|
Report urges Europe to cut armed forces
 | Just when you thought the Y'urp-peon military couldn't become weaker and more irrelevant ... |
LONDON - European nations have been urged to cut the size of their armed forces to take account of competition for young recruits from the private sector in a report that is expected to be endorsed by EU defence ministers on Tuesday, a newspaper said.
| You'd think that on a continent with a core unemployment rate of 10 to 12 percent that 'competition' for young workers wouldn't be that strong. |
Mondays edition of the Financial Times said the European Defence Agency document warned that the cost of personnel is expected to rise sharply in the next 20 years when the average European will be aged 45 and employers from the private sector will compete with the military to attract young recruits.
| The downward spiral all comes together -- weak economies, below-replacement birthrates, bounding immigration, turning away from faith and hope, living for the moment -- Europe now simply won't, and can't, defend itself. One stiff breeze and it falls over. |
It suggested greater outsourcing by the military to the private sector and the elimination of excess capacity. Do Europeans between them really need nearly 10,000 main battle tanks and nearly 3,000 combat aircraft, the paper, seen by the FT, said. It was compiled to examine the defence challenges in two decades time.
| That's not the question: it's not how many battle tanks or aircraft. It is, simply, what's the challenge to Europe? What must Europe do to defend itself and have the leadership role in the world that its leaders say they want to have? A Union that won't and can't defend itself will become irrelevant. |
The report will be looked at by defence ministers at an informal meeting in Finland starting Monday, the newspaper said. It urges joint European operations in future to be expeditionary, multinational and multi-instrumental directed at achieving security and stability more than victory.
| There's a telling statement: 'victory' is too much a, well, American idea. Security and stability matter more if all you're doing is living for the moment. |
The European Defence Agency was established under a Joint Action of the Council of Ministers on 12 July, 2004, to support the Member States and the Council in their effort to improve European defence capabilities in the field of crisis management and to sustain the European Security and Defence Policy...
| The Euros already have a 'multinational' military. It's called, NATO. It certainly isn't expeditionary given the unwillingness of the Euros to go to places like Afghanistan and Lebanon. I have no idea what 'multi-instrumental' means and I bet the writer didn't know either, but it's a soothing buzzword for the defense ministers. They'll talk about an expeditionary force which will amount to whatever a few A400s can carry. They'll talk about being 'multi-instrumental' so that the rubes in the press corps will have something to write about. Then they'll spend on the money on their black holes of pension funds and national health insurance, and hope that the Fighting 514th Belgian Heavy Barbershoppers can save them. |
Posted by: Steve White 2006-10-02 |
