National Power Projection

[Winner]

This talk about a war between Britain/France/Germany strengthens my support for the forum split

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Anyway, to answer the OP question:

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other NATO countries combined+US allies in the Pacific
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Russia/China/India
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(you get the idea)

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Or for a better example, the French may have lost at Dien Bien Phu, but at least they HAVE an army. Not like the Germans, who just produce endless memorandums about the possibility of creating some kind of armed forces.

Hey, we do have an army !

Link to video.


Well, our equipment is pretty good...

 

[ParkCungHee]

Hey, we do have an army!

What? Nonsense! Armies can't change in 50 years! You just keep talking about that stupid joint European defense force idea. You'll never get anyone in uniform.

 

[imperialman]

This talk about a war between Britain/France/Germany strengthens my support for the forum split

You have my agreement that such an idea is incomprehensible in a modern Europe, united as much as we all are.

 

[imperialman]

Yeah, because things that happened sixty years ago totally represent the militaries they have now.

I'd better go call Helmuth von Moltke the Elder and ask him how the hell he managed to beat Napoleon the Great's invincible Grande Armee.

Agreed, the military of France today is incredibly powerful on the expeditionary warfare front.

 

[Winner]

Look, it all depends on who is on the receiving end. I have no doubt Britain and France can wipe the floor with most African countries' armies (the French love to do it from time to time). But to really wage a war overseas, with little to no allied support?

Could Britain invade, say, Saddam's Iraq on its own and succeed? Could France depose Assad and occupy Syria without any allied help? I very much doubt it. If anything, the Libyan intervention showed how reliant the European countries are on the US support.

BTW, to add my personal opinion, I don't care. I don't think Europe needs to have an independent capability to get itself bogged down in armed conflicts overseas, the Americans are always happy to provide us with that service.

Europe should have an ability to intervene effectively in civil wars in the Balkans, the Caucasus region, around the Mediterranean, and Africa. It should be able to effectively deploy considerable peacekeeping forces and support them for a reasonable period of time if needed. But that's about it, there is no need for us to be spending trillions of euros on trying to match the US force projection capabilities. If they want to play global policeman, just let them.

 

[Mise]

I basically came here to say what Winner just said not 20 minutes before me.....

The US can project military power across the entire globe. The UK and FR can barely project power across a tiny sea, and certainly can't do so successfully with the US's help. But that's okay, because we're all allies.

 

[imperialman]

The US can project military power across the entire globe. The UK and FR can barely project power across a tiny sea, and certainly can't do so successfully with the US's help. But that's okay, because we're all allies.

I don't know that that's the case really, it would certainly have taken longer without the US in Libya but the vast majority of missions were flown by the French and British.

Granted, the UK currently lacks fixed-wing carrier strike but it still has a global reach. Indeed, the Royal Navy is a blue water navy with the infrastructure to deploy a relatively serious amount of equipment anywhere in the world on its own and there are a few examples of it doing so within the last few decades.

Could Britain invade, say, Saddam's Iraq on its own and succeed?

Could it have defeated the Iraqi military on its own? I'd say yes. Could it stay in country and occupy it for many years alone? Absolutely not.

 

[Flying Pig]

Granted, the UK currently lacks fixed-wing carrier strike but it still has a global reach. Indeed, the Royal Navy is a blue water navy with the infrastructure to deploy a relatively serious amount of equipment anywhere in the world on its own and there are a few examples of it doing so within the last few decades.

We-ell... pre-SDSR you were certainly right, at the moment the RN's in the rather awkward situation where it's probably still capable of pulling off operations like it did in 1982, but everyone's praying that they don't have to, just in case it turns out that they're actually not. Fixed-wing support has traditionally been the indicator of a blue-water navy (if the fleet can do everything that a ground airfield can do, then that means we can effectively move Ascension Island wherever we want), and I don't think our dark-blue cousins have yet put forward a truly convincing argument why they can do without it.

 

[Crezth]

just like they did to the vietminh

1066.

 

[luiz]

I think Germany has a better chance against France than against the UK, but only because we wouldn't really need a navy, but that's a moot point.
We're pacifists now and we have all the money in Europe, remember ?

It would be more likely that Germany pays the French to beat the Brits.

The French would wipe the floor with Germany's pitiful excuse for a national army.

It was just a silly reference to the Napoleonic wars, guys. "The British will fight the French to the last Prussian", and all that.

Those "who would defeat who" threads make no sense anyway.

 

[Quackers]

Hey, we do have an army !

Link to video.


Well, our equipment is pretty good...

There is actually a precedent in German armed forces for this kind of thing

Spoiler :

 

[GoodSarmatian]

That's a completely different force of a completely different Germany.
Brits and their Nazi obsession...

 

[imperialman]

That's a completely different force of a completely different Germany.
Brits and their Nazi obsession...

but "precedent in German armed forces for this kind of thing" is still accurate.

 

[JohnRM]

Power projection of military forces on the scale of total war is outdated. No one really needs to sustain a hundred-thousand troops or more in a foreign country for a lengthy period of time, not even the United States. The US simply does so as a form of gunboat diplomacy to secure access to resources at the lowest possible price. The debt burden of warfare is passed onto the American people while the benefits of access to the resources are passed on to the corporations who turn massive profits. Once the corporate goons in federal government overstay their welcome with the American people, they are shown the door and a new batch of corporate goons is welcome in.

 

[Quackers]

That's a completely different force of a completely different Germany.
Brits and their Nazi obsession...

I didn't even mention the Nazi's brah, deliberately in fact to avoid this response, I wanted a politically neutral post. Your putting the spin on this, shame on you. Germans; so obsessed with their nazis

 

[Winner]

Power projection of military forces on the scale of total war is outdated. No one really needs to sustain a hundred-thousand troops or more in a foreign country for a lengthy period of time, not even the United States. The US simply does so as a form of gunboat diplomacy to secure access to resources at the lowest possible price. The debt burden of warfare is passed onto the American people while the benefits of access to the resources are passed on to the corporations who turn massive profits. Once the corporate goons in federal government overstay their welcome with the American people, they are shown the door and a new batch of corporate goons is welcome in.

Well, you could try returning to the pre-WW1 levels of military spending.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Power projection of military forces on the scale of total war is outdated. No one really needs to sustain a hundred-thousand troops or more in a foreign country for a lengthy period of time, not even the United States. The US simply does so as a form of gunboat diplomacy to secure access to resources at the lowest possible price. The debt burden of warfare is passed onto the American people while the benefits of access to the resources are passed on to the corporations who turn massive profits. Once the corporate goons in federal government overstay their welcome with the American people, they are shown the door and a new batch of corporate goons is welcome in.

This kind of thinking always becomes popular during lengthy periods of [relative] peace. But we don't know what the future holds so isn't it prudent to maintain military readiness? "In times of peace, prepare for war" and all that.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Readiness to do what exactly ?
There is no threat today, and any weapon we build now to counter some hypothetical crisis in 30 years will be obsolete when we need it.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Readiness to do what exactly ?
There is no threat today, and any weapon we build now to counter some hypothetical crisis in 30 years will be obsolete when we need it.

So our military should only plan for completely predictable threats?