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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

It is wonderful that someone other than the USA is footing the bill for Europe’s defense. If I was a European I wouldn’t count on the USA to help in future conflicts.

EDIT: The downvotes are perplexing. Why would a European want the whims of the USA to be their only protection? Defend yourselves!

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Defense is much cheaper than offense.

The fact that other countries appear to spend less on defense does not mean that they are unprepared.

Americans spend a lot of money on a corrupt pharmaceutical industries, and they have bad healthcare.

Americans spend a lot of money on a corrupt education systems, and have stupid people.

Americans spend a lot of money on a corrupt war industry, and they have a lot of rusting 1950s tanks, planes, and missiles.

Without being tested, who knows if anyone actually has good defense?

It requires thinking and testing, not mindlessly throwing money at charlatans.

Americans will not spend their tax dollars on defending Europe, so Europeans should fund their own defense or prepare for the consequences.

Defense is much cheaper than offense.

I don’t think that’s true and there are plenty of counterexamples e.g what did Saddam spend on Scuds vs what the US spent on Patriot?

Let's assume the Europeans are defending themselves against Russia (I mean who else would we talk about). Russian military spending is $65 billion compared to European $289 billion, so even at low percentages of GDP the Europeans are out spending the Russians by a factor 4 (let's assume military capability is related to spending), so clearly the Europeans are financing their own defence against Russia and don't rely on the US for their defence. In fact estimated Chinese military spending is $285 billion, so Europe could defend itself against China as well (possibly even a China/Russia alliance, offinsive wars are much more expensive than defensive). So whom is the US defending the Europeans from? The only force that (based on military spending) would be a credible threat is actually the US themselves. The whole argument that the US is paying for European defence is bogus.

Russian military spending is $65 billion compared to European $289 billion, so even at low percentages of GDP the Europeans are out spending the Russians by a factor 4

The Russians get a lot more for every dollar or euro they spend because their stuff costs a lot less in local prices. So it’s not a meaningful comparison. Western countries get very poor value for money from their defence budgets in Russian terms. They are easily 10x more efficient than any NATO country.

You say that based on what evidence?

Compare their inventories of tanks, nuclear warheads, submarines, SAMs to those of high spending Europeans such as Britain or France. With 900k troops the Russian army is far larger than the British Army at 82k.

I admit that military spending as a indicator of capabilities is extremely simplistic, but so is using number of troops or many other other "easy" metrics (also your numbers are very off UK active military are 190 000 compared to Russia 1 000 000 according to https://www.globalfirepower.com/) I would still argue that with current military spending in Europe it is not clear that Russia would win a military conflict (lets leave asside the global disaster that would imply). Also the arguments about the US paying for European defence also misses the point, that it's very clearly in the US interest for Europe not to be controlled by Russia.

also your numbers are very off UK active military are 190 000 compared to Russia 1 000 000 according to https://www.globalfirepower.com/

That’s a cute site but looking at https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.... the numbers for the UK are way off. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces which puts it at 148k, not 190k. Reserves at 44k not 83k.

Europeans might spend much more than Russia, but without external involvement, I think Russia would probably win.

Russia - about 6000 nukes, 12000 tanks, 4000 military aircraft, 600 warships, 3m soldiers

Europe - about 500 nukes, 8000 tanks, 2500 military aircraft, 550 warships, 1.5m soldiers

Besides the numbers, the Russians are just better prepared and don't have to coordinate a dozen different forces.

That's an interesting point. Europe is trying to be as peaceful as possible but yet it still has a relatively large defense budget. It's just that whatever the US is doing is overshadowing that large budget.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

france,germany and uk are all at about the same amount spent on military as russia.

Sure, sweden alone couldn't hold back the russians, but it's not like we need america, a quarter of the union would do it.

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