In recent times the meetings between the US President and European leaders have become
quite tense.
The NATO summit, which took place in early July 2018 has been good proof of that... and
has left some questions on the table:
Is Donald Trump right when criticizing his European partners?
Are the European NATO countries taking advantage of the United States Army?
And perhaps most importantly: Should Europe have an army?
Listen up.
If one thing has become very clear, it’s that Donald Trump isn’t too fond of these
European leader meetings...
[Simon’s Ironic Mode ON]
How bothersome it is to have to meet with all these people...
Poor Trump, if they were at least as fun as Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un... it’d be
different.
[Simon’s Ironic Mode OFF]
The fact, dear viewers, is that the clash between the US Administration and most European
governments extends to virtually all issues: economy, trade, immigration...
and defense.
See, the US president has been criticizing NATO for years due to the alleged lack of
involvement of the European partners.
In fact, the US president has been saying things like that for almost 20 years.
(“America has no vital interest” in Europe.
Their conflicts are not worth American lives.
Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually”.
Donald Trump, 2000.)
Of course, it isn’t just about the White House tenant.
The truth is that in recent decades the differences between Europe and America have expanded.
For example, there’s baseball versus soccer, an appreciation for cars with gigantic engines
- one can tell where gas is much cheaper - and, also, the way in which weapons are considered...
in all fields... even in defense.
Yes, the army and the military are very, very important issues in US politics...
However in Europe... not so much... well, it’s even worse than not so much.
These aren’t even front page issues and are certainly not very popular.
Perhaps that’s why, since the cold war ended, the military spending of European countries
that belong to NATO has collapsed in terms of GDP; ranging from something a little over
3% to less than 1.5%.
In Europe, military spending doesn’t sell.
And this, dear viewers, has greatly angered Washington’s politicians in recent years.
And, in this matter, we’re not only talking about Donald Trump, but also Barack Obama
and George W. Bush.
Here on VISUALPOLITIK, in a previous video, we told you why it isn’t such a good idea
for European countries to spend more money on weapons
But... just a moment...
What if Washington was right?
Listen up.
(WHAT IF WASHINGTON WAS RIGHT)
Here’s a question and as always you can’t Google it: Do you know how many soldiers the
European NATO countries have in total?
Well, approximately 1.8 million soldiers.
However, of this number, only 30% can be deployed in case of a conflict... and only 50 to 100
thousand can be deployed sustainably and for greater lengths of time.
And folks, in general, the European armies have many operational problems.
Yes, it's true, they spend a lot of money... but their governments, most of them, don’t
really care much about the result.
We can, for example, take a look at Germany’s case, a country that in 2017 had a military
budget of approximately 45 billion dollars.
That is, it has one of the top 10 largest military budgets of any country.
Well, despite being one of the countries with the largest military budget, a couple of years
ago a study by the consultancy McKinsey revealed that almost 60% of Germany’s Eurofighter
and Tornado fighter aircrafts and 80% of their most modern helicopters, weren’t ready for
combat, due to a lack of maintenance, updating, supplies, etc., etc.
At the end of 2017 a parliamentary investigation showed quite similar results: not one of the
submarines and none of the 14 main transport planes of the German air force were operational.
Not even one.
You heard that right.
Even a document from the German Ministry of Defense warned that the soldiers didn’t
have enough protective vests, winter clothes or tents to participate in any important NATO
mission.
And it's not just Germany...
For example, during the war in Libya, despite being a relatively small conflict, just 3
weeks after the attacks began the European air forces began to run out of precision weapons.
In other words, governments spend money on large weapons programs – and have many hired
soldiers…
But all that doesn’t matter much on a day-to-day basis.
That’s how we end up with news like this:
(“The Legion declares an all-out war on obesity.
The elite unit of the Spanish infantry launches a forced plan to combat obesity among its
members.”
ElPaís)
But, honestly, wait a moment... because that isn’t the worst of it.
Perhaps what annoys the US officers the most are the rules with which some of the European
armies have entered combat under NATO, for example in Afghanistan.
See, many European governments don’t want to assume any kind of risk, so they order
their military commanders to maintain their soldiers away from the front.
In the case of the Afghan campaign, for example, US soldiers sharing testimonies in which they
were denied medical evacuation by Europeans because they were in a combat zone weren’t
strange.
Listen up.
(“Afghanistan year 2008.
We were returning from a mission when a rocket hit the vehicle that was in front of mine.
Our Humvee was suddenly being attacked by machine gun fire.
Of the 11 vehicles that entered the ambush area, four were left inoperative and a fifth
one was destroyed.
One of our boys had died and a dozen were wounded
We were six hours away by car from our base, it was getting dark and the Taliban were still
attacking us.
When we called to ask for a medical evacuation, they asked us if the landing area was still
hot.
We said yes, we were being attacked.
At that moment a voice with a foreign accent told me that their rules prevented them from
providing us assistance.
He asked me if we could secure the landing area or if we could move.
Minutes turned into hours and the Taliban continued attacking us.
Then, out of nowhere, a voice came up on the radio, it was American.
A couple of Blackhawk helicopters, from a totally different mission, had heard our help
call.
The pilots deviated immediately.
Within 15 minutes they landed and our wounded were evacuated.
Our superiors told us that the NATO country who was responsible for medical evacuations
had a rule that prevented them from intervening in still hot areas.
We were furious”.
Just a second, this is very important.
In Afghanistan alone, nearly 900 European soldiers have lost their lives.
We’re talking about political orders that don’t happen in all cases, but which are
very common.
And, no, it's not a matter of money... but of commitment.
Every year, the European NATO countries spend almost 300 billion dollars, that is, together
they have the second largest military budget after the United States.
In spite of this, in Washington they want European NATO countries to substantially increase
their military spending... and that’s where the magical 2% of the GDP figure appears.
(THE 2% MYTH)
As he made very clear at the last NATO summit, Donald Trump is furious.
According to the vast majority of the countries of the Atlantic Alliance, they’re late in
their quota payments.
Check this out.
(Many countries in NATO, which we are expected to defend, are not only short of their current
commitment of 2% (which is low), but are also delinquent for many years in payments that
have not been made.
Will they reimburse the U.S.?. Donald Trump)
Well... one of two is true: either he’s saying this because he has no idea or he’s
saying it because he wants some electoral points… by, of course, fooling his voters.
Because, let's be clear, this entire late payments thing has no point of reference.
See, 2% is a military spending objective, from each country for its own army.
It has nothing to do with NATO payments or anything like that.
That is, if a country spends less, it doesn’t owe anything to NATO, the United States or
anyone else.
But... the fact is that in 2014, after a lot of pressure, Barack Obama managed to get the
European NATO countries to commit to substantially increasing their military budget to reach
2% of their GDP by 2024.
And precisely due to that commitment, Europe is the region of the world where military
spending is increasing the most.
Check it out.
Yes, you know that later Trump and especially his supporters will say that this was all
thanks to him, to his “magnificent” negotiating skills.
However, even if military spending increases... it probably won’t change anything.
First, this 2% figure is a random number, which could be reached simply by raising military
salaries… or cheating in all kinds of ways.
Greece, for example, is one of the few countries that complies with this and spends 2.36% of
its GDP... but a large part of that budget is used to pay for military pensions.
And even most of their investment in military equipment is geared towards defense against
Turkey... another NATO member country.
The result?
Even though the expenditure rule is apparently being followed… the Greek army brings little
or nothing to the organization's capabilities.
But even though all of this money could be used to really improve the armies – and
of course without political commitment it will never happen – not much will be achieved
anyway.
European countries will continue to depend on the United States for force deployment…
because each country by its own wouldn’t be able to afford to maintain that kind of
global deployment, intelligence and supply capabilities.
And, of course, given that in Europe military operations aren’t popular, neither the political
commitment nor the rules for entering into combat will change.
That is, we would have larger armies but at the moment of truth, very similar deficiencies.
But also, let’s see.
The armed forces can perform four essential functions:
Deterrence; Intervention and deployment;
occupation and 4) cybersecurity
For none of these tasks is the current European countries budget a hindrance.
To fight terrorism or quickly deploy somewhere in the world and face a special situation,
you don’t really need multiple aircraft carriers, that is, redundant forces.
It’s much more important to be able to deploy quickly and manage a conflict.
For example, there’s the latest United States and NATO wars: Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
In all of them, their military victory was simple... but the postwar period... was an
absolute disaster.
Preparing forces to manage local conflicts, and using the different countries’ institutions
to train the national forces--not only the military, but also police forces and trial
courts, prisons and power plants, etc. would probably have been a lot more useful.
At the end of the day, dear viewers, facing a conflict requires a lot of things... and
not always the same ones.
The threats we face today don’t require aircraft carriers or fighter-bombers, but
agility.
Europe doesn’t need to spend more, it spends a lot, it needs to spend better.
And that's where the idea of the European army emerged.
(PESCO, A EUROPEAN ARMY?)
In December 2017, the European Union launched the PESCO program, the Permanent Structured
Cooperation.
Its objective?
Coordinating the countries that participate in the program in terms of security, acquisition
of war materials and joint defense and peace operations.
In other words, to begin integrating the various armed forces.
The program is still in a very incipient phase and isn’t considered the equivalent of a
European army.
However... this could be the best solution to all their problems.
The 25 countries that make up the PESCO program, by integrating their armies, their weapons
purchases, their training and even by sharing resources could mean that Europe, even while
spending less, would have a modern, well-equipped army with great deployment capabilities.
After all, if a country like Spain spends a fortune buying Leopard 2 tanks, which has
happened, and in practice – due to a lack of means to deploy them – only uses them
to defend against Portugal, they’ve made a totally unnecessary expense, don’t you
think?
Folks, today the risks and challenges are global, so I sincerely believe that Europe
needs more integration, to do things better and seek to complete the US’s military contributions
within the NATO framework… but not by spending more.
Almost 300 billion dollars a year should be more than enough.
But now it's your turn, do you think Europe should develop its own army?
Leave your answer in the comments as well as in the survey.
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