Will the europeans ever be powerful?

I'm from Newcastle. If you think London represents the views of England you should come to the North-East and ask people.



Hmm...



Yeah, the Scots don't have time to hate Europe as they are too busy hating the English and hating each other during the Old Firm matches..





And a third of the UK's fighter aircraft, all of our ASW Nimrods..

[edit on 31-1-2005 by Cjwinnit]

And by calling me a weegie, you're not bigoted?

ITV is English. STV is Scottish. Neither have ever made a programme worth watching ( have you ever seen Scotsport SPL ) - with the exception of Taggart.

We're being f**ked by the English. They don't pay us anything for that water when there's a drought down south.

Do you think if they valued or respected us then the entire British nuclear arsenal would be in Scotland? It's here because they don't care if we're all vapourised.

The Scottish parliament is a puppet controlled from Westminster and in my opinion most MSPs are moronic career politicians who couldn't care less that they are selling us out every day to the English.

-

I understand that the views of Londoners don't reflect the views of people in Northern England any more than Scots. And your point about us being too pre-occupied with hating each other is valid, although I'd like to say I don't participate in the bigotry related to Scottish football. Your point has been illustrated by devilwasp here who has labelled me a " Weegie" because I come from a different city.

Oh aye, and IT'S SCOTLAND'S OIL!

Where are you from anyway devilwasp? Edinburger?

Up North we use Kielder so we are cool



I noticed that devilwasp seems to make a habit of denying the existance of England, which worries me a little..

I don't mean to interrupt your little British civil war here, but I'd like to add a quick American perspective on a couple of things that have been mentioned.

1. No, most Americans do not understand the difference between England and Britain. As far as 50% of the population over here knows, the big island is called England. Scott-what? Never heard of him.
Whats that little island there? Ireland? It's not just one country? Which one belongs to Britain? You'd lose your mind explaining it to half of us. Hell if I didn't have Irish blood I might never have bothered finding out what was over there myself; God knows they didn't teach it to me in school.

2. For all the focus on the state of European forces I think its interesting that nobody has brought up the readiness of US forces. I'm not trying to insult US forces, I'm only pointing out that the gap between US and European troops is not huge.
I observed while in the USMC that the military sets exceedingly low physical and intellectual standards and fails to train troops to a thorough understanding of basic tasks. The assumption is that you will learn over time in excercises with your unit, and as a result troops who have been in the service for less than 2 years are "lost" as Marine slang puts it. Also, our troops are not generally ultra-patriotic volunteers. Many are cornered into service by financial problems, little better than conscripts. Not that I don't respect our troops, just that I won't stand by for misrepresentations of them or foreign troops because misunderstanding fills bodybags.

[edit on 31-1-2005 by The Vagabond]

[edit on 31-1-2005 by The Vagabond]

Well Mr Americans, if you dont need European (British) help, then i'll remember that the next time you ask for a 'coalition'!

Jokeing mate, i love the weegies.
Funniest guys i have ever met, they always know a joke like.

Is that why the thistle comes up with the ITV name under it........
That is true, mind you most COOOONCIL teelie programes arent worth watching, apart from scraphead challange or top gear

They pay our companies...
Mind you scottish water is english

Well for the first bit 60% of the SF in britain come from here that demands respect, second they respect us cause we are all hard B****trds except the women who are.....something else.....
The nuclear subs are here the nuke main arsenal is down south.
My mate greg used to do the nuke runs with the booties.

Yeah, the nobles thing is still here huh...

Are you sure you dont participate in a little bigotry...ah come on i know theres some in you...
Its a nickname mate....dini worry call me a fifer if you want like...although technically im not IN fife im over the water from it.

Have to agree there like.

Grangemouth....you know just outside falkirk?......if not just outside edinburgh...


I dont deny it, i just.....dont.....remind myself to include it very often..or at all....

[edit on 31-1-2005 by devilwasp]

[edit on 31-1-2005 by devilwasp]

Are you in the forces yourself, devilwasp? If so, what service - Royal Marines?

Shame the Scotts feel that way, but I don't think it would be a wise choice to separate now. We are much stronger together, don't you agree? We've achieved soo much together and have an extremely long history.

Well this thread took a bit of a header didnt it? As a half breed Scot/English Married to an Irish woman i think i have all the bases pretty much covered.
My Dads was a Scot living and working in England and he was as big a patriot Scotsman as you will find. But he also understood the importance of the UK and i think he secretly loved Yorkshire although i doubt he would ever have admitted it, i think the Moors reminded him of home.
Scotland is a place of singular beauty and the Scots have a right to be p!ssed at the English after everything that has been done to the over the years. Hell i would love to see a Stewart King on the throne myself.
Being of mixed heretige so to speak i tend to keep out of these arguments as from bitter experience with my Dad.
But even though i was born and raised in England i still have a yearning for Scotland, maybe its a genetic thing, or maybe its because my Dad loved Scotland so much God rest him.

No SCC( sea cadet core) so i know a few service folk.
I plan to join RN and mabye go for the comando course, yourself?

Yeah, but what with history, we dont get along to much. Atleast we scots and northern irish dont at camps LOLOLOLOL!

Before I start, let me just say that I am a UK mongrel. Descended from Irish Fisherman, and cornish folk, I also have many scottish relatives (although, no welsh in me, thank god!)



We don't pay you anything? Try going on your own for a bit, you'll find that most of the money used by the Scots Parliament is in fact from Tax money raised thoughout the UK. Can provide figures if you like.



Er....Its there for purely strategic reasons. The main concern for Cold War naval planners was control of the GIUK gap, and Scotland is ideally placed to monitor that area and observe Soviet Naval movements in and out of murmansk (sp?)... also, the shortest route to get our subs nice and close to Moscow so we could nuke 'em at short notice.



Thats debateable......... alot of the North Sea rigs are fairly close to NE England, and alot of the pipelines run into the NE. If Scotland was Independant, then many rigs would fall under an English "exclusive economic area"...

You could also argue on that logic that Norway has a good claim to much of our North Sea oil.

Anyhow, we have strayed somewhat from the topic of discussion....

In anser to the question "Will Europe ever be powerful".... we already are. We just don't behave like a spoilt brat and throw our toys out the pram when things don't go our way.

stumason, I pretty much agree 100% with you there.

I am a born and bred Yorkshire man, but many of my family is from Scotland and Ireland. My surname has roots to Scotland too, so I guess I have many ancestors from further up North (I suppose thats where my fighting spirit comes from). Not to keen on the South myself, but I'll fight and die for these Islands (oh, and lets not forget out cousins Canada and Australia, aye).

I'm currently training for the Royal Marines, hopefully have PRMC by the end of this April.

Ok, back on topic, as stumason and others have pointed out, Europe is still "very" powerful, we just choose to deal with things a different way, unlike our lost child. I give it another decade or two, and the US will be in the same position as the UK after WW2

Not to ride your coat-tails commando, but wasn't I lecturing my fellow Americans on that point a day or two ago?

Not all Americans are a bunch of propaganda soaked cretins. A hand full of us actually read and think for ourselves. Out of that handful there's even just a fraction who aren't afraid to call it as they see it in the face of the ignorant majority.
(BTW, I still love my country. I'm allowed to bash it because I pay my taxes and joined the Marine Corps here. We'll bash our fellow citizens and you bash yours and everyone's still happy. It's better to fight twice with your wife than once with your neighbor.)

Britain's navy lost its greatness when they lost their empire. In WWI, the German navy far surpassed the British navy in terms of efficiency and tactics; it was one of the reasons the British lost so many ships. The Germans could load the guns on their battleships far more efficiently (and more safely) than the British were. Also the way the German ships were commanded was superior. The British military today is pretty good, but they have not regained their naval greatness in the same way they used to have.

And the U.S. copying Russian tactics??? Riiiiiight man, I think you need to re-check your facts. It is the U.S. pilots in the Korean War that beat out the Russian pilots due to superior training, the U.S. that developed the first nuclear submarine, and the U.S. that put a man onto the Moon and followed through with its space program with doing everything it announced it would do. The U.S. did get a few IDEAS for things from Russians, but the U.S. developed its own technology. For example, the Russians came up with the idea for the stealth plane, but the U.S. was the one that put the idea to work and actually designed and built the thing.

devilwasp, one naval exercise does not prove that the American navy doesn't lead in tactics, it just shows the American Navy isn't invincible, which no navy is, nor should think it is (that was one thing that brought down the Japanese Imperial Navy); but in terms of having the best navy in the world right now, and the most powerful, that goes to America right now. And that happened the same way it happened to the British. Britain desired to have THE most powerful navy on Earth because naval power is key. So did the U.S. realize this, and it had the ability, so it created one of the most powerful navies on the Earth (the Japanese Imperial Navy and German Navy was also very good). After the Japanese Empire, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union were gone, America's Navy became THE most powerful in the world.

It's like the French and British navies back in the old days. The British Navy was the best and most powerful, but that didn't mean the French didn't have a very fine navy as well. Just their navy wasn't as powerful as the British Navy at the time. Well right now I am sure Britain has a very good navy for what it can do, but America has the best one right now.

By saying America has the best navy, I am not trying to say everyone else sucks.

And I am not really referring to Britain when I speak of Europe itself. Britain itself has a very fine military, and when compared to the U.S., I'd say man to man, it probably is a bit better considering you guys are probably more patriotic to your nation than a lot of the losers the U.S. military gets in it; however, there are a lot of very hard-working and patriotic people in the American military as well. Remember, the American military is far larger than these individual European militaries, so it is a lot easier for them to have higher-quality troops. It is like the United States Marine Corps in comparison to the United States Army. The average U.S. Marine has a higher standard of fitness than the average Army person and is trained as a rifleman, which not all Army personnel are. But that is because the Marines are far smaller than the Army, and thus can give their people more combat training. And since their training on average is tougher, they attract more quality people (as loser-types who are lazy generally go to the Army).

You then compare the British Royal Marines to the American Marines; on average, a Royal Marine probably is better trained than an ordinary American Marine because the Royal Marine Corps is a smaller force than the American Marine Corps. When you compare U.S. Army Rangers, Marine Force Recon, Navy SEALS, British Royal Marines, etc.....you get about the same quality though. And then there is the British SAS and the American Delta Force (which is based off of SAS I believe). Also Dutch forces and the French Foreign Legion is pretty good (which is trained by the French, but doesn't consist too much of the French; the French send it into the hot spots first, so that the foreigners in it can do the heavy fighting first).

I have never heard U.S. military folk, or American people even who aren't in the military, ever say anything bad about the British (or Dutch) militaries, so I mean, don't think over here in the USA people look down on Britain at all. The rest of Europe, especially France, is a bit of a different story, however. I also was speaking once with a tanker (battletanks) who was saying about an exercise they did with the British, and I asked him how was it, and quoting him, he said, "Well, they were kicking our butts until we finally woke up and got serious."

And what's this with the U.S. like Britain in another decade or two??? We don't have colonies everywhere to lose the way Britain did, and we don't tax the planet. Another decade, and I think things will be pretty much the same as they are now.

I wouldn't exactly call Europe powerful as they are not united; until the day comes that they ever unite in the same way the United States is united, they will never be as powerful, because there are too many individual militaries that would have to work together.

And as for the U.S. having a lot of responsibility around the world, it is not exactly "self-appointed." The U.S., in order to remain the superpower it is, and thus keep countries like China and Russia in their place, has to go and secure where its interests are. The U.S. doesn't exactly go around securing places around the world for the sake of imperialism; it goes into areas that contain materials it needs to remain a global power, which these days it must. True, other countries say that is unfair, that everyone should share, but that is just how it is.

People act like the U.S. should just isolate itself and go about its business; it can't; that is impossible these days, because you need to keep yourself secure; the only way to do that is through having the resources to power your nation and military.

And yes the U.S. DID help rebuild a lot of Europe, it is one of the reasons our national debt is up there.

And whoever started this thread needs a good swift kick in the arse; I initially didn't respond to it because I was hoping it would die out, but instead I guess it inflamed a lot of people, and thus turned into a big thing.

As for Indonesia, the brunt of the work is still on the U.S. military at the moment, with having to carry all of the U.N. folk on the carrier ship there (and media folk, from the U.S. too; I hate the media). Because of all this, it is overworking the crews and is intefering with the carrier being able to keep combat-ready.

[edit on 31-1-2005 by Broadsword20068]

Hmm, I think you are getting confused. We "lost" our Empire after WW2. During both world wras, we had the largest, most powerful navy on the Planet.

In you ref to the Germans being "better" than the Royal Navy during WW1, i am assuming you are referring to the Battle of Jutland.

Errors where made on both sides, like the British not shutting magazine hatches, which was the cause for the few losses we suffered.

But on the wholse, the battle was a damp squib, and the German Navy retreated to port never to emerge again, so in effect, the Royal Navy won.



Ok, if one doesn't cut it, then I can suggest a few more, where a British frigate outwits the US navy.

Back in '98/99 (forget which year), my brother served on HMS Iron Duke.

It outmaneuvered a US destroyer, then turned its Radar on full wack to lure the Destroyer in to a trap, "killed" it, and then went on to "sink" one of your subs, which the Destroyer was supposed to be guarding.

The whole time, the US Navy didn't know if they where coming or going.




Not sure where you're getting your history from, but the most powerful Navy in 1939 was the Royal Navy. For shear power, none came close.

As for your assumptions that the German Navy was powerful, I think you are confusing a few excellent battlecrusiers with an almighty fleet.

Nazi Germany placed no emphasis on building a massive fleet, as it knew it could not compete with the RN.

They made a few great, modern b/cruisers, but they all got sunk or captured in the end. The Germans focused their Naval power on U-Boats, which all got sunk as well.



The French Navy was ok, but that too was mostly destroyed in 1940. By the Royal Navy.



Man for man, the British have to be better. They are expected to do more, on a tighter budget. In the Army for example, tank crew are expected to be able to fix their tanks, in contrast, REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) are expected to be good soldiers as well as engineers. Everyone is expected to good at more than just their immediate task, as our Army is limited in size and funding.



The one reason we "lost" our Empire was Germany. Two world wars with them took away the British desire to fight further wars, and also the British ability to be able to do so. We had no choice but to give up the Empire, as it was just to expensive to run.



I don't see a problem with several militaries working together. This has been done countless times before without problems. There would be a clear chain of caommand, with the leading nations taking the command role, and the smaller nations providing specialist forces.



Confirms my belief about the US. Sod everyone else, as long as the US is alright hey? Good way to make friends.......



No, it's not. It's nothing to do with that. When Clinton was in office, you were running a budget surplus.....

[edit on 31/1/05 by stumason]

Gotchya broadsword, our nation kicks arse and everybody else's is our btch. Are we feeling better about ourselves now? I don't know about you, but I had a headcold, a nasty rash, and low self esteem when this thread started and none of it has gone away now that you've stated how superior our military is supposed to be.
I'm not trying to be a pain in the arse, I'm just saying I dont see the point. Last time I checked the Brits were good friends to us and the French at least weren't a threat. Actually the French aren't doing anything that we aren't also doing in other parts of the world.

I have to comment to navy thing that, US had by tonnage a far greater navy than UK did, US was on WWII time already in many areas, so its power projection wasnt placed in European shores while UK fought for its own islands. Beating someone in simulations is nice, if it was real thing, but same time you give your ally data to make sure same thing wont happen again, so isnt US the one whos almoust every exercise with others, so they pretty much get training hours a lot more than most does, it would be only natural to that count something, i really doubt it goes unnoticed if every year would be met in defeat, people just tend to remember victorys morelikely than losses.

I try to point out Europe & US has worked in symbiotic relations, both strengten each other, both need each other markets, research and so on, if both would have done everything on their own, cost would have been much greater and evolution slower. So just appreciate efforts that so far has been done mostly cooperative for both continent benefit.

Actually the records are disputed to was superior in the Korean war (Russian vs US). The Soviet pilots who flew there were very good and they claim a 4:1 ratio over US pilots.

thanks,
drfunk

No, the reason that we lost ships in WW2 were because all the german navy done was practice gunnery so therefore where so good at it.

How about a destroyer running ahead of 5 brittish minesweepers because it "couldnt" be lead by the brittish.