Over half of Europeans would support a preemptive military strike to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a poll released last week by a London think-tank reports.

...

However, the April 4 survey of more than 17,000 Europeans in March conducted by the French polling firm TNS-Sofres found little support for increasing military expenditures to counter or contain the threat.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

I just read it again and I saw the name of the think tank 'Open Europe'. I wouldn't believe that bunch of right wing fascist lunatics and wouldn't trust them to wipe my arse. They want a Europe that is the mirror image of America, now that is something I know the majority of Europeans are against, every bit as much as being the mirror image of Russia.


EDIT: Open Europe want laissez faire capitalism in Europe and have a bigger military to project European interests. That is most definitely not on the agenda for the majority of Europeans, who are as much likely to support this organisation as they are a premptive strike on Iran.

http://www.openeurope.org.uk/

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

The Jerusalem Post's headline is a little misleading, I think.

I realize space is tight in headlines, but the stark verb "supports" makes it sound like they're actively eager for military action. The opening sentence says they "would support" a military strike, which sounds more acquiescent than advocative.

The next paragraph qualifies things further, saying they "backed military action as an option in dealing with the threat of Iranian nuclear proliferation" (emphasis mine).

On the question of military expenditures, the wording of the poll seems important. People were asked to agree or disagree with the following statement: "Our country should spend more on defense and less on other things." That's different from saying that they don't want to reallocate their military spending or finance it through taxes or bonds.

Also, I'm not sure about mixing two different polls to draw conclusions.

All that said, I'm sure everyone likes the idea of someone else's shouldering the risks and costs of dealing with the problem children in the family of nations.

quote:

ORIGINAL: UtopianRanger

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

I just read it again and I saw the name of the think tank 'Open Europe'. I wouldn't believe that bunch of right wing fascist lunatics and wouldn't trust them to wipe my arse. They want a Europe that is the mirror image of America, now that is something I know the majority of Europeans are against, every bit as much as being the mirror image of Russia.


EDIT: Open Europe want laissez faire capitalism in Europe and have a bigger military to project European interests. That is most definitely not on the agenda for the majority of Europeans, who are as much likely to support this organisation as they are a premptive strike on Iran.

http://www.openeurope.org.uk/

Yeah.... I had to bust up after reading the article's ties 'Open Europe' -- They're the European equivalant to 'The American Enterprise Institute' Matter of fact..... I think Lord Conrad Black has ties to the heiracy in both of them.

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

I gotta agree that merging two separate studies is a little suspect, but I do think it points to a very real issue about how Europeans see the world, their place and US's responsibilities in it.  Rather than trash the messagers, ask the question "Does the point brought up have some resonance?"

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ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

IMO, European countries should be primarily responsible for providing the armed forces for the protection of European countries, and in this they have not stepped up to the mark for decades. But then, with the US so interested in their defence, why bother on anything more than a token level of provision?

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
In the cold war, the Americans were on European soil for the protection of America, not the protection of Europe, WWIII was to be fought on European soil and that meant the USA (and the USSR) were happy to lay waste to Europe. The British thinking that America was here for the good of Europe is because of Britain's history and being the American aircraft carrier to be defended rather than laid waste to. Why contribute to your own demise?

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

In the cold war, the Americans were on European soil for the protection of America, not the protection of Europe, WWIII was to be fought on European soil and that meant the USA (and the USSR) were happy to lay waste to Europe. The British thinking that America was here for the good of Europe is because of Britain's history and being the American aircraft carrier to be defended rather than laid waste to. Why contribute to your own demise?

As it is now, Europe has enough military to defend Europe. It hasn't got enough to go around the world on jollies, attacking everyone that it feels a litrtle paranoid about. We've been there once remember and no one wants to go back to it, well the majority don't.

quote:

ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY



A survey commissioned by the pro-business think tank

FirmKY

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
In the cold war, the Americans were on European soil for the protection of America, not the protection of Europe, WWIII was to be fought on European soil and that meant the USA (and the USSR) were happy to lay waste to Europe. The British thinking that America was here for the good of Europe is because of Britain's history and being the American aircraft carrier to be defended rather than laid waste to. Why contribute to your own demise?

Who taught you this moronic shit? I can see why you're such a hater.

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ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

I would venture to suggest that the US having made significant investment in the west of Europe after the war, placed forces here to protect that investment in the face of possible Soviet political infiltration as well as in case of possible Soviet invasion. The Europeans in turn took advantage of that situation to rely on the US as main deterrent to Soviet incursions, knowing that the US would protect its interests in the west even if all we provided were a half dozen cavalry.

The Marshall plan was to pull Europe into the US's orbit of influence and away from the USSR's which at the time was very attractive to large parts of Europe because no one knew the truth about the USSR. For large parts of Europe, the failure of captialism had caused the war and USSR had just won the war. It was the reason Labour got voted in by a landslide in 1945, everyone could remember how shit capitalism had proved. The first new boots my uncle ever had was army boots in 1939 and the same with my father in 1943.

In any case, when one is dealing in ICBMs, it doesnt matter a great deal whether one is a hundred miles from the enemy or on the other side of the planet, surely? We could all have died over the Cuban crisis, as one example.

If that is the case, why was the US site nukes in Turkey, which prompted the USSR to try and site nukes in Cuba. At that time, the nearer the better seems to have been the case. The USSR only had a couple of nukes and from what I read the Americans knew this so there was a big fuss blown up for propaganda reasons as much as anything.

Europe as a whole does need to match the US on its own soil - especially if the EU wishes, as it has expressed many times before, to be able to follow its own foreign and military policy lead. Not in order to confront, but in order to have sufficient weight accorded to its ideals. Its difficult to be taken seriously by a giant when one is only three feet tall, after all.

Europe has enough military for its own defence. It is not facing a massive land army and for those people that still believe in the great Red Army, they failed in Afghanistan and Chechnya, they aren't going to roll through the Ukraine and into a hostile Europe. Just look at the US in Iraq, large military are largely pointless as instruments of policy beyond immediate defence. If you read government papers from the cold war that have since been released, the USSR wasn't a big a threat as government propaganda suggested at the time. One of the biggest worries was of the USSR collapsing and releasing chaos across Europe with refugees, not the red army surging down across the Steppes.

Now we could say that Europe's interests lie in Europe and that we have no rightful interest to protect elsewhere, but this is to ignore our history and perhaps even obligation around the world. That we have obligation, or seem at least to acknowledge such, is evidenced by the funding and assistance we give to our former colonies after all, many of whom depend on us to this day for their wealth and well being. It is also to ignore that the world is not a small place any more and a threat to us can exist on the other side of the world and yet still be as potent as one on the old eastern bloc border.

International obligations are one thing but again, a military is only a very small part of that. The real need to develop poor countries so their educated people are happy to stay put rather than seek a better future elsewhere.

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ORIGINAL: ToGiveDivine

Should America cut it's European forces drastically, I think you'd see a shift in European policies as they would have to fill the gap.  Personally, I see the EU as being economically equal to the U.S. and the E.U. could be a military equal as well.  Europe doesn't NEED America over there, they WANT us.  There's a big distinction.  There is also the advantage of having their citizens protesting America instead of their citizens protesting their own governments - having a scapegoat is politically appealing.

Some do, some don't. I don't understand why Europeans are happy to have American forces still in Europe, we see the world completely differently. There is no doubt that in some countries the establishments are so pro-American that they tell their populations that the world will end if the Americans leave. Britain being a case in point where there is a constant drip drip drip of pro-American propaganda. The other thing about American forces in Europe, there is a political price to pay when it comes to foreign policy. Nobody gets anything for nothing.
 
When the French Presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy went to Washington to see President Bush, his rival Ségolène Royal siad she wouldn't be electioneering at the feet of the American President, she has standards. That is the problem for rightwing Europeans, they can't govern with any integrity as long as they are in the pocket of the American President.

People do tend to look at things differently when someone else is paying the bill.  Personally, I'd like to see Europe take care of itself a bit more, but I don't think we should pull out altogether.  We may bicker and fight and France is a Class A pain in the butt to everyone, but you are our friends and we should be there to help and support each other.

Europe and America can only be true allies when there is an equality between the two, that can't happen while Europeans are happy to have American military on their soil because it means that European governments are stuck between two stools. They can't be true to their electrate and American foreign policy at the same time. Britain had a majority of its population against the Iraq war (despite a flood of pro-war government propaganda), yet their government went ahead with the war against  it's population's wishes. Who knows what hold the US has over the British government, if it hasn't, I just can't understand Blair, the man must truely be mad and maybe he is.

After 9/11, NATO was willing to enact Article V for the first time.  Article V is basically where if one member country is attacked, then all member nations will come to their defense.  It has long been assumed that it would be a European country attacked and America would be one of the members coming to their aid.  It's this type of situation where you can tell who your friends are - even if we do bickering and whine at each other.

Just about every European was for the invasion of Afghanistan because it was seen as guilty as charged in being a nursery for the terrorists but Iraq have got many Europeans questioning the whole deal and see Bush as trying to drag us into a wider and unnecessary conflict. It's a mixed bag though, every country is different.