Jeroen:
Excuse me? The US had to do their fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan *alone*?
I think other countries will disagree with you.
Several countries joined the US in the war against Iraq. I never heard the
US say "we do not want your help, just stay home". (Detail: The Netherlands
deployed mobile radar installations and five naval vessels; total cost of
the operation: NLG 462 million).
Me:
Well, some quick work on the net (and it was surprisingly hard to convert
from NLG to US Dollars) revealed that this works out to approximately $210
million dollars. The United States has been spending approximately $1B per
week in Afghanistan. The campaign began, let's say, October 1st. I'll be
very conservative in all my estimates. That's 4 months, so 16 weeks, or
$16B. That means that the Netherlans $210M works out to around 1.3% of the
total financial expenditure. I will admit that's more than I thought it
would be (anyone want to check my math?), but, really, in the United States
at least we don't call 1% an overwhelmingly significant contribution.
Alone with token assistance - does that make you happy? :-)
Jeroen:
The British sent their troops to help the US in Afghanistan. NATO even
invoked Article V for the first time so they could help. I never heard the
US tell Great Britain "keep your troops at home, we do not want them here".
I never heard the US tell its NATO friends "nice of you to invoke Article
V, but do not bother to help us, we do not need your help".
Me:
Well, that's, umm, exactly what they did. If you didn't hear the US say
that to its NATO allies, then you weren't paying attention to the news.
When France offered the US soldiers (perhaps they could teach the Taliban
to surrender? :-) the Pentagon quite explicitly said that they didn't want
them until the fighting was all wrapped up. The British have a very
specialized set of skills and a unique culture of focus on special
operations (one shared by the Australians) that makes their forces uniquely
useful for an operation of this nature. Something I mentioned repeatedly
in my post, so I have no idea why you brought it up.
>We buy American equipment pretty much exclusively because the equipment
>sold outside the US isn't the same. It's not even playing in the same
>world any more.
Jeroen:
There is of course a very good reason that other countries have military
hardware that is inferior to US military hardware: money. Unlike the US,
most countries can not afford to spend billions on their defense. Heck,
there are countries whose *entire* annual budget is less than what the US
spends on its military alone.
Me:
Well, that is what I said. We spend money. The rest of the world doesn't.
That's a _choice_ on the part of the rest of the world. Europe is not
_that_ much less wealthy than the US. I quite explicitly (and repeatedly,
I think) said that the reason that the US has these capacities is that it
spends more money than everyone else. So why did you repeat me?
Jeroen:
You sure know how to make others feel appreciated. Why did the US call on
other countries (pretty much the rest of the world) to join the war against
Iraq, if those others would just "get in the way"? Was it because they
could make a valuable contribution, or was it because the US needed cannon
fodder? ("Hey, why let the Iraqis kill US troops if we can get someone else
to catch the bullets.")
Me:
First - I'm not a spokesman for the US government. Thus I'm not
constrained by the need to lie in order to avoid wounding the delicate
sensibilities of other countries. I can tell the truth as it really is.
If the truth offends you, Jeroen, that's not my problem. I'm sorry, but
it's really not my problem.
Second - I have repeatedly stated my belief - and shown how this has been
put into operational practice - that American soldiers need to take the
high-risk jobs. How did you make this into we use other people's soldiers
to catch bullets? Why did you state that, when there's simply no way to
read it into my text? You repeatedly state that you are not anti-American.
I'm certainly willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. How _should_ I
interpret what you wrote above, since it's meaning is directly opposite to
what I wrote, and what at least two other listmembers posted that they
believed I wrote?
Jeroen:
Since IYO non-US forces (with a few exceptions) are ineffective, using
inferior material and only "get in the way", why does the US not bail out
of NATO? Since the US is allegedly doing everything alone, it does not need
the others.
Jeroen
Me:
This is actually a very interesting question, one that I'm exploring in my
job as part of an article I've been asked to write. Needless to say, I'm
not going to give you all a free peek (buy the magazine!) Besides, I
haven't fully formulated my arguments. But I think the answer to our
question has several parts. Obviously, the historical reason for NATO's
existence ("keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down")
has been largely obviated, although not entirely. So what's left? First,
NATO provides a "zone of security" in Western Europe. Essentially it's a
region in which the United States guarantees that no bad things will
happen. Historically we are in the midst of the longest period of peace in
Western Europe in recorded history. This is almost certainly because of
NATO - because the US provides a massive weight on the scales that
eliminates the incentive for the arms races and tensions that have
characterized modern European history. Second, NATO provides an excellent
instrument
to encourage the democratization of Eastern Europe. The nations of
Eastern Europe are willing to do _anything_ to be included in NATO, and
this includes domestic reforms and elections. Third, and perhaps most
importantly (I _am_ a hegemonic stability guy, after all) NATO provides a
clear institutional ratification of American preeminence in the
international hierarchy. As such it eliminates status ambiguity and makes
coordination between the Western powers much easier. The United States
gets some forms of material and intelligence assistance (certainly making
things easier on us, even if only marginally) and diplomatic cover for
actions it takes on behalf of global stability, while the European powers
get their security problems taken care of by big brother. On the whole, a
great bargain on both sides.
Gautam
