq war.
for ex.: Portugal, Espain, England.

This shows that military and politically there is no EU.
In the first big trouble will be each for for itself.

Someone said previously in this thread that US asked UK help during Iraq war.
US dont need any help, specially to fight a weak army like that.
They only allowed some help from other countries to have POLITICAL support, nothing more than that.

You keep kidding yourself, Krpano.

Imagine the mess the US would be in without the help of other nations, especially the UK. You need serious help militarily and politically. The US isn't the centre of the World you know, jeez (sp?).

I hope there aren't too many Americans thinking the same thing, otherwise we (British) should remove our troops from both countries ASAP, and quit wasting our mens lives helping our so-called ally. At the moment, I see no benefit for the UK yet, except maybe a cut in on the profits rebuilding Iraq.

They "allowed" some help?
Like other nations were jumping at the chance to fight in Iraq?

C'mon man.
The US was asking other nations for support in the war against Iraq even though their citizens were against it.
If the US didn''t need other nations, why do they get upset every time one of those nations wants to pull out?

So you are arguing that just because a couple of nations made token contributions to an outside cause they would not also cooperate with the EU? They have their sovreignity and can take actions outside of the EU, but because their economic futures are linked through shared currency they have STRONG motivation to defend eachother in any and every way that may become necessary. I will bet you any amount you care to wager that if any truely threatening nation initiated a war on an EU member, the rest of the EU would participate.




We don't need the help? We are so pressed for manpower in Iraq that the Fallujah offensive would have been absolutely impossible if British troops had not moved into American controlled areas to stand in for Marines who were being moved to Fallujah. We have troops who have been to Iraq 3 times now and it's starting to cut into retention and recruitment. To really do the mission right we not only needed help, we needed about 3 times the help that we got, at least.
The UK is the oldest, most steadfast, and most valuable ally America has known. They tend to stand by us a hell of a lot better than we ever stood by them. How long did it take us to come to their aid when it was a fight for their freedom? How long did it take them to join us in the most unpopular and senseless war since Vietnam? See my point? Only a real scumbag badmouths his best friend.

Well, from my understanding, Britain isn't really part of Europe in the same way other European countries are. Europe is Europe, the United Kingdom is the United Kingdom; they may be very close to Europe, but I don't think British actually consider themselves "Europeans."

As for Britain helping America, Britain and America have always stuck together. Britain is the motherland of America. All of the original colonies were British colonies, the original American people were British, then all the immigrants came in. But the mother country that "sprang" America was Britain, and since then Britain and America, while not always agreeing on certain things, have always seemed to stick rather close or be there for the other.

So, America doesn't have 8,000 extra troops now, huh? We have half a million men in our army alone, and just 150,000 are in Iraq. The British were not necessary. Anyone who says otherwise is probably just a biased Brit.

America wanted other nations to chip in. The British gave more support than anyone. It's appreciated. It doesn't go beyond that.

And Europe's military power is not anywhere near comparable to America's. Europe, even their combined strength, does not rival America's. Just remember, Europe, you guys couldn't even have dealt with Iraq after years upon years of sanctions.

America's military strength has been drastically cut since the end of the Cold War, and we're still ahead of the combined strength of Europe. America spends more per man then probably anyone in the world. We have the best equipment in the world in just about every aspect.

Besides the UK and France, no one in Europe has anything but a conscript army. No military in France is suited for wide deployment. How much support could the UK even give to mainland Europe if they were attacked? I highly doubt it could be done on short notice. It would take a month or two at least. In that time America could probably have taken most of Western Europe.

Nay! I'm Yankee through and through you bloody wanker! Just kidding, I really am American. I think we have to acknowledge that our coalition partners are taking a tremendous load off of an already strained US force. Try looking at it in these terms...

Take close to 10,000 allied troops participating in Iraq, multiply that by the number of rotations that we have been through (now we're up around 30,000+ troops).
Now realize that for the mostpart it needs to be infantrymen and military police. A few thousand airmen sitting on their fat arses in Germany don't have much to offer to the Iraq effort.

If we absolutely had to we could deploy more, but it would be an extreme hardship on an already strained military. You might remember that Rumsfeld really only wantd to go in with 50,000 troops originally because he knew the cost of extensive deployments like this.




It's appreciated but it doesn't go beyond that... what does that mean exactly man? "Thanks, but we still dont respect you"? They just might be stopping our reserve forces from literally falling apart.




Oh man now you're just hurting me. You and I have had some interesting conversations in the past but are you seriously claiming that Europe couldn't have won a war with Iraq or are you just saying that their sanctions didn't work? You have to remember that most of the world didn't want the sanctions to work. Saddam was everyone's friend from the late 70s up till 1990. Even Bush 41 initially wanted to continue America's friendship with him.
European technology rivals pretty much everyone's but America's, and in some areas they are ahead. They have the manufacturing and economic capacity as a whole to militarize and fight a serious war. Just because they don't have the large stockpiles in place does not make them impotent by any standard.



I agree. Our tanks are particularly awesome, even with the second-best armor Britain makes and the standard Rhinemetal cannon that Germany sells to almost everyone else in NATO (except Britain who have their own made by Vickers).
America isn't like the ultra-hightech aliens who come in and whip the world's arse in 10 minutes in a movie. We have the first rate of almost everything, but we share it with others in many cases, and many others have the ability to produce it. In my way of thinking I severely doubt that America even has the ability to successfully invade Europe if it were to come up.



We're not even going to get into this because
1. It's never going to happen.
2. I'm not in the mood for an international dickmeasuring contest.
3. I'm sick of telling everyone they're wrong and pissing them off.
I'll say only this. It wouldn't be easy, and if we did it without just cause I'd probably join the French Foreign Legion so long as they'd let me take pain killers for my back.

I guarantee to, Disturbed Deliverer, if America ever threatened the EU, without proper cause, Britain alone would put up an EXCELLENT fight. You think WW2 was bad, you pick on the big guys of Europe today, and you'll unleash a can of worms you've never seen in history.

Think of this, attack the EU unprovoked, not only will you threaten every EU country and their allies, it would mean no more sanctions for Germany and every single country goes in to full military production, this includes building tanks, ships, nuclear weapons, etc. Massive sanctions alone would severly damage the US.

I hope this opinion isn't repeated by too many Americans, because there are some great people other there.

Also, think about how spread out your troops would be in Iraq if Britain hadn't taken control of the South. You just don't want to admit that the Worlds superpower needs help. Get over yourselves, otherwise you're going to have even more problems when other superpower rise in the next few decades.

I dont think anyone will be powerfull when the US spends more per year on "defense" that the next 12 (TWELVE) on the list ADDED UP!!

So thats numbers 2 to 12 all added up spend as much as the US on Murder-ware (TM).

Thats a big gap...

Another issue for europe militarily is that we are completely dominated by the US through NATO.

NATO minus the Atlanic members (US, Canada) would be a nice start toward a EU army.. but now we seem to want both NATO and this EU Rapid-Reaction Force. Divide and conquer?

www.cia.gov...

US GDP: $10.99 trillion
EU GDP: $11.05 trillion (just 25 members, not including new nations and I believe the dollar has fallen since, so could be higher)

You'll also find that we have greater available man power in work force and military, and the EU doesn't run a "massive" trade deficit.

I think if the EU wanted to compete with the US, it could easily do so both militarily and economically, and maybe even surpass it. And just to think, the EU hasn't really even got started yet

This American mentality that no other nation (or group of nations) can surpass them is starting to become annoying. You need to remember that the US never really got involved in WW1/2 until later on, at which point, the old superpowers were almost bankrupt giving the chance for the US to step up. The US helped out, but obviously they wanted something in return. Ever since then, US dollar has been the reserve currency, which has kept it on top. Now, the reserve currency is being changed to Euros, and with the large deficit the US is running, it can only spell trouble for them in the near future.

Getting back to the original thread title. The Europens are already powerful and highly influencial. This is likely to grow due to the fact so many countries want to be part of the EU.

As for who is more powerful than how, well I do not see how that is relevant, it is all relative after all. Australia is a good example of how power is not always about size of economy and military. While they may not be one of the biggest ecomomies in the world and by no means have the largest military, they are hugely influencial in world politics and a damn good ally to have.

Being a European myself, do not get any feeling that Europe wants to be the most powerful collective nation in the world.