No War For Oil

52 Replies to “No War For Oil”

1. A good 9/11 memorial: converting UN headquarters into an urban warfare training compound for private military contractors.

2. “Or have I missed something?”
   Not in this case, it seems. When the leaders of the subject country bite the hand that feeds them that hard, they’ve been enjoying the carrot ‘way too much and have forgotten the stick. Clearly they hold NATO (us) and the Americans in total contempt.
   The -entire- reason for that is the North American and European Left. They created the political situation that forces our soldiers to operate under dangerous rules of engagement, forces them to extend the Geneva Convention protections meant for uniformed soldiers to rabid barbarian terrorists, and forces our governments to GIVE AWAY valuable commercial interests to unfriendly states which continue to ARM OUR ENEMIES, and do so openly.
   Time to bring out the clue-bats.

3. Instead of crushing the defeated we elevated them, enabled them and served penance on ourselves eventually allowing every failed cause to push back against the natural order.
   ROMANS Chapter 1
   22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools

4. These guys (the Chinese) must be hellish good negotiators! They get to test their weapons on our guys and now they get the spoils after the heathens are saved from themselves. Now they want a pipeline built to the West Coast and we are making every effort to comply with their request? I must be missing something.

5. What with victimology the new economics and all, maybe the meek are inheriting the earth, right now as we speak, therefore the end is near. That loud noise in the sky may not be the air force landing at the Saskatoon airport (what, no Timmies in Moose Jaw?), but might be Jesus himself coming back.

6. Yeah that reminds me of the constant refrain from Brit expatriates post WW2, when I was growing up.
   “They(the US) got rich on the war and us, and then they rebuilt Germany but didn’t help us.”
   Somewhere in the ’60’s as I matured and got access to better information.
   Apparently US had devoted 52% of the MARSHALL PLAN specifically to rebuild Great Britain.
   I waited for the next Brit whiner to blurt out the usual and contronted him with that….
   The reponse…”Yeah I remember that when the money stopped, I lost my job.”
   I have reflected upon this and realized the early WW2 French military disaster was not so much a lack of valor but that post WW2 France suffered the same defeatism that Britain suffered post WW2…despite both being nominally winners….in reality whiners.
   They spirit of Verdun matched the Brit’s spirit of the Battle of Britain. Formidable and later miserable in both instances.
   You don’t defeat a people by killing them…you defeat them psychologically…..
   There are other parallels….the Soviets failed to defeat the Afghans psychologically but were themselve defeated psychologically. The US defeated the VC and NVA militarilly but not psychologically, while internal elements defeated the US psychologically.
   The German bombing campaign of Britain actually stimulated production more than Churchill’s eloquence, IMHO.
   German war production peaked under the most severe strategic bombing of WW2. The deciding factor was the tactical interdiction of the road/rail infrastructure.
   It IS a matter of attitude……
   Only he is lost who gives himself up for lost.

7. “Have I missed something?”
   Yes. You might try reading, for example, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, or really any thorough description of what happened after WWI. France and Britain were determined to punish Germany, so they saddled them with huge “reparation” payments. Meanwhile, France and Britain had to make payments on bonds bought by Americans during the war.
   That, combined with the Bolshevik Revolution, created not only the famous hyper-inflation in Germany, but also in Russia, Austria, Hungary, and other nations. That created huge destruction of wealth in those economies, and greatly reduced standards of living, which in turn created the conditions that led to the rise of Hitler and Stalin, among others. Don’t forget Stalin was quite content to get along with Hitler (the famous Molotov-von Ribbontrop pact) until Hitler, having conquered continental Europe, and unable to invade Britain, apparently got bored and decided to invade Russia.
   Post-WWII, the Allies decided that punishing the losers further was a no-win situation; do you really think Germans hadn’t been punished enough? Almost 10% (give or take your source) of their population was dead, many of their cities were rubble, much of their productive capacity was gone. I mean, if you came to my home, killed one of my kids, destroyed half the house, and smashed my car and computer, I’d feel like I’d been punished pretty severely.
   I think the Marshall plan and other actions taken after WWII were brilliant in rebuilding the world economy and trade. The fact that governments everywhere have practiced destruction of their currencies is a separate issue, and is the main reason we’re in the state of affairs we are. Don’t conflate the results of two separate actions.

8. “Or have I missed something?”
   I have always contended “hearts and minds” is pointless in absence of utter defeat. Hearts and minds can only be won over after the ideology that precipitated war has either been killed off or those who remain after victory completely disavow it for the hell it brought down on their heads.
   “Afghanistan,” to use a current example, is no different.

9. Yup.
   Here you have the strongest, the brightest, the richest civilizations succumbing to their opposites.
   On first glance, it seems to turn Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ theory upside down. But that’s just our conceit.
   Our achilles heel is progressive, large “L” Liberalism: the unwillingness to identify threats; the foolish beliefs that rabid dogs can be cured and arseholes turned into astronauts; and the squandering of energies and capital on useless and counter-productive initiatives.

10. What did you miss?
    Kate says it regularly … “Crazy people are running the world”.

11. You hit the nail on the head Kate. KevinB notwithstanding, there’s no point in waging war unless you intend to win. Rebuilding Britain is one thing but rebuilding your enemies is foolishness. Let them pay the consequences. It’ not about punishment its about accepting the consequences of your actions. Germany and Japan have benefitted from bringing the world to the brink of destruction.
    CRB if the Chinese want to buy our oil why should we not build a pipeline to sell it to them. Its called capitalism. We would benefit from the construction jobs and continued development of the oilsands. If the American left doesn’t want our “ethical oil” fine, we’ll sell it to someone else and make a profit off them. Where’s the downside?

12. I must have inadvertently offended. All my recent comments are being sieved out by the filter.

13. Rick:
    At what point did I suggest “waging war not to win”? I think it’s ridiculous that Canadian politicians get all in a dither over that Khadr kid – he was there to kill westerners, including Canadians. I think it’s a shame we try to rake our military over the coals for handing prisoners over to the Afghans, as if they were responsible for what the Afghan police did. I think it’s disgusting that we’re not burning up poppy fields, allowing the flow of heroin to continue. My biggest complaint about Afghanistan is that there a large contingent of bleeding hearts who seem to think the war is some kind of gentlemanly duel, where all sides play by the same set of orderly rules, instead of the dirty, unpredictable business it is. I know if I were at an FOB at night, and some one came charging up out of the darkness, I’d shoot first and ask questions later. Of course you should wage war to win.
    And apparently, you either didn’t read, or didn’t comprehend my post. WWI ended in 1918. The Allies punished Germany, exactly as you suggested. The German economy was simply non-functional by 1921. However, that set the stage for Hitler, and less than 18 years later, he invaded Poland, and started off a mass slaughter. That was some effective punishment policy.
    Here’s my point: WE TRIED PUNISHING THE LOSERS AND WHAT WE GOT WAS WWII. Why do you suggest we continue to try policies that we’ve already seen DON’T work? Are you a Democrat or something?

14. I disagree with the assumption that ‘the losers must lose’.
    I don’t think that wars between nations can be compared to, let’s say, a prize fight in the ring, or a football game on the field. In those cases, there are distinct perimeters for the meaning of ‘winning and losing’.
    The winner/team gets the prize money or the cup or the parade, the loser gets none of this – but this doesn’t mean that those same individuals are barred from becoming CEOs of some company.
    Wars between nations are fought over control over resources as well as ideology. But it’s the economy, the resources, that are the key.
    To declare that a nation that lost the war must..do what? Renounce the ideology? That ideology lost for that time but there is no way that ANY ideology will ever disappear from the minds of men. Collectivism, in its various forms of socialism, communism and fascism, will always exist, because they are utopian ‘hope-and-change’ ideologies and, as pure emotion, will always remain in our rhetoric.
    And frankly, evil, mass killings, identity politics – can be controlled by law, but not eradicated within the ‘minds’ of men.
    Must the losing nation remain poor? How does that help? It simply breeds…resentment,envy, hope and change, utopian emotions, and the cycle begins again.
    The US did not bankrupt itself rebuilding Europe; it enriched itself, becoming the paramount global power. A global world where only ONE nation has a robust economy..and the rest of the world would remain derelict as a result of those wars, would breed fascism and communism.
    Where Europe went wrong after WWII was via the UN, that corrupt utopian haven of ignorance, and the postmodern relativism and the global breakdown of national isolation that promoted ‘equality-of-cultures-and-beliefs’ around the world, that enabled multiculturalism and that promoted socialism as a means of supporting this relativism.
    We see these results now in the Islamic nations and Africa, where the west, which wanted stability, and the UN, which wanted bribes, propped up tribal dictators, kept the people in poverty, and served as a breeding ground for envy, resentment and malice. Tribalism, where the people are prevented by their govt, from enriching themselves, breeds a desire for ultimate power, in this case, Islamism.
    So, setting up imbalances in economic strength among nations – is a recipe for disaster. The US was right to rebuild Europe, and oversee and rebuild Japan. The disease in its midst is the UN and its support of corruption and fascism.

15. KevinB’s point is well taken re: WWII vs. WWI. However, I would argue that while Germany, Italy and Japan were defeated, Fascism was not.
    Fascism was alive and well, having taken up residence in the Liberal Party of Canada, the Democrat Party of the USA, the Labour Party of Britain, etc. Central planning, high taxes, government control of private business by regulation, disarming the masses, some groups more favored than others… its fascism.
    They won. That’s why we’re having problems.

16. ET >
    “…where the west, which wanted stability, and the UN, which wanted bribes, propped up tribal dictators”.
    That reads as if tribal dictators are not a cultural norm in these nations, it would be more accurate I think to say the tribal dictators they preferred.
    “…..and served as a breeding ground for envy, resentment and malice”.
    Well that could quite possibly be a result of western influence, I’m not old enough to know what the Arab nations were like pre 1967 when I first lived in one, but I will say after several decades of living in Arab nations they are indeed an envious, resentful, malicious and I will add a petty, immature people. My first hand experience believes that this is a cultural norm thousands of years old.
    The remainder of Africa was Stone Age societies prior to European colonization. Enough said really, they are no worse off than ever, aside from the western welfare that has exploded their populations to ever growing humanitarian crises which is in turn requires perpetual aid to sustain basic survival and more population growth.
    “Wars between nations are fought over control over resources as well as ideology”
    Not to disagree, I do agree with that statement, I find it amusing though that so many conclude that resources are so abundant on planet earth that overpopulation is no issue whatsoever. Wonder why we war over them in modern times when we have the technology to go and get all this abundance wherever we please?

17. Sasquatch: “Apparently US had devoted 52% of the MARSHALL PLAN specifically to rebuild Great Britain.”
    No. There were 17 countries that received the Marshall Plan. Of the $17 billion, Britain received just under a quarter of it, not half.
    “They spirit of Verdun matched the Brit’s spirit of the Battle of Britain. Formidable and later miserable in both instances.”
    Drivel. Life in Britain after the war was HARDER than during the war. Rationing didn’t end until 1952, and it was far stricter than during the war. It can reasonably be said that by 1950 the British were slowly starving to death. Just try keeping up morale when the war is over and you are permanently hungry.
    “The deciding factor was the tactical interdiction of the road/rail infrastructure.”
    Go read Albert Speer’s autobiography Inside the Third Reich to find out just how devastating Allied bombing was on German production. Moreover, the German air defence effort soaked up well over a million men and literally hundreds of thousands of guns and thousands of aircraft that could have been used instead on frontline soldiers, tanks and equipment, making for a double whammy.
    Pretending that the Allied bombing campaign didn’t produce decisive results is the worst kind of leftist post-modern revisionism. And I thought you despised progressives.
    Adrian: “Or have I missed something?”
    You’re missing most everything. The Marshall Plan was not free money. Some of it was outright grants, but most of it was credit which could be used to buy goods from the U.S. Without the Marshall Plan the Soviets would undoubtedly have made further significant inroads into Europe. As it was, the West only barely avoided losing Italy to the Communists.
    And do try to wake up. If all of the world’s major economies are in complete ruins, just who is the US supposed to trade with? Do you still believe in mercantilism?
    KevinB and ET are entirely right. The Allies tried punishing the losers after WW1 and it failed dismally, creating another global war in two decades.
    You also need to remember that during the 1950s more and more of the Marshall Plan was used to rebuild European military once the economies had been brought back to something resembling life.

18. I’m not sure how our host links the two posts. China is getting Oil rights in Afghanistan and competing Western companies are not – even though Western nations are “liberating” the country. The victors in the great wars created a world body to provide an additional vehicle for redevelopment of the world, the amelioration of poverty and the discussion of international differences. That body has turned on its sponsors.
    Thankfully the UN has no ability to be a world government. It is useless, save to provide a public forum for the expression of prejudice, hatred, anger, disappointment. Most of those running the UN now, (Arabs and Africans) were bystanders or nonexistent nations in both great wars.
    Every so often one of the victors of WW2 tries to get worldwide public opinion on its side through getting a UN resolution to support their wishes – but they find that they can’t even count on the UN “at least being their bastard”, because it serves their purpose one day and the next it doesn’t.
    The UN should be disbanded.
    Western governments must consider Chinese companies and the Chinese government a competitor for raw materials and markets and that the tools to pursue these will include almost anything that will not result in harm to China.

19. KevinB and ET:
    I’ve studied this very problem pretty thoroughly, and I couldn’t agree with you more. The Versailles Treaty was a vindictive, short-sighted disaster. Even Keynes, who was a British advisor at the conference, said so at the time.
    Two major lessons were learned from it.
    First, the inevitable subsequent war, World War II, had to end not with an armistice, but with unconditional surrender. No wiggle room on this point.
    Second, visible aid had to be extended to the losers to help them rebuild. The once-haughty losers had to see themselves driven to accepting charity.
    This was a very effective hearts-and-minds ploy. The result? In continental Europe Germany has been the most staunch ally of the U.S. ever since that war.
    Since World War II many things have gone wrong. But that wasn’t one of them. Once, just once, the politicians actually learned from history.
    Mirabile dictu!

20. What have the Romans ever done for us?

21. cgh:
    You weren’t visible when I wrote my screed. This is just an addendum to say I agree with you too.
    Cheers!

22. rroe >
    Too right. We should have no part of the UN which has become nothing but a corrupt socialist/ Marxist bureaucracy catering to the totalitarians of the world while disarming and populating western countries with third world cultures and values via our taxes.
    We have no voice in this engine of our destruction; The UN is lead by socialist Elitist/ Academics and other enemies of capitalism, European white conservatism (borders, language & culture), Christianity, all Western constitutions favouring individualism, freedom, liberty, individual rights to property, security, and free speech.
    The so called “Liberal” left are the propagandized useful idiots that have watched their parents freedoms, security and wealth slowly crumble away from their lives. They live now today in violent crime & drug infested cities throughout western society, where Muslim gang rapes are epidemic, no-go zones for indigenous whites appear in major cities and no one has the right to defend themselves on the street or in their own home.
    This is the legacy of the UN. The worst fact of the matter is that they are just getting started. They create the humanitarian crises throughout the world, and then socially engineer the mass exodus of refugees and war criminals to the west. They then claim to “rebuild” these countries while “skimming from the top”, all the while they are destroying the west, through excessive taxation, socialized “red tape” in every private sector, massive illiteracy programs via third world immigration and propagandized political public education.
    Simply put this level of stupidity cannot be random.

23. The British had gone soft by 1763, when the French Canadians were allowed remain in Canada instead of being expelled like the Acadians.
    Go back and read your history. In the 1850s Queen Vicky abolished the French land system in Quebec. Farms that had been ‘home’ for families for 200 years could be purchased at ‘fair market value’ or they could pack up and leave. Thousands of French Canadians left and moved to America.

24. Kevin:
    “Don’t forget Stalin was quite content to get along with Hitler (the famous Molotov-von Ribbontrop pact) until Hitler, having conquered continental Europe, and unable to invade Britain, apparently got bored and decided to invade Russia. ”
    There’s no secret about why he invaded Russia – in Mein Kampf, written over a decade before the war, he makes it clear that he despises Slavs, considers them a nation ruled by Jews, and believes that the destiny of Germany is to “turn to the East”. He even suggested that fulfilling this “destiny” might require working with Russians initially, which is precisely what ended up happening. If France and England hadn’t declared war on Germany, it’s likely he would have gone after Russia much earlier and could have taken it, too. Given a couple years to exploit such a victory, he’d have had a large enough resource base to dictate terms to the rest of the world.
    Other than the “got bored” bit, the rest of your comment is bang on.

25. “Or have I missed something?”
    Yes.
    Rather than repeat things, let’s just say that I think KevinB and ET are right.

26. The problem is state run companies in China being subsidized by their government offering contracts at lower cost than our private companies. We should be doing some serious work to stop this aggressive behaviour.
    This was the Conservative governments argument against United Arab Emirates state airline. Of course the MSM missed this important factoid and just spent their time trying to portray the Conservatives at fault.

27. I think creating a comfortable environment in which the European left could live was an unintended consequence of rebuilding after the war. The left would have turned more quickly to military or guerrilla action as opposed to simply extolling the alleged virtues of communism without actually taking direct action had the new superpower, the US, not stepped in.
    Just my quick thoughts.

28. Sasquatch
    Mmm I might just be a whinny Brit, but where is your reference for the assertion that 52% of the Marshall plan was for re-building Britain?
    That said I would point out that Britain received 3.75Billion dollars in the form of a loan. a LOAN finally finished paying back to the US under Mrs Thatcher.
    Actually Britain was paying its way for the war until 47 when its dire financial state had it ask the US to continue in, guess where? Greece and Turkey to counter communist threats.
    Britain paid a dire price to the US it had lost its merchant navy that was never replaced, it give up its foreign territories and influence to the US as it was effectively broke.
    So whiney Brits, I can see why they might be. Meanwhile Europe got new infrastructure and factories and not in the form of a loan.
    As to the reason for the German economy failing after WW1 thats not the fault of the British, the Versaille treaty that set the financial future for Germany was the product of the League of Nations.
    And actually the greater financial debt under that treaty was owed to the French and pushed for by the French as they had suffered land damage.
    As to who suffered the most during the war and lost the most people, WW1 devastated Britain, it lost 2.1% of its male population which was not as big as some countries as a percentage but as the world super power at the time it had a far greater impact on the countries and the worlds future. At that time it could fairly be said quality over quantity.
    Moreover Britain was at that time one with its empire, this was not an empire that ruled as a separate entity, British stock made up the empire and the new domains, the Canadians, Australians, Kiwis South Africans etc etc where predominately British stock, and those countries that gave of their native blood where not coerced but willing to give to the motherland. The British Empire as a whole lost 1-1∕4 million males, these were the backbone of the Empire, visit any memorial worldwide and read the names, read the dedications, all made at the time or shortly afterwards, all these men where integral parts of the civilisation that brought us the industrial revolution, justice and law, commerce and trade.
    Mark Steyn has it right, its legacy has been one of the most beneficial in the history of the world, and the people that enabled that legacy died in indecent and shocking numbers on Flanders fields and it did indeed change the history and future of the world.

29. Osumashi Kinyobe
    There I think you might just have précis the point.

30. langmann – could that be Kate’s point? Nukem?
    I sincerely hope not.

31. “Or have I missed something?”
    Nothing, except we trusted our academics & politicians to be on our side. Naive at best , suicidal soon.
    We never forseen the creation of an Elite entitled class we created by allowing featherbedding by public officials along with government growth beyond any reason.
    Now we pay the piper for our simplicity in forgetting some Men are evil from the crib.

32. ET at September 7, 2011 2:48 PM
    “The US did not bankrupt itself rebuilding Europe; it enriched itself, becoming the paramount global power. A global world where only ONE nation has a robust economy..and the rest of the world would remain derelict as a result of those wars, would breed fascism and communism.”
    I agree that the US did not bankrupt itself rebuilding Europe. The Marshall Plan was not a benevolent gesture. It was advantageous for the US, in the long-term, for Europe to be strong again, from the stand-point of having trading partners and allies.
    IMO where we failed was not in helping to rebuild Europe, but in failing to pull back out of Europe when the rebuilding was complete. Our continued defense of Europe since WWII has enabled them to experiment with the most destructive forms of socialism. Ultimately, we may have done more damage to Europe by not forcing them to stand on their own than we would have done by going home right after WWII and not assisting with the rebuilding.

33. rindirad – I fully agree; the US should have pulled, militarily, out of Europe after a few years and thus forced them to fund and support their own defense forces. But I do think that we had to assist them to rebuild. I’m referring only to the military presence and the role of the US in ‘defending the world’.
    Instead, by taking on the role of defense of Europe, it isolated Europe from participation in the rumblings and tectonic shifts that were going on in the ME and Asia..and the Cold War.
    Furthermore, the US dominant role in technological innovation and development, scientific and medical research and development costs, left Europe as a permanent ‘adolescent’, i.e., someone supported, financially, by others and thus, able to and even, only able to, live within a purely idealistic, utopian, unrealistic world. A world of relativism, false equality of beliefs and behaviour, where no belief/behaviour ever moves into the real world and has REAL actual results.
    Europe is only now emerging from this cocoon and realizing that one’s lifestyle has to be paid for by oneself; that ideological relativism is an ignorant idea and that others in other lands might, just might, have hostile agendas.

34. Should never have gone to war against Kaiser Bill … that would have fixed everything.

35. ET: “I fully agree; the US should have pulled, militarily, out of Europe after a few years and thus forced them to fund and support their own defense forces.”
    No, for three reasons. There was too great a likelihood of communist takeovers in too many of them. As matters turned out, post-war communist uprisings only sprang up in Greece.
    Two: the American strategy of the day was containment, meaning that the USSR had to be confronted on all its borders to prevent Stalin from expanding anywhere beyond the post-war limits agreed at Potsdam. The US simply could not trust the locals to do it without a strong US presence. During the 1950s, they were simply too weak to confront a three-million-man Soviet mechanized army. Remember, they were still clearing away bomb damage until the early 1960s.
    Three: the recent history of the US was isolationism, and both Truman and Eisenhower were firmly determined to avoid that. That policy had failed far too badly in the 1920s and ’30s to be allowed to surface again. Such would not be the case if Americans were among the first casualties of a Soviet assault on Western Europe.
    “Instead, by taking on the role of defense of Europe, it isolated Europe from participation in the rumblings and tectonic shifts that were going on in the ME and Asia..and the Cold War.”
    No. The US had already smacked down Britain and France in 1956, HARD. By doing so, Eisenhower was stating that the European powers were out of the game of intervening in the ME. Do you seriously think that either of those countries were going to risk such public humiliation by the US a SECOND time?
    “…by taking on the role of defense of Europe…”
    No. It didn’t. The US had much less than half the number of troops and military aircraft in NATO deployments. And the US rarely took the lead as Secretary General of NATO. It was always understood by everyone that it was a shared responsibility. One, by the way, that the US was noticeably deficient upon during the worst of the military buildup in Vietnam in the late 1960s when US forces fell way below their committed strength.
    Indeed, US futility in Vietnam explains some of why Brezhnev could crush the Prague Spring in ’68. Buried up to its hams in Vietnamese swamp, the US had no leverage.
    As for Asia, any meaningful role for the Europeans ended when France fled from Vietnam and Britain was kicked out of India. It may have escaped your notice but the influence of Western industrial nations generally has been fading in Asia since 1905. However much Canadians may hate him, Charles de Gaulle had one great political skill; he knew colonial lost causes when he saw them. It would take the Americans another 15 years to learn that lesson.
    As for being insulated from the Cold War, since West Germany had most of the troops on the East German and Czech borders for more than 40 years, it can hardly be said they were isolated. Moreover, Western Europe could only be effectively defended by nuclear weapons. Do you really want European countries using nuclear weapons without the US involved? Neither did the US.
    “Europe is only now emerging from this cocoon and realizing that one’s lifestyle has to be paid for by oneself…”
    A generalization that is entirely unfounded. Massive self delusion persists among countries that are completely bankrupt. And its financial institutions still insist that what will fix the problem is more of what created the sovereign debt crisis in the first place. It is entirely unclear that Europe is emerging at all. Which is a good part of the reason why the DAX has lost nearly a third of its value since 2008, and it ain’t coming back anytime soon.

36. ET at September 7, 2011 6:25 PM
    You’re right – Europe has been sheltered for a long time. For better or for worse, I believe that is about to change.
    -American largess is nearing the end. The US is drowning in debt and does not have the ability to do much to stabilize the EU – we’ll be fortunate to stabilize our own economy.
    -The EU is mostly likely not a going concern. It is unlikely that Germany will be willing to continue to see their work ethic and productivity flow out of Germany for the benefit of counties like Greece for much longer.
    -Europeans are dependent on energy from countries that, as you put it, “just might have hostile agendas.” The US military is stretched thin and has been asked to make deep spending cuts. We will not have the ability to continue to stabilize the oil-producing areas that Europe depends on for its energy needs. Europe does not have the ability to stabilize these areas of the world without NATO’s help. Of course, the US also has a national interest in these areas; however, we have some options not available to Europe (e.g., drilling for our own).

37. cgh – after a time, colonialism, of which the European version was the modernization, politically and economically, of non-industrial nations, reaches a critical threshold point.
    This point is where the colonized territory has reached a state where it can take over its own governance and economic viability. It’s time for the Home Country to move out. Britain moved out of its colonies and in most cases, left behind a functioning infrastructure. France, on the other hand, failed to set up such an infrastructure and the result has been, repeatedly, disastrous: Vietnam, Haiti, and many in Africa.
    I agree with you about the need for the US military against communism in Europe and Asia – the so-called Cold War…post WWII to the 1970-1980s. It’s now 30 years later; there is ample time for Europe to take over its own defense and not rely on the US as the free world’s army.
    We are now involved with yet another collectivist, utopian agenda, yet another fascist-socialist agenda, that of Islamism..engaged in yet another violent attempt to take over the world. It’s up to all of the free world to reject and fight this – not sit back and have the US do it all.

38. “Alex: Once again, you demonstrate that you lack a sense of humour. Now, go look up the word ‘litotes’ as your penance. ”
    That’s a pretty good cover for ignorance! “DERRR, I WAZ JOST MAKING A JOKES!”. Cute 🙂 Do you find that it normally works, for you?

39. cgh at September 7, 2011 7:12 PM
    That was an interesting post. Just a couple of thoughts.
    “No, for three reasons. There was too great a likelihood of communist takeovers in too many of them.”
    All the more reason for the US to encourage other countries to do what they could to see to their own defense. It’s true that right after the war and several years into the future Europe did not have the ability to adequately defend against the USSR; however, as that situation changed, the US should have started expecting Europeans to step up to the plate as regards defending themselves. That doesn’t mean the US couldn’t’ have a presence, but it does mean that Europeans would have needed to spend money on their own defense as opposed it on their welfare states.
    “No. The US had already smacked down Britain and France in 1956, HARD.”
    I acknowledge that I’m not familiar with the situation you describe and so I’m not able to debate or corroborate your statement. I do however, have a question. If Europeans were not able to defend themselves, why would they be involving themselves in the ME? This speaks to the heart of what I wrote above. Did France and England feel they could be involved in the ME because the US military was defending their borders back home? Perhaps Eisenhower was telling them to see to their own borders before they worried about other places in the world. Just a thought.
    “No. It didn’t. The US had much less than half the number of troops and military aircraft in NATO deployments. And the US rarely took the lead as Secretary General of NATO.”
    I think you’ll agree that NATO operations were and are not the sum total of US military involvement in Europe. My argument here, again, is that the US umbrella of defense allowed Europeans to spend increasing more on cradle-to-grave entitlements and less on maintaining their military. As a result, European military ability declined. I agree that NATO is understood to be a shared responsibility – Americans think it should be, anyway – but I suppose that depends on what you mean by “sharing.” If you mean sitting in comfy offices at Shape Base and complaining about those arrogant, American cowboys who are doing everything wrong, then, yes, Europeans do their fair share. But if you mean actual useful boots on the ground and the ability to adequately arm and transport your troops, then no, I would say that much of Europe does not do their fair share. Some of our allies in current NATO conflicts have such ridiculous rules of engagement that their soldiers are basically useless in a military situation. Many countries need the US or other country to transport their soldiers to the battlefield. The US ends up providing ammunition to NATO troops because the home government has “spent the budget.” IMO, this is not sharing NATO responsibilities.
    “A generalization that is entirely unfounded.”
    Europe is in trouble and the US, because it is also in deep trouble, will not be able to help them with either money or, if it comes to it, military intervention. The point here is that Europe not only needs to fix their broken economies, but they are also going to have to see to their own defense because the US is broke. They have enjoyed freedom at relatively little expense to themselves. I believe that situation will be ending shortly.

40. I kind of agree but fail to see the problem here. China’s presence in Afghanistan augurs well for us. It’s in their interest for the place to be stable and relatively un-Islamist.

41. “Or have I missed something”? – yes, I would say that you have.
    The post war reconstruction period was a time of prosperity in
    North America, and rebuilding European markets was at
    very least the sensible thing to do. Getting Germany unambiguously
    on our side was a sensible thing to do. Europe rebuilt in that
    time, partly through our contributions but in those days Europeans
    also worked hard, and they had a lot to do with their own rebuilding.
    The end of this period came about 1961. I choose that year for
    four reasons. The first is that the postwar European recovery
    was largely complete by then.
    The second is that the US involvement
    in Vietnam began about then, and also
    the ramping up of internal discord.
    The third is that Charles de Gaulle came to power and began to implement a policy
    which was somewhat anti-US, British, and of course Canadian. His
    demand that SHAPE move out of France, to Belgium, and his
    loosening of the French military relationship to NATO more or
    less finished NATO as an entity which might play a role in
    combatting a major power. And the third thing is that Krushchev
    built the Berlin Wall instead of attacking Western Europe,
    which he had planned to do.
    So the world changed.
    At that point the power structure, aid structure, etc. of the US
    and UK should have been rethought. Canada did so, and our
    participation in Allied military affairs became much more haphazard, in a rather mean and snivelling way.
    ~

42. ET: “Britain moved out of its colonies and in most cases, left behind a functioning infrastructure. France, on the other hand…”
    Not really. The only significant colonial legacies Britain left in the 20th C were in Asia, principally Malaysia and Singapore. Virtually all of Africa abandoned after WW2 has been a disaster, irrespective of who owned it previously. It’s taken India 50 years to recover from the remains of its colonial legacy and the Nehru Marxism which succeeded it. In the case of Pakistan, it’s gone from bad to worse over the past four decades or so, with the only moments of seeming stability being outright military dictatorship. Please point to any British colonies which gained their independence after WW2 and can be considered a great success.
    France had at least a few marginal successes, Tunisia being one, Morocco perhaps another, and perhaps Lebanon, at least until Syria and the Hezbollah started seriously messing with it. I’m defining success here as nothing more than at least some meaning in ‘rule of law’.
    I agree with you about Europe evading its responsibilities, but this is not now because of a failure of capability, it’s because of a failure of will. And that failure of will is partly because the US wanted it that way, not solely because of utopian socialism. Again, remember Suez in 1956 and its very long term impact.
    rindirad, remember that the US has always wanted to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to global military matters. What it has always wanted was to have the Europeans muster troops and then follow meekly along with US foreign and military policy. When they took independent action on their own, the US smacked them into the ground.
    I’m referring to the Suez 1956 crisis. After the overthrow of Egyptian King Farouk, Nasser seized the Suez Canal and nationalized it. At the same time, given the state of war with Israel, he moved the Egyptian army into Suez, a clear threat to renew the fighting which had only ended just seven years before. Suez was owned by Britain and France. This act constituted and armed invasion and act of war.
    So, Britain and France allied with Israel. They would supply Israel with tanks and aircraft, and Israel would launch a pre-emptive attack. Israel launched its attack, drawing off part of the Egyptian army. Then France and Britain landed troops at Port Said and began re-occupying the Canal zone.
    At that point, Eisenhower ordered Britain and France out, immediately. Both French and British governments collapsed immediately. In fact this political catastrophe directly led to the fall of the Fourth Republic and De Gaulle’s formation of the Fifth Republic which continues to this day. In Britain’s case, Anthony Eden was immediately forced out of office, and with one slight bump in the road it led to more than 10 years of Labour rule and the gutting of the British military.
    In France under De Gaulle, it produced a strong nationalist revival, and 10 years later, France, which had been suffering from early ’50s Vietnam hangover, was much stronger militarily than before.
    Owning Suez was economically and militarily vital for France and Britain, which is why they undertook this operation. And never again have they ever dared to undertake independent operations of their own except under the leadership of the US or of the UN and NATO.
    With respect to your remark about Eisenhower, no. Eisenhower was strongly anti-colonialist, and had a dislike of that from his experiences as C-in-C during WW2, much like his boss, Roosevelt. It was Eisenhower who kept US involvement in Vietnam at a minimal level and the idiot JFK who plowed in without a plan.
    Yes indeed, NATO is not the sum of US involvement in Europe, but it’s by far the largest and most important part. And since at least the mid-1960s, most of the force behind it has been European.
    As to boots on the ground, you want numbers? OK, here’s numbers. Of the troops deployed for central European defence, the US fielded four divisions, Germany 12, France eight, Britain two, Benelux four and Canada one brigade. Each maintained air forces in theatre roughly proportional to the ground troops with a slight preponderance of the US. Remember that I’m talking boots on the ground here, not bozos in offices.
    Against this, the USSR fielded between 30 and 40 divisions, with an additional dozen or so from East Germany and Czechoslovakia. How reliable that lot were is another matter entirely, but we’re talking just numbers here.
    In addition, within a month, the Soviets could put at least another 30 divisions in theatre, with the only significant reinforcement being about another six to eight from the US. In short, it really didn’t matter how many troops the Europeans mustered; West Germany was fundamentally indefensible by conventional means.
    West Germany was only 90 miles across from Thuringia to the Rhine River, a three hour drive for a modern armoured column. As soon as NATO started losing, which it would because of its forward defense doctrine, it would have to resort to nuclear weapons to even things out. And no one could ever come up with a way to keep a nuclear exchange confined to just one theatre and not go global. And nuclear weapons mean US control.
    So we had a stalemate, and a bloody good thing it turned out to be.

43. Thanks, DVS.

44. The problem is state run companies in China being subsidized by their government offering contracts at lower cost than our private companies.
    That’s only part of the problem. It’s not economically feasible to produce a lot of products in North America. The labor costs in North America are prohibitively expensive and North American environmental regulations which keep our air, water and land from being heavily polluted don’t exist in China. A lot of companies are outsourcing over there where they can get cheap labor, pollute, and keep their production costs low. The electricity to run their factories comes from dirty coal and the factories dump pollution into the environment.

45. At the end of a war There aren’t evil loosers being coddled by the victors. They’re just people who had as little control over their politicians as we do. Trampling them so that we can be more affluent is the kind of cheap selfishness that makes people willing to fight. Europe has had an irresponsible run of socialism, but it hasn’t had a major war for a long time, and European countries are very slow to be involved in any kind of military conflict.
    America is the great military advocate.
    If the money being spent fighting brown people was spent creating jobs for them instead, they might be alot less interested in violent fundamentalism.

46. @cgh … “West Germany was fundamentally indefensible by conventional means.”
    Ever wondered how the Finns held out against the Soviets during the Winter War?
    Ever wondered why the Swiss have never been successfully occupied?
    Ever wondered why Uncle Joe did nothing as Tito broke off the East Bloc?
    Ever wondered how Mathias Rust flew 900 miles into the USSR without successful interception?
    Ever wondered how Israel successfully knocked out Iraq’s reactor (and Syria’s too) without a hiccup?
    Ever wondered how IAF downed 85 Syrian aircraft in 1982 without losing any in dogfights?
    In 1982, when Israel’s army took on the Syrians, a Palestinian observer remarked, “I saw (the Syrians) positions. They were slaughtered.”
    In 1991, Iraq’s battle-hardened troops melted when attacked by peace-softened US troops.
    The Soviet nomenklatura would not have been impressed with any of the above-mentioned scenarios.
    Start looking at things from the eye of the enemy and it will open up a completely different perspective.
    (To deafeat South Vietnam — a country that had been cut-off by the US — the NVA needed a million troops. How many peace-loving troops would the Warsaw Pact have needed to overrun West Germany, a country that would have been backed to the hilt by the US? Given declining Slavic birth rates and unreliable E. European troops could the Soviets have mustered that kind of manpower? FACT: 29% of Soviet troops could not speak Russian.)

47. cgh at September 7, 2011 10:19 PM
    Thanks for the post, cgh. I need to read-up on the Suez Canal crisis. You’ve really peaked my interest.
    “…remember that the US has always wanted to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to global military matters.”
    I would say rather that the US wants to be in the driver’s seat when it is our blood and treasure being spent. Americans like our soldiers and tax dollars controlled by people we can hold accountable, which is impossible when the commander is not an American.
    “What it has always wanted was to have the Europeans muster troops and then follow meekly along with US foreign and military policy. When they took independent action on their own, the US smacked them into the ground.”
    This may have been true in some situations – I’m the last person to claim that the US has never made any mistakes or bad decisions. However, during my lifetime (I’m a Gen-Xer), the US has been trying to get Europeans to take some independent action. Kosovo and Libya are examples of Europe’s inability or lack of will to address problems without US assistance.
    “Yes indeed, NATO is not the sum of US involvement in Europe, but it’s by far the largest and most important part. And since at least the mid-1960s, most of the force behind it has been European.”
    I’m not sure that this is accurate. One of the concerns that Don Rumsfeld had during George W Bush’s administration was that some of our NATO allies were not adequately funding their militaries and so they were not able to meet their NATO obligations. I remember a discussion about how much of the military budget in European countries actually went to pay soldiers capable of fighting in NATO operations. I can’t find the reference, but it seems like there were many countries where around 50-60% of the budget went to pay pensions for retired soldiers. So, countries that were already setting aside small amounts (relative to GDP) for defense were then using a large portion of what they did set aside for people no longer able to fight. This is not “boots on the ground” in any real or helpful sense.
    If the US smacked down our allies hard in the past, it’s time for Europe to get over it and get in the game. As ET pointed out, the Cold War has been over for decades. Europe has had more than enough time to rebuild from two devastating wars. The Western World is faced with an enemy that hates everything we value and have built since the Renaissance. Americans will fight alongside those who care enough about their country and their culture to defend it. Those that can’t be bothered may end up as casualties of the conflict.

48. Rizwan: are you truly comparing Israel’s military with the techno-primitives in Syria?
    Are you seriously considering that an Iraqi army with an equivalent technology level of no better than WW2 can actually be compared to ANY modern army?
    Sorry, but this is just silly.
    As for your statement about West Germany supported by the US, in case you didn’t notice, modern warfare for the last 30 years has been a come-as-you-are war. There’s no great recruitment drive. The US had very little in the tank beyond the dedicated reserves that I mentioned. And do you even begin to understand the significance of NATO’s forward deployment doctrine?
    I thought not.
    Rindirad, some interesting points you make. However, remember that all of my comments are directed pre-1990 and the end of the Cold War. Rumsfeld is making his remarks more than 10 years later, after everyone has taken their ‘peace dividend’. Including the US, by the way. Many of the US formations in Iraq in 1991 were relocated from Germany prior to disbandment.
    And Rumsfeld is a fine one to talk. This was the bonehead who rejected his JCS recommendation of a much larger force, claimed that small forces were all that were needed to do the job, and directly led to the decade-long war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rumsfeld is complaining about Euro unpreparedness after he’s already burned his fingers.
    Also remember too, that the US wanted Euro support for Iraq and for Afghanistan. And they didn’t get it. It’s in this context that the “Euros aren’t doing enough” fits in. Rumsfeld was being more than a bit misleading, if what you’ve stated above is true. What Rumsfeld was ignoring was that the Euros saw no security threat in Iraq the way the US did.
    You raise an interesting point about pension funds swallowing up defense budgets. I can only comment here that in the case of the US theirs is largely unfunded. Indeed, draining civil service pension funds is what kept the US functioning from May to August of this year.
    One final point to mention, Euro independent action has often been seriously misguided in recent decades. After all, it was the German unilateral and premature recognition of Slovenia that immediately precipitated the breakup of Yugoslavia. The breakup may well have happened anyway, but it was German clumsiness that made it immediate and messy.
    Sensible US administrations have usually liked their Euros predictable and in line with US policy, not adventuring off on their own.

49. cgh at September 8, 2011 6:19 PM
    It does change the discussion a little now that I understand that your comments were directed to the US/NATO situation in Europe prior to the 90s. Although I still hold that some European countries have been dragging their feet getting back into the self-defense game. IMO, by the 80s they should have been in a position to see to their own defense.
    It’s true that Rumsfeld made some fairly big mis-steps during his time as Sec of Defense. If I’m not mistaken, he has admitted that some of the decisions he made, including the number of troops initially deployed, were in error. I would argue, though, that mistakes, such as the ones made by the Bush Administration in Iraq, are made in most wars (that’s why one of a soldier’s favorite phrases is FUBAR). I don’t believe you can compare it to some European countries’ willful and ongoing underfunding of their own defense. Otherwise, these countries would have recognized their error and corrected it.
    True, we wanted European support for the Iraq War, and we did get some support from some countries, such as the UK. The fact of the matter is Europeans just didn’t like Bush because he is and was the epitome of the arrogant, brash cowboy that Europeans love to hate. (I would argue that they were and are wrong. W has always seemed to me to be a very kind and humble man who took the responsibilities of the Office of President very seriously. Not that he’s perfect, but I don’t think he was anything like the fascist demon they made him out to be. He’s certainly not Hitler.) They used the War in Iraq as the means to attack both Bush and the US. You’ve noticed that there hasn’t been much said about “war criminals” in Europe now that Obama is in office, even though he has expanded the mission in Afghanistan and involved us in another in Libya (of course, Libya was at their instigation, so they probably wouldn’t squawk too loudly). It’s hard to take their moral outrage seriously when it is applied based on whether the guy in the White House has a D or an R after his name.
    It is absolutely true what you say about Federal employee pensions in the US. Unfortunately, it is also true about state gov employees and local gov employees. It is one of the many reasons why the US is in trouble. However, as we spend a significantly larger portion of GDP on defense than anyone else in NATO, I’m fairly sure you could subtract all the US pension obligations and we would still be budgeting and spending much more for defense than the rest of NATO, combined.
    It’s true that the US prefers to be acting in concert with our allies, and, obviously, we will be pushing for the agenda that suits us best. As does France, Germany, and every other country. It is said that countries have interests, not friends. When our interests align with our allies’ interests – great. When they don’t, I’m sure we try to talk our allies around – sometimes it will work, sometimes it won’t. Either way, it is not in the US’s interest to continue to fund defense for Europe. We simply don’t have the money.
    Thanks, cgh. I’ve enjoyed this discussion and have learned a lot. Hope to “talk” to you again.

50. rindlrad, it’s been fun. With some minor wrinkles and flourishes we pretty much agree on everything. As to your statement about war being unpredictable, no kidding. I don’t think that ever in human history as a war gone as predicted, except possibly in the heyday of the Roman Empire. Technological differences make it just too unpredictable.