defence spending

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Scratch

Captain
On 19th decemebr the european defence agency released a report comparing the european and US defence spending of 2005 in generall and in specific areas
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The US spent more than twice the mony on defence as the 24 EDA members.
Though the US forces are smaller than all european combined, meaning a greater part of the budget goes into R&D and procurement.

chart of defence expenditure of the worlds countries:
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also interesting:
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Maybe others can post defence spendings of other states/regions ...
 
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Deleted member 675

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The problem with Europe is that most countries spend a lot less of their GDP on defence. This has to chance if it wants to have a credible joint-defence capability.
 
The_Zergling

The_Zergling

Junior Member
FuManChu said:
The problem with Europe is that most countries spend a lot less of their GDP on defence. This has to chance if it wants to have a credible joint-defence capability.
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The question is though - joint defense against what? There's no point in spending money on the military just for the sake of doing it.
 
S

Scratch

Captain
Well regarding the proportion of GDP spent on defence, there's a lack between the ambitions and things done.
The countries want greater influence in international affairs and europe to be a formidable power. On the other hand they lack capabilites to pursue these aims. And that's not necessarily power projection, but all that C4ISR stuff and transport volume.
Plus despite all those talks of acting as a single institution, many/all countries pursue their own political interests. I think the mony already spent could do much more if it would be spent in a more efficiant way. Meaning collaborative R&D and procurement in many more cases.
 
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Deleted member 675

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The_Zergling said:
The question is though - joint defense against what? There's no point in spending money on the military just for the sake of doing it.
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In that case, why bother having militaries? Why have Eurofighter, Project Horizon, etc? It's obvious those countries believe they need some sort of capability. They just don't want to admit they should spend more money.
 
Finn McCool

Finn McCool

Captain
Registered Member
FuManChu said:
In that case, why bother having militaries? Why have Eurofighter, Project Horizon, etc? It's obvious those countries believe they need some sort of capability. They just don't want to admit they should spend more money.
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Well obviously it is necessary to have military capabilites for self defense. In previous eras that meant having enough force to protect one's homeland from invasion. Anything beyond that was really to acquire and protect more power.

Now it is necessary for most industrialized and rich countries to have the military capability to strike foreign countries and be offensive simply to have self-defense capability. This is because the world economy and human culture and society in general have become more and more interconnected. So that is why Europe needs a military.

In addition, military spending pumps life and cash into the economy and spurs technological development in peaceful areas.

However I would not say that Europe needs more defensive spending. If anything it would probably be better off with a bit less.
 
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IDonT

Senior Member
VIP Professional
If you want to be the top dog, you have to spend the cash. Being a superpower is not cheap.

Military spending, on economic terms, does not have a very great returns. $6 billion spend on infrastructure and tax rebates can create more jobs than spending on the military. However, there is a Chinese proverb: An army is sustained for 20 years to be used in a day.

"Warfare is a great matter to a nation;it is the ground of death and of life; it is the way of survival and of destruction." - Sun Tzu
 
The_Zergling

The_Zergling

Junior Member
FuManChu said:
In that case, why bother having militaries? Why have Eurofighter, Project Horizon, etc? It's obvious those countries believe they need some sort of capability. They just don't want to admit they should spend more money.
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I'm thinking of potential enemies or conflicts that they would actually have to use all that expensive equipment in. I would agree that the Eurofighter project was money well spent, but fact of the matter is unless the EU wants to attack the United States, they just don't need to spend insanely out of proportion amounts of cash to create a huge military.

You could argue that there are times when even relatively peaceful countries like the European ones have the obligation to intervene in say, genocide. Military technology from the 20th century is oftentimes quite adequate in the situation, and doesn't justify blowing away as much money into the military as the US does. You only have to do that when you're trying to build up an empire.

In short, unless the EU wants to invade the USA, they don't need to spend more money than they already do.
 
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Shingy

New Member
The_Zergling said:
I'm thinking of potential enemies or conflicts that they would actually have to use all that expensive equipment in. I would agree that the Eurofighter project was money well spent, but fact of the matter is unless the EU wants to attack the United States, they just don't need to spend insanely out of proportion amounts of cash to create a huge military.

You could argue that there are times when even relatively peaceful countries like the European ones have the obligation to intervene in say, genocide. Military technology from the 20th century is oftentimes quite adequate in the situation, and doesn't justify blowing away as much money into the military as the US does. You only have to do that when you're trying to build up an empire.

In short, unless the EU wants to invade the USA, they don't need to spend more money than they already do.
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I personally disagree, since anything can happen and the future is unpredictable, lets say if for some reason one high tech country's relations were to sour with another nation yet the one nation had not spent anything, there might be a massive paranoia of them getting attacked or something like that, or worse an actual war, i think of it as a deterrance, plus no country would like to invade another if it was too costly, if your military is still up to date then that also decreases the chance of war.
Then again the EU could truly be united.
 
The_Zergling

The_Zergling

Junior Member
Shingy said:
I personally disagree, since anything can happen and the future is unpredictable, lets say if for some reason one high tech country's relations were to sour with another nation yet the one nation had not spent anything, there might be a massive paranoia of them getting attacked or something like that, or worse an actual war, i think of it as a deterrance, plus no country would like to invade another if it was too costly, if your military is still up to date then that also decreases the chance of war.
Then again the EU could truly be united.
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Well there are several things worthy of notice: One is that the prominent EU nations such as the UK, France and Germany all have had declining economic growth rates as of late. It's not a wise path to invest even higher levels of the GDP into the military when they have these other problems to worry about. Secondly these countries all have technologically advanced military technology, it's not as if they've not been buying and developing new weaponary over the past 50 years, most have the F-16 and those involved in the Eurofighter project have an arguably 5th generation aircraft.

Then of course there's the fact that they're allied together economically which also influences political decisions, chances are if one was ever invaded the others would come in to support it - therefore negating the need for each country to act as if it was "1 v world".
 
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