• The coalition united in bombing ISIS, is becoming increasingly reliant on the US to do the job they
    86 replies, posted
[QUOTE=BusterBluth;46754315]I would hardly call them useless, the strikes have killed several high level isis members[/QUOTE] i assume a high level isis member is hardly a valued military genius. it's not exactly assassinating rommel. ten more spring up where one goes down. and is it really worth tens of thousands of dollars of fuel and ordnance just for a show of force? what real measurable effect does it have?
[QUOTE=BusterBluth;46748555]How the hell was ISIS created from American meddeling?[/QUOTE] Because the way internal politics were handled were utter shit. Plus, a lot of money got mismanaged, just like it's being mismanaged in Afghanistan and people saw their situtation wasn't improving compared to previous times... [QUOTE]you gotta wonder what the point is though right? surely? what is all of that gigantic force being used for? what is the largest fleet on the planet being used for? it's 90% deterrence. the only american force currently engaged in anything meaningful other than logistics for humanitarian aid is the air force (and navy?) in the (completely useless) strikes on ISIS. and deniable ops [/QUOTE] Because dude, you just need to keep tabs on the whole fucking world if you are a global SUPER powah. No wonder the US navy today is what the UK navy was to the 1800's. It's called power projection. Some punk in Africa is making too much noise, going around messing with some US interests...he will think twice about keeping the same attitude. Plus, you are only thinking about the fighting troops. There's a lot of equipment being shipped out to foreign countries that have a quarrel against a US enemy or are potential US-enemies enemy, advisors being sent to conflict zones to assess and support Pro- US forces, etc etc. Not to mention DARPA and the whole I+D the US army has, which is unmatched. They are the first to field a laser weapon....and mind you, Russia and China are fucking years light away from that. EDIT: [video=youtube;Bh7bYNAHXxw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh7bYNAHXxw[/video] We are every day more closer to this reality. [QUOTE]i assume a high level isis member is hardly a valued military genius. it's not exactly assassinating rommel. ten more spring up where one goes down. and is it really worth tens of thousands of dollars of fuel and ordnance just for a show of force? what real measurable effect does it have? [/QUOTE] Look, a high ISIS member, aka officer, is an extremely valued target. And for them, it is exactly assassinating Rommel. Even worse, it's like they were left without Guderian. Don't confuse fighters with leading personnel. The latter were drawn from fighters that have been fighting since 2003 in Iraq, Libya, Syria. That's 10 years of fighting experience. A crapload of knowledge is accumulated over these years: organization, tactics, enemy tactics, knowledge of terrain, people-contacts, etc etc. Killing their knowledge, without them being able to replenish it from one day to another, it's an outstanding tactic.
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;46754292]yeh there's all those things you gotta wonder what the point is though right? surely? what is all of that gigantic force being used for? what is the largest fleet on the planet being used for? it's 90% deterrence. the only american force currently engaged in anything meaningful other than logistics for humanitarian aid is the air force (and navy?) in the (completely useless) strikes on ISIS. and deniable ops it's a pretty sorry affair. i'm sure there are a million logical reasons why such a ridiculously huge fighting force exists but i find it a sad situation, one that will hopefully become even more archaic in the next twenty years or so the way the world is going[/QUOTE] You answer your own questions but yes, the gigafleet larger than all fleets combined is "deterrence", aka projection of power, aka projection of influence. Call it Imperialism if you think the term fits.
No intervention should have ever happened in the first place. It does nothing but stall and actual solution to the ISIS problem, which would need to come from Turkey or Iran. Needless to say, neither of those countries are going to do anything while the US is conducting airstrikes in the area. The US should remove all its foreign bases except in South Korea. There's no need to station our military in Europe since Europe is obviously strong enough to protect itself, right?
I find it amusing how everyone is discussing Europeans free riding on American military power because they aren't bombing somewhere they never agreed to bomb. The article is about intervention in [B]Syria[/B], only the US and some of the Gulf states are involved there. A majority of the coalition joined the intervention in Iraq as we had been requested there by the Iraqi government, that means that there is backing in UN law and public opinion is on side with that. In Syria there was no such request and one could argue that it is actually illegal (not necessarily my opinion, just stating). Europe hasn't requested the US to intervine in Syria nor does it want to, it's doing it's part (admittedly small) in Iraq. That is about as much as public opinion will support here. If there's anyone who's security is footed by the Americans it's the Saudis, they have a formidable regional air force and appear to have been doing very little with it...
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;46754292]yeh there's all those things you gotta wonder what the point is though right? surely? what is all of that gigantic force being used the only american force currently engaged in anything meaningful other than logistics for humanitarian aid is the air force (and navy?) in the (completely useless) strikes on ISIS.[/QUOTE] So you rule out both logistics and humanitarian aid and then say that the strikes are on ISIS are useless. Well when you rule out two of the major things that the US military does and belittle the achievements we made fighting ISIS the military would obviously be pretty useless.
"nearly 97 percent of the strikes in December have been carried out by the United States alone" Sorry rest of the world, we are busy standing up for what you all can't. Remember that next time you criticize america. [editline]20th December 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Explosions;46754497]No intervention should have ever happened in the first place. It does nothing but stall and actual solution to the ISIS problem, which would need to come from Turkey or Iran. Needless to say, neither of those countries are going to do anything while the US is conducting airstrikes in the area. The US should remove all its foreign bases except in South Korea. There's no need to station our military in Europe since Europe is obviously strong enough to protect itself, right?[/QUOTE] No intervention should have ever happened by the US in the first place, but other countries don't have the balls to do what they say. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XZRQgT9D5k[/media]
[QUOTE=Kyle902;46746355]I'm p. sure thats not true[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/KER6AqH.png[/IMG] Maybe middle eastern users simply do not visit General Discussion and thus didn't answer in the Census? Nah, you're just wrong. Barely any users on Facepunch live in the middle east. [editline]20th December 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=JohnFisher89;46755028]"nearly 97 percent of the strikes in December have been carried out by the United States alone" Sorry rest of the world, we are busy standing up for what you all can't. Remember that next time you criticize america.[/QUOTE] "Standing up for US interests since 1776" Barring the fact that this statistic doesn't include other NATO members - since they found the bombings in Syria to be unethical and thus haven't participated there at all - I have a hard time imagining that the US is just doing this out of the good their hearts. Europe isn't either, but that's not the point.
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;46756394]Maybe middle eastern users simply do not visit General Discussion and thus didn't answer in the Census? Nah, you're just wrong. Barely any users on Facepunch live in the middle east.[/QUOTE] Hey. Guess what. I only visit GD through the 'read threads' page if I find something interesting. There are tons of people who never go into GD, and tons more who likely never even saw the thread.
[QUOTE=joost1120;46752339]Size doesn't really mean a lot though. The Japanese Empire made a supercarrier about 265m long. It's all about the technology and features on the ship, not the size.[/QUOTE] The ratio 20:1 turns "size doesn't matter" into a moot issue. At least thats what I took away from that picture.
[QUOTE=catbarf;46749638]In that the war in Iraq led to Wikileaks led to the Arab Spring led to the unification of radicals in Syria led to the formation of ISIS, sure. That's still a tenuous connection. The underlying conditions that led to the formation and success of ISIS are ongoing political and ethnic conflicts that US intervention in Iraq didn't cause.[/QUOTE] that's just a gross misrepresentation of isis's roots isis took advantage of the syrian civil war, sure, but they were primarily formed in 1999 as the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. they then grew in strength and expanded because of the 2003 invasion, soon to become al-qaeda in iraq, then the islamic state of iraq, and finally the islamic state of iraq and syria. isis didn't pop out of nowhere; it's existed for over a decade now, it's just that nobody paid attention until the US troops pulled out and it was safe for their organization to balloon. [editline]20th December 2014[/editline] but it goes deeper than the US invasion - ISIS's membership is definitely fueled by political grievances and sectarian tensions. to understand why, you need to look back to saddam's administration: sunnis were elevated in status under saddam, while the shiites were oppressed. when we overturned saddam in 2003 and established a democratic government, in which the previously-oppressed shiites had an overwhelming majority, you had a few main things going on: 1. sunni insurgency against the us-established iraqi government 2. general insurgency against the us-led coalition forces. 3. sectarian counter-violence carried out by shiites with previously-elevated status and current insurgency in mind, sunnis have been basically excluded from the political process for much of the time since the 2003 invasion, so not only were there literal death squads killing sunni muslims, but their government failed to heed their concerns. the 2003 invasion created such turbulence in iraqi society that it polarized said society along sectarian lines, which was primed by saddam's discriminatory policies. what is now called isis has fed and is feeding on that discord to fuel its numbers. so, yeah, the united states did indirectly lead to the rise of isis - even in terms of saddam hussein, since the US gave him financial and logistical support during the iran-iraq war to serve as a proxy against the ayatollah's revolutionary government.
[QUOTE=joost1120;46752339]Size doesn't really mean a lot though. The Japanese Empire made a supercarrier about 265m long. It's all about the technology and features on the ship, not the size.[/QUOTE] "Japanese aircraft carrier, folded over a 1000 times, better than western aircraft carriers!"
[QUOTE=Lijitsu;46756668]Hey. Guess what. I only visit GD through the 'read threads' page if I find something interesting. There are tons of people who never go into GD, and tons more who likely never even saw the thread.[/QUOTE] If you got something more representative of Facepunch as a whole, feel free to post it. If we go by the notion that "people from different parts of the world are equally likely to visit a certain forum", this is definitely definite enough for the point I was making.
[QUOTE=JohnFisher89;46755028]"nearly 97 percent of the strikes in December have been carried out by the United States alone" Sorry rest of the world, we are busy standing up for what you all can't. Remember that next time you criticize america. [editline]20th December 2014[/editline] No intervention should have ever happened by the US in the first place, but other countries don't have the balls to do what they say. *omabi says the usa is fuckin best*[/QUOTE] all this post says is #AMERICA "we're fucking america, that's why we spend billions on bombing people thousands of miles away, in conflicts that only exist because of mistakes we made over a decade ago, because of further mistakes made a further decade ago" you're living so in the present, responding to issues with hilariously hollywood-style hyperbole. i mean a video of your president riling up the nation with a speech about literally being the world police. seriously? standing up for what we [I]can't stand up to[/I]. fucking hell. the only reason europe even attempts to contribute to the shit you think we need to "stand up to" is because we want to retain good relations with a rich nation. europe doesn't give a shit about iraq, an issue caused almost entirely by american foreign policy partially backed up by pussy-whipped british power. not everyone wants to "stand up" to ISIS because ISIS is an issue caused entirely by the destabilisation of iraq caused by an ILLEGAL WAR. can you even imagine the amount of horrific fucking genocide that has been going on for the past 20 years+ in africa that has gone completely unchecked? can you imagine why? it's because the USA and its friends can't benefit from stopping people kill each other in the congo. there's nothing there worth money. there's not even any votes worth winning because it's not an issue caused by recent terrible foreign policy ala iraq. so dont even start with the moral crusade bullshit pretending like america is just trying to protect iraqi lives. it's such tripe fuck this pathetic war-mongering shit that is so typical of american SH posters. your logic is such short-term nationalist bullshit
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;46760483]If you got something more representative of Facepunch as a whole, feel free to post it. If we go by the notion that "people from different parts of the world are equally likely to visit a certain forum", this is definitely definite enough for the point I was making.[/QUOTE] What about the number of Israeli facepunchers that regularly post in SH? Or the Turkish ones.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;46760824]What about the number of Israeli facepunchers that regularly post in SH? Or the Turkish ones.[/QUOTE] Right now we're [I]just[/I] arguing whether there's actually a significant amount of middle-eastern users here on Facepunch. Unless the Israeli and Turkish users put themselves in the "European" group, they're included in the middle-eastern group, which - may I remind you - amounts to a total of 7 respondents out of 1449. There are not many middle-eastern users here on Facepunch, whichever way you want to turn it. Not that's simply the point of [I]having[/I] middle-eastern users here on Facepunch, and the original point which I responded to, was whether a significant amount of these were crying for US "boots on the ground". Unless you have anything of substance beyond "well I think there are some", I suggest we can just agree that no, basically no users live in countries included in the coalition bombing ISIS in Syria, and therefore I think it's retarded to talk about hypocrisy coming from users from "random ass countries" when barely any users here on Facepunch come from countries that are actually mentioned in the article. Now, it might just be me, but referring to countries other than the US as "random ass countries" makes US users seem somewhat full of themselves. JohnFischer89 as the prime example.
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;46763031]Right now we're [I]just[/I] arguing whether there's actually a significant amount of middle-eastern users here on Facepunch. Unless the Israeli and Turkish users put themselves in the "European" group, they're included in the middle-eastern group, which - may I remind you - amounts to a total of 7 respondents out of 1449. There are not many middle-eastern users here on Facepunch, whichever way you want to turn it. Not that's simply the point of [I]having[/I] middle-eastern users here on Facepunch, and the original point which I responded to, was whether a significant amount of these were crying for US "boots on the ground". Unless you have anything of substance beyond "well I think there are some", I suggest we can just agree that no, basically no users live in countries included in the coalition bombing ISIS in Syria, and therefore I think it's retarded to talk about hypocrisy coming from users from "random ass countries" when barely any users here on Facepunch come from countries that are actually mentioned in the article. Now, it might just be me, but referring to countries other than the US as "random ass countries" makes US users seem somewhat full of themselves. JohnFischer89 as the prime example.[/QUOTE] okay dude let me show you how statistics work since you insist on being difficult. 1. That graph is not representative of the entirety of facepunch and you know just as well as I do that subforums keep to themselves. 2. If we're going to use that graph to justify your statement then you gotta realize that that 7 facepunchers would represent at least a couple hundred based on the size of FP's userbase. These several hundred would naturally cluster based on common interests. I was not refuting your point on the ideological standing of middle eastern facepunchers. I simply refuted your claim that there weren't many Middle Eastern FPers. Which is demonstrably false. You also seem to be putting words in my mouth by grouping me with "I think it's retarded to talk about hypocrisy coming from users from 'random ass countries' " which is an ad hominem considering thats not even what I was calling you out on. [editline]21st December 2014[/editline] Of course this isn't even going into immigrant groups or exchange students that browse FP.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;46763090]okay dude let me show you how statistics work since you insist on being difficult. 1. That graph is not representative of the entirety of facepunch and you know just as well as I do that subforums keep to themselves. 2. If we're going to use that graph to justify your statement then you gotta realize that that 7 facepunchers would represent at least a couple hundred based on the size of FP's userbase. These several hundred would naturally cluster based on common interests. I was not refuting your point on the ideological standing of middle eastern facepunchers. I simply refuted your claim that there weren't many Middle Eastern FPers. Which is demonstrably false. You also seem to be putting words in my mouth by grouping me with "I think it's retarded to talk about hypocrisy coming from users from 'random ass countries' " which is an ad hominem considering thats not even what I was calling you out on. [editline]21st December 2014[/editline] Of course this isn't even going into immigrant groups or exchange students that browse FP.[/QUOTE] Unless middle-eastern users have a tendency to not go to GD (to a significant degree), there's no reason why it shouldn't paint a rough image of Facepunch as a whole. You'd need a pretty big deviation for "We don't have many middle-eastern users here on Facepunch" to be untrue. And they would be naturally clustering around what exactly (general discussion being too specific)? Are all the middle-eastern users clustering around the now-defunct cooking chums subforum? Why couldn't it be any other nationality actually being underrepresented in the census? You're supposedly teaching me how to use statistics in my arguments, but you seem to be making some assumptions here that don't really seem to be supported by anything? And if we extrapolate to the active userbase, sure we should expect a few hundred, but being active doesn't mean that you actually post anything, just that logged in in the last month or whatever. Do you actually think that much more than 1 out of a 100 active, posting users are middle-eastern (that's assuming they're half as likely to go to GD compared to everyone else) here on Facepunch? Not you said that it's "demonstrably false" that there are in fact many middle-eastern users here on Facepunch, but let me go into the "demonstrable evidence" that you've so far given me to work with: [QUOTE=Kyle902;46746355]I'm p. sure thats not true[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Kyle902;46760824]What about the number of Israeli facepunchers that regularly post in SH? Or the Turkish ones.[/QUOTE] Can you fault me for not being entirely convinced by the wealth of evidence you've presented? Even in your last, rather long post, you only tried to prove that the statistics (or let me say, the only tangible evidence shown so far in this discussion, even if it's rough) I used [I]might[/I] not really apply, [I]if[/I] we assume middle-eastern users don't visit the GD as much as everyone else. Closing, do you really think KommradKommisar was referring to the middle-eastern users here on Facepunch? Fuck no, he didn't read the article and he just assumed it was about NATO allies. My original post pans out even without the argument that there aren't many middle-eastern users here on Facepunch, making this discussion incredibly pointless. And I wasn't calling you retarded either. If you bothered to read my actual post, you'd understand that I was talking about KommradKommisar's post.
Excuse me? Are you criticizing my usage of evidence when you use a really shoddy graph as some attempt to disprove me? You're the one who made the claim bro. Ergo you have to prove it. [editline]21st December 2014[/editline] Hell the number doesnt even matter considering most posts in SH are made by a small group of people
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;46760817] fuck this pathetic war-mongering shit that is so typical of american SH posters. your logic is such short-term nationalist bullshit[/QUOTE] name calling and insulting doesn't help prove your point [editline]21st December 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;46760817]all this post says is #AMERICA "we're fucking america, that's why we spend billions on bombing people thousands of miles away, in conflicts that only exist because of mistakes we made over a decade ago, because of further mistakes made a further decade ago" you're living so in the present, responding to issues with hilariously hollywood-style hyperbole. i mean a video of your president riling up the nation with a speech about literally being the world police. seriously? standing up for what we [I]can't stand up to[/I]. fucking hell. the only reason europe even attempts to contribute to the shit you think we need to "stand up to" is because we want to retain good relations with a rich nation. europe doesn't give a shit about iraq, an issue caused almost entirely by american foreign policy partially backed up by pussy-whipped british power. not everyone wants to "stand up" to ISIS because ISIS is an issue caused entirely by the destabilisation of iraq caused by an ILLEGAL WAR. can you even imagine the amount of horrific fucking genocide that has been going on for the past 20 years+ in africa that has gone completely unchecked? can you imagine why? it's because the USA and its friends can't benefit from stopping people kill each other in the congo. there's nothing there worth money. there's not even any votes worth winning because it's not an issue caused by recent terrible foreign policy ala iraq. so dont even start with the moral crusade bullshit pretending like america is just trying to protect iraqi lives. it's such tripe fuck this pathetic war-mongering shit that is so typical of american SH posters. your logic is such short-term nationalist bullshit[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]"we're fucking america, that's why we spend billions on bombing people thousands of miles away, in conflicts that only exist because of mistakes we made over a decade ago, because of further mistakes made a further decade ago"[/QUOTE] Alrighty here we go. Our mistakes in Iraq came from an incompetent republican president and his shitty administration. Obama has been trying to fix up the problem as much as possible and make amends... that is until ISIS came along and fucked everything up. We spend money on our federal budget to [B]stop mass-killing, genocidal terrorists[/B], not innocent people. Also America never wanted to be "world police" until World War II and Cold War came along and we were forced to help the world. The United States had a policy of neutrality and isolationism before both World Wars, we TRIED to stay away from conflicts of the world, we aren't savage warmonger 'muricans as you seem to think us to be. [QUOTE]standing up for what we [I]can't stand up to[/I]. fucking hell. the only reason europe even attempts to contribute to the shit you think we need to "stand up to" is because we want to retain good relations with a rich nation.[/QUOTE] Ok this is bullshit. Do you really think countries would want to contribute to stopping ISIS because they want to "be friends with a rich nation"? If so, then this is wrong. These countries joined this coalition willingly and pledged their support to stopping this threat, but so far their support has been insignificant and not much compared to what the United States has been doing. [QUOTE]not everyone wants to "stand up" to ISIS because ISIS is an issue caused entirely by the destabilisation of iraq caused by an ILLEGAL WAR.[/QUOTE] Again, the war was because of a horribly incompetent president and his corrupt administration. Obama, as I stated earlier, has been trying to fix things throughout his presidency. Also, ISIS is a threat to everyone, so I don't see why any country would not want to at least support the US bombings on ISIS. [QUOTE]an you even imagine the amount of horrific fucking genocide that has been going on for the past 20 years+ in africa that has gone completely unchecked?[/QUOTE] The violence in African countries have been caused by the borders drawn by EUROPEAN POWERS. Also, a lot of these previous genocides had international interventions and international aid to help those affected.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;46766054]Excuse me? Are you criticizing my usage of evidence when you use a really shoddy graph as some attempt to disprove me? You're the one who made the claim bro. Ergo you have to prove it. [editline]21st December 2014[/editline] Hell the number doesnt even matter considering most posts in SH are made by a small group of people[/QUOTE] Dude, I threw an off-hand comment about there not being very many middle-eastern users on Facepunch (which had no real bearing on the point of my post). You proceeded to comment saying that that wasn't true. Fair enough. I'm not criticising your usage of evidence, because you haven't posted any. But you actually believe that I'm somehow obligated to prove my original statement to your satisfaction just because you went through arduous work of posting "I'm p. sure thats not true"? Anyway, because my time is apparently totally worthless, I actually checked out around 10 random threads in SH with at least one page of replies (and one with 8) each (both to make up for sample size and timezones), and I found a grand total of 1 Israeli user and no one else who would actually qualify as middle-eastern. You know what I find more likely than middle-eastern users just not visiting GD? Facepunch users picking "middle east" for shits and giggles. Now, you and me both know that what you're asking of me is impossible - there's absolutely no useful data on the demographics of Facepunch if they need to live up to your requirements. But considering my original statement was as vague as "not many", I think I've proven to any sane individual's satisfaction that that is probably the case. Let's just leave this discussion here, because it's not gonna go anywhere.
The huge issues in the Middle East are direct results of the cruelty of the Ottoman Empire [I][B]and[/B][/I] the imperialist attitudes of Britain and France. If I have to state this again, I'm writing a goddamn essay.
The 'Murica thread.
[QUOTE=DeepInferno;46770385]The 'Murica thread.[/QUOTE] Can you people just fuck off with your subtle passive-aggressiveness.
[QUOTE=joshuadim;46771476]Can you people just fuck off with your subtle passive-aggressiveness.[/QUOTE] That would be flaming if you didn't get banned before.
This is a legitimate question, not some snarky sarcasm. Is it all relative, or is Europe just straight up not pulling their weight? Like, Since we have more than everyone else, wouldn't that mean it just SEEMS like Europe isn't doing anything, or are they just actually not doing anything? Cause I mean, If we have like, a bajillion times more stuff than everyone else, doesn't that mean other countries CAN'T do as much as us? Like I said, I'm legitimately curious. I haven't been keeping up with this whole ISIS thing, so I don't know what Europe is doing.
[QUOTE=Blitzkrieg Zero;46775452]This is a legitimate question, not some snarky sarcasm. Is it all relative, or is Europe just straight up not pulling their weight? Like, Since we have more than everyone else, wouldn't that mean it just SEEMS like Europe isn't doing anything, or are they just actually not doing anything? Cause I mean, If we have like, a bajillion times more stuff than everyone else, doesn't that mean other countries CAN'T do as much as us? Like I said, I'm legitimately curious. I haven't been keeping up with this whole ISIS thing, so I don't know what Europe is doing.[/QUOTE] As I said on the first page, Europe was never bombing anything in Syria, so the "US is doing 97%" has nothing to do with European allies. But yeah, militarily the European countries do not spend much, really. Personally I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the EU isn't a country at all, and therefore we don't have a federal defense budget, meaning that any expensive aircraft carriers, etc. is gonna be built by individual states and not by everyone in the EU, meaning that it's both a relatively more expensive option for one country, and at the same time, no other country sees an incentive in throwing money at the project. As seen with the invasion of Iraq, different countries in the EU have very different opinions on military action: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governmental_positions_on_the_Iraq_War_prior_to_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq[/url] It only stands to reason that when you're not one big united country, you'll have a harder time projecting power, since it'll be much harder to agree on a unified foreign policy, especially when it comes to stuff like actually doing military operations and projects. Can't speak for all the other countries in the EU, but here in Denmark you'd get laughed out the studio if you suggested hiking military spending to what NATO actually wants (would be a 0.6% increase on the current 1.4% of GDP). People don't want to use money on military stuff, and while that might seem unfair to US citizens with their 3.8% defense budget compared to GDP, it's just how it is. Denmark's foreign policy wouldn't hold any more weight with those .6%, and even if we increased it to 3.8% we would still not have much weight to throw around. The US, however, bases much of its foreign policy on its military strength, which makes sense - for individual states in the EU, it doesn't really. Also Denmark was stupid enough to use money on a mission to Iraq that had very, very little to do with Denmark, so at least we recognize that if we want to keep the protection of the US military, we have to get in on some of the dumb shit they pull. And always keep in mind that the EU is only a slightly larger economy compared the US, and the individual countries would much rather use money on domestic issues than use them together. Imagine if the US's individual states could just choose to ignore the fed, and also imagine if every state talked a very distinct language and was at war with each other just 70 years ago. It's amazing that the EU even exists, really.
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