Also, germany =/= navy, where instead Netherlands would rather be near to the number of USA.
This means, two nations are enough, if they're paired up correctly, to stand USA.
Also, you seem to be picking on the sentences in which you can beat Woxxy in. I think it'd provide for a more logical debate if you actually confront everything he says, for instance:
There are many more aspects to a war than just navy. There are so many aspects and if Europe is smart, they can play on their strengths and just simply avoid naval battle, unless they can't of course. Also, Woxxy's whole point was that if a combined attack of several of the strongest nations in the EU were to attack the USA in a combined force, it could, at the very least, match the US, which I'd think is true. And not only that, but the EU is still in early stages and still undergoing polishing up its policies and such. It still has plenty of time to use its economy to help allow the individual countries in the, if necessary, to build a huge, advanced military to the same standards as the USA if they needed to and it could happen in the future.
Last edited by Bleudrgn2010 : 06-06-2008 at 04:48 PM.
Usa got 280 for wiki, instead of that abnormous 1866. Who fails?
Quote:
The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for conducting naval operations and is one of seven uniformed services. The U.S. Navy currently has over 335,000 personnel on active duty and 128,000 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 280 ships in active service and more than 3,700 aircraft.[1]
Also, you seem to be picking on the sentences in which you can beat Woxxy in. I think it'd provide for a more logical debate if you actually confront everything he says, for instance:
There are many more aspects to a war than just navy. There are so many aspects and if Europe is smart, they can play on their strengths and just simply avoid naval battle, unless they can't of course. Also, Woxxy's whole point was that if a combined attack of several of the strongest nations in the EU were to attack the USA in a combined force, it could, at the very least, match the US, which I'd think is true. And not only that, but the EU is still in early stages and still undergoing polishing up its policies and such. It still has plenty of time to use its economy to help allow the individual countries in the, if necessary, to build a huge, advanced military to the same standards as the USA if they needed to and it could happen in the future.
Yes in the future they would be able to match the military power of the USA but at this point in time the only thing they have is the number of available people.
That one site may be counting small attack craft and support ships in the numbers. That's the only way you'll get 700 ships in the North Korean navy. It would be better to cite someplace that breaks the raw numbers down into ship types. For instance, the US has more aricraft carriers than the rest of the world combined. It gets even worse when you remember what we call amphibious assault ships are in fact aircraft carriers as well, bigger in fact than many non US aircraft carriers, even though they aren't counted. Then once you get into attack subs, cruisers, and the like it gets even worse. Note this is just the US navy.
Also, Japan has a suprisingly modern and powerful navy. It's doubtful China's PLN could do much against the JMSDF even if Japan didn't have US backing.
But seriously, the EU cannot match the US militarily. The US just starts out with such an overwhelming force advantage by the time Europe could mobilize their nations for war it'd already be over.
That one site may be counting small attack craft and support ships in the numbers. That's the only way you'll get 700 ships in the North Korean navy. It would be better to cite someplace that breaks the raw numbers down into ship types. For instance, the US has more aricraft carriers than the rest of the world combined. It gets even worse when you remember what we call amphibious assault ships are in fact aircraft carriers as well, bigger in fact than many non US aircraft carriers, even though they aren't counted. Then once you get into attack subs, cruisers, and the like it gets even worse. Note this is just the US navy.
Also, Japan has a suprisingly modern and powerful navy. It's doubtful China's PLN could do much against the JMSDF even if Japan didn't have US backing.
But seriously, the EU cannot match the US militarily. The US just starts out with such an overwhelming force advantage by the time Europe could mobilize their nations for war it'd already be over.
Should we talk nukes now?
Of course the EU cannot match the US militarily at the moment, the whole topic was about in the future. If the EU uses its combined economy, which is massive, to build up their military, could it overwhelm the US in the future? Does it have the potential to, not just militarily but economically also?
And I'm pretty sure several EU countries have access to nuclear weapons. When we talk nuclear weapons, it's not really he numbers that matter. It's whether you use them or you don't.
Last edited by Bleudrgn2010 : 06-06-2008 at 07:05 PM.
Victory towards europe... with that? You think a nation would move the whole manpower for attacking europe?
Ok, just for you to notice, 'Available Military Manpower Ger:36,830,650 Usa:134,813,023 '. Since when every man in USA is now a part of military?
Also, germany =/= navy, where instead Netherlands would rather be near to the number of USA.
This means, two nations are enough, if they're paired up correctly, to stand USA.
And to say another thing, you are considering the loser of world war, which was under the control of other powers for what regards military for a while. Germany is not the strongest military. It's England, France and Spain before Germany.
This data just shows how Germany has got one fourth to one half of the stuff USA got. beside airplanes. Aren't you kinda overthinking of USA's power...
First of all, lulz at calling Germany a loser and Spain, France, and England winners. Far as I remember, France was taken pretty quickly by the "losers" in Germany, as was quite a bit more of Europe, and large chunks of Africa. Military might is just as much organization as feet on the ground.
Not really. The Vietnam War showed that an overwhelming majority would rather face the draft than leave the U.S., so the available military manpower would be close to 90% or so of men in the U.S., especially if some manner of mandatory public service were required (been on the books a few times).
Secondly, you assume the nations you list could be paired up quickly enough to withstand the unified U.S. forces. Culture aside, the simple fact that the branches of the U.S. military work constantly with one another means that, while they may bicker and fight a bit over who's tougher, they're quite ready to work together to combat foreign troops. Pairing Germany and the Netherlands would require determining which military leader would be in charge of both forces, who would be in the chain of command, synching up codes and procedures for communication, sharing intelligence services, all things that would take up precious time in the event of an attack.
It's also likely that the U.S. would be able to play up infighting among the E.U. members, who haven't really cohered into a collective culture yet. All of this counts against the E.U. as a military power. This doesn't even take into consideration the amount of U.S. military bases in Europe, or the nuclear capabilities of the U.S. I like Europe, but, face it, if America ever really got pissed, Europe would be fighting one long, losing war. They'd fight well, and hard, but they'd eventually lose.
I don't think the E.U. will attempt to match the military power of the U.S. either. It's just not got that same arrogance or agressiveness the U.S. has traditionally had. Along with that, it hasn't had the same sort of easy-going friendly attitude the U.S. shares with its friends either. E.U. confrences are rife with politicking and contests of power, one nation holding its vote over all the others in order to gain some concession. They're both less agressive and more agressive than the U.S. The E.U. tends towards less agression with less friendly nations, more agression with friendly nations.
Anyway, it isn't even the military that really makes a superpower. For quite a long time, England was a great superpower, with most of its military being made up of foreigners who could have, quite easily, banded together to crush England. But, England made itself so powerful in attitude and economy that it was easier to work with them than against them. America has done rather the same. We may be called bullies by the rest of the world, but we play relatively softly compared to most of the history of the E.U. members. We just insert ourselves as the pinnacle of, well, everything, and the attitude and economy of the U.S. causes most others to grudgingly accede to American wishes.
The E.U. is rather like a retiree, just doesn't have the drive to really push itself onto other nations at this point. They're quite a bit more worried about more mature aspects of their society, and working towards building a more socialistic society. That just doesn't mesh with the aggressive attitude required to be a superpower. For that, look to the relatively less developed nations, raring to take their piece of the global pie.
And can we please quit with bashing each other, Americans and Europeans? Sure, we each have things we don't like about the other, but, in all honesty, we're not as far apart as we think, and we've both got quite a bit of blood on our hands. We can drag up arguments that Europe set up the situation today, and the U.S. has made it worse, but that doesn't really help tell anyone what some other nation will do tomorrow to either worsen the situtation or make it better.
Don't count nuclear power: that'd be overkill also for USA. We got em, and the possibility to destroy the world more than once doesn't change the situation.
Second, Wiki counts also those amphibious, and submarines. The number is 280. I see how USA people has this hope for being stronger now. Numbers (reliable ones) talks tho.
For what concerns Germany, you should think about the pressure made on it after the second world war, the crisis before the boom. Other nations in Europe lost to the strong Germany, but you know the outcome. Germany in the end was more a plain land than any other state.
There's no way you'd be able to overwhelm the number of the stuff we got. 20 states having almost all over 1000 airplanes each and not a bad navy (that altogether goes way over 2500 units).
Or let's also say, over 8.000.000 soldiers ready. But let's say numbers shouldn't talk.
And let's talk about those 4.180.000 USA soldiers: they are recruited not only in usa, they are also recruited in Europe, and all other parts of teh world. You won't bring all of them in Europe to fight. There's not all of this cohalition in the USA army, I'd rather say it's kinda multiethnic and sure not culturally omogeneous.
Also, don't forget USA fights more than a war in the world. As I doubt it would be able to go over Europe's military, I doubt even more it could stand many battlefields. They're spread all over the world, as well as the weapons.
For more, European military is not united, but specifically works together in more than a situation (in the extra-comunitary fields). Culture is just something people keeps coming up with. The culture in Europe is pretty omogeneous, beside of the language (but we can talk english too). We share more culture between Sweden and Spain than California and NewYork, as we had more to do with crossed story over the past hundreds of years.
USA is called omogeneous instead for not having internal warfare. Not culture.
Of course the EU cannot match the US militarily at the moment, the whole topic was about in the future. If the EU uses its combined economy, which is massive, to build up their military, could it overwhelm the US in the future? Does it have the potential to, not just militarily but economically also?
The thing is European contries spend a larger part of their budget on social services than the US. To match the US military spending they'd have to cut that. Not to mention a military build up by the EU would be seen as a threat by Russia. If the EU were to suddenly become hostile to the US and build it's forces, Russia will as well. Plus when you look at natural resources, the EU simply doesn't have as much domesticly.
Quote:
And I'm pretty sure several EU countries have access to nuclear weapons. When we talk nuclear weapons, it's not really he numbers that matter. It's whether you use them or you don't.
It is a matter of numbers though. The EU has total about 500 nukes. The US has about 2000 operational nukes. More importantly though, delivery systems. France, the nation with most of Europe's stockpiles only has air and submarine launched weapons. Now I'm sure you'll agree that France's current stocks of aircraft are unable to attack targets in the US from bases in Europe. This leaves their SLBM and planes from their carrier as their sole method of delivering them. They have a handfull of balistic missile subs and 1 carrier. It's possible they'd sneak a sub in range to launch, but most likely they'd all be hunted down quite quickly by US attack subs.
Now the UK is the other EU nation with nukes. Currently the UK only has nukes on their ballistic missile subs. Now the Royal navy can protect them better than the french navy, but it's still not very likely they get in range.
@ Woxxy
Are you seriously claiming the EU has over 20,000 combat aircraft and a navy of over 2500? Cause they don't. I don't even want to think about where you got Spain and Sweden are more culturally similar than New York and California.
1. germany's navy exists, but way behind. why? they dont have an aircraft carrier.
2. the US have debates about a presidential candidate not being "patriotic" enough. not thinkable for anybody involved in the politics of the european union. there is no nationalistic unity in europe. countries in the EU argue about a lot of things. the EU laws are just loose restrictions for the national laws.
talking about war of US vs EU is ridiculous. they are all in the NATO. plus, UK is more of an ally of the US than of the EU.
actually, any kind of military warfare between developed countries is pretty much ridiculous nowadays. better talk about economic hegemony. europe is gaining on the US, fast.
Last edited by guorbatschow : 06-07-2008 at 08:30 AM.
1. germany's navy exists, but way behind. why? they dont have an aircraft carrier.
2. the US have debates about a presidential candidate not being "patriotic" enough. not thinkable for anybody involved in the politics of the european union. there is no nationalistic unity in europe. countries in the EU argue about a lot of things. the EU laws are just loose restrictions for the national laws.
talking about war of US vs EU is ridiculous. they are all in the NATO. plus, UK is more of an ally of the US than of the EU.
Of coure it's rediculous, but hypotheticals can still be interesting to discuss even if they have no chance of happening. Of course when nationalism starts to interfer it can get ugly...
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