--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Realistically, Western Europe needed a leadership in > commitment by the US > match up well against Slovenia. Gautam or Damon can > correct me, but I > think that Europe has effectively decided (with the > exception of GB and > Russia) to effectively not be military powers. > > Dan M.
Well, even I wouldn't go quite that far. France has a capable military by world standards, just not by American standards. Germany has the same, but because it's a draftee army the German army can't be deployed anywhere. Russia's army is not exactly projectable either, actually, and while Britain's is definitely in the best shape of any of them, it couldn't act without American support either. What none of those countries (except Russia, which we don't want) have is _slack_ capacity. They can maybe put a brigade together here or there, but those are pretty much sopped up by Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, and that's it. That, by the way, is why all the talk about intervening in Sudan is just that, talk. The troops aren't there. The capacity just doesn't exist without either massive dislocations in the American military or virtually impossible political changes in Germany (the German parliament would have to approve deploying draftees outside of Germany, which is just never going to happen). All of these countries could, of course, do more, but I think your phrasing is exactly right - they have chosen to give up military force as an instrument of statecraft. One other point, though. Damon mentioned two possible crises the US military might be stretched to face. I have to disagree with him there. We certainly don't have deployable army forces. But the South Koreans are, at this point, a fully industrialized state. They really _don't_ need our help to defend themselves from North Korea. The American forces there are incredibly lethal and add a lot to the total defense, but I just don't think that they're really necessary anymore. The other possibility he mentioned was Taiwan - but first, I don't think that China has the ability to take Taiwan right now even if we didn't lift a finger to stop them. The most they could do is establish a naval blockade of Taiwan using diesel submarines. The Taiwanese themselves might be able to handle that, and if they can't, we could (with difficulty - the US Navy's brownwater fighting capacity is atrocious) because while the Army and Marines are certainly stretched to their limit, the Navy is not, and any engagement with China over Taiwan would be a primarily naval affair. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
