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[Gukag]

European militaries are tiny, underfunded, undermanned and useless. Even in the height of the cold war, this was the case. They had ammunition reserves enough for 15 days of combat, on average.

It's only gotten worse since then. It's basically just a welfare program for show, it doesn't even meet NATO's obligations. The USA covers all of Europe's military weakness so they can focus their money on the burdens of pensions and welfare cheques and going into vast debt.

I have no idea why European countries are in Afghanistan, they've neglected basically every requirement of the alliance. I suppose it's worth the tax-payer funds to send out some soldiers to Afghanistan so they can be accused of 'warcrimes' and 'imperialism' and whatnot so they can stay programmed and give some diplomatic weight with the USA.

Hilarious. France and the UK have similar military expenditures. Proportionally to their size, their population and their GDP they have bigger and more modern militaries than any other country in the world, except the US military, which is ridiculously bloated and a black hole of government waste. And I'd love to know how exactly the US "covers" Europe's military weakness. I'm sure you think the US government and military are some sort of generous martyrs sacrificing themselves selflessly for the safety of ungrateful weaklings, because you seem to be an idiot, but the US's continued ocuppation of Germany is anything but selfless.
Anyways the french in particular have and continue to meddle militarily outside of their borders, mostly in Africa. They tend to be more in favour of wet works, special forces and other intelligence and diplomacy tricks, as opposed to bombastic "WOO MASSIVE INVASION, CARRIERS, TANKS, COLD WAR TACTICS DESIGNED TO FIGHT CONVENTIONAL WARS TO HUNT DOWN GUERILLAS, GENIUS" US style. Rumsfeld's idea of a slimmed down, cutting edge tech extremely professional army was actually a pretty good one, it just didn't suit the US's operational goals in either Afghanistan or Iraq, which was "temporary" occupation and training of locals. Or, let's be honest, the industrial and economic goals of the MIC. The billions upon billions of dollars that dissapear without any accountability into the US military budget aren't to "subsidize" anything but military contracts with local American industries.
 It suits European powers pretty well however. To be fair though, even in France's latest intervention in Mali they had to call on the UK and the US's military transports to fill the cracks in their supply lines. Euro militaries don't have as much power projection as the US, but then again, no one else does either. 

[kingfisher1112]

European militaries are tiny, underfunded, undermanned and useless. Even in the height of the cold war, this was the case. They had ammunition reserves enough for 15 days of combat, on average.

It's only gotten worse since then. It's basically just a welfare program for show, it doesn't even meet NATO's obligations. The USA covers all of Europe's military weakness so they can focus their money on the burdens of pensions and welfare cheques and going into vast debt.

I have no idea why European countries are in Afghanistan, they've neglected basically every requirement of the alliance. I suppose it's worth the tax-payer funds to send out some soldiers to Afghanistan so they can be accused of 'warcrimes' and 'imperialism' and whatnot so they can stay programmed and give some diplomatic weight with the USA.

Hilarious. France and the UK have similar military expenditures. Proportionally to their size, their population and their GDP they have bigger and more modern militaries than any other country in the world, except the US military, which is ridiculously bloated and a black hole of government waste. And I'd love to know how exactly the US "covers" Europe's military weakness. I'm sure you think the US government and military are some sort of generous martyrs sacrificing themselves selflessly for the safety of ungrateful weaklings, because you seem to be an idiot, but the US's continued ocuppation of Germany is anything but selfless.
Anyways the french in particular have and continue to meddle militarily outside of their borders, mostly in Africa. They tend to be more in favour of wet works, special forces and other intelligence and diplomacy tricks, as opposed to bombastic "WOO MASSIVE INVASION, CARRIERS, TANKS, COLD WAR TACTICS DESIGNED TO FIGHT CONVENTIONAL WARS TO HUNT DOWN GUERILLAS, GENIUS" US style. Rumsfeld's idea of a slimmed down, cutting edge tech extremely professional army was actually a pretty good one, it just didn't suit the US's operational goals in either Afghanistan or Iraq, which was "temporary" occupation and training of locals. Or, let's be honest, the industrial and economic goals of the MIC.
 It suits European powers pretty well however. To be fair though, even in France's latest intervention in Mali they had to call on the UK and the US's military transports to fill the cracks in their supply lines. Euro militaries don't have as much power projection as the US, but then again, no one else does either.

To be fair, America does cover HUGE amounts of the world militarily. Certainly, it's not selfless, but it ain't malicious or them getting all the gain. It's more symbiotic. America gets influence and the world gets protection. It is true that the European militaries are weak. Very weak.

[Owlbread]

One of my main reasons for deeply, deeply resenting the UK is our ridiculous military spending and nuclear defence system (which has been dumped in Scotland).

[Leafsnail]

Again, European militaries aren't "weak" by any means unless you're comparing them to the ridiculously oversized US military.  And I think in any case we've learnt from history that you can't count on a speedy response from the US if things go bad

[Gukag]

Only enough nuclear weapons to fuck up the world a few times over, instead of hundreds. Shameful I say.

[Il Palazzo]

To be fair, America does cover HUGE amounts of the world militarily. Certainly, it's not selfless, but it ain't malicious or them getting all the gain. It's more symbiotic. America gets influence and the world gets protection. It is true that the European militaries are weak. Very weak.

They're not weak. They're appropriate. Look at the military spending charts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
Find me on that list a single country that may be considered a threat to the European powers, and ask yourself which side is better funded.

[Gukag]

Also, porn simulating rape is going to be banned?I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the source of this policy has a feminist slant? The whole domination fantasy thing is actually very popular with a lot of women.  Oh well, time to round up all copies of A Hundred Shades of Grey and pile them on the bonfire. Can't have that filth in public libraries accessible to young impressionable minds, who will suddenly start to think "hey rape is pretty cool".

[Leafsnail]

It's not feminist so much as a cynical attempt to grab votes.

They're not weak. They're appropriate. Look at the military spending charts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
Find me on that list a single country that may be considered a threat to the European powers, and ask yourself which side is better funded.

Well we need the US to have a huge military so that it is able to protect us from the huge US military.

[Il Palazzo]

Well we need the US to have a huge military so that it is able to protect us from the huge US military.

Well then, to better counter the dominance of the US military, the US military needs to be expanded up to the point when it's at least twice as powerful as the US military.

[Helgoland]

Only enough nuclear weapons to fuck up the world a few times over, instead of hundreds. Shameful I say.

The Manhattan Project scientists, Teller, Ulam, Sakharov and the others who have worked on the atomic bomb have done more for world peace than the UN, the pacifist movement and the peace activists put together. Nukes were the only thing keeping the superpowers from waging total war on each other over relatively minor issues like West Berlin or the Prague Spring. Nukes are the reason Germany wasn't turned into the grave of hundreds of thousands American, Russian and European soldiers, not to mention the immense loss of civilian life. MAD is the only proven remedy against slaughter on an industrial scale; nuclear weapons are the only weappon that fulfills its purpose by not being used.

That's not to say that some amount of disarmament wouldn't be a good thing; but the naive pacifist position against nuclear weaponry is not only not thought through, but actually dangerous.

[Gukag]

Only enough nuclear weapons to fuck up the world a few times over, instead of hundreds. Shameful I say.

The Manhattan Project scientists, Teller, Ulam, Sakharov and the others who have worked on the atomic bomb have done more for world peace than the UN, the pacifist movement and the peace activists put together. Nukes were the only thing keeping the superpowers from waging total war on each other over relatively minor issues like West Berlin or the Prague Spring. Nukes are the reason Germany wasn't turned into the grave of hundreds of thousands American, Russian and European soldiers, not to mention the immense loss of civilian life. MAD is the only proven remedy against slaughter on an industrial scale; nuclear weapons are the only weappon that fulfills its purpose by not being used.

That's not to say that some amount of disarmament wouldn't be a good thing; but the naive pacifist position against nuclear weaponry is not only not thought through, but actually dangerous.

I am entirely a proponent of MAD, so I don't disagree with anything you've just said. Nukes are the only reason as you said that WW2 didn't immediately continue with the Soviets pushing all the way to the Atlantic, which they easily could have conventionally. That was my point actually. The EU is covered by it's own nuclear umbrella. The idea that US military spending is any way "defending" Europe is patently ridiculous. It's defending US interests the world over. Sometimes those interests happily overlap with the ones of it's allies. That's about it. It's not some martyrdom story of the US bleeding itself dry to defend Europe, a popular idea with some of the more retarded american exceptionalists.

[Helgoland]

Hey Gukag, are you german? If yes, what area? If no, what else?

(It's up to you if you consider Bavaria to be part of Germany )

[Another]

I am reasonably sure that the Soviets would not attack western Europe for at least 2 years after 1945 for multiple reasons.

First - it would be immensely unpopular in all internal circles and Stalin would risk being disposed by the military that gained much authority with winning the war. By the end of the war americans were universally viewed as allies inside SU and peaceful coexistence propaganda actually continued for a few years after that.

Second - why would the Soviet ruling elites even want to conquer Europe? That idea was voiced by Trotsky whom Stalin politically defeated followed by brutal purging of all the supporters in late 1920s-30s. Emigrated communists were not representative of internal party line.

Third - according to terms of military agreement between the Allies exactly 3 months after Germany capitulation SU declared war on Japan and began to liquidate it's 1 million strong army in Manchuria. If you look at the map - that is quite far from Europe and in effect the strongest part of SU army begun to relocate East from Germany immediately after it's capitulation and would require considerable time to return to Europe after capitulation of Japan. That severely diminish surprise/blitzkrieg/steamroll factor for 1945.

And last - it may be hindsight but there were major food shortages in SU in 1946-1947. Continuing to fight instead of throwing all available workforce at restoring agriculture might had led to large scale starvation.

[Digital Hellhound]

To be fair, for all Stalin opposed Trotsky's 'spreading Communism throughout the world' ideas, he was quite happy to snag the Baltics and invade Finland, not to mention taking over Romania, Hungary etc. Events like the Airlift ended up bringing the 'allies' close to war soon after in any case, so it wasn't that unfeasible. 'Immediately after' WW2 is a bit too early, mind you.

[Zangi]

To be fair, for all Stalin opposed Trotsky's 'spreading Communism throughout the world' ideas, he was quite happy to snag the Baltics and invade Finland, not to mention taking over Romania, Hungary etc. Events like the Airlift ended up bringing the 'allies' close to war soon after in any case, so it wasn't that unfeasible. 'Immediately after' WW2 is a bit too early, mind you.

Obviously, you gotta make sure the infrastructure and supply lines back home are good enough before you start your expansion.  Else it'll just fall apart like dominoes when you least want it to.