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From the article: "It needs to move toward more military integration, which means streamlining procurement. European armies use too many different weapons syste

From the article: "It needs to move toward more military integration, which means streamlining procurement. European armies use too many different weapons systems: seventeen main battle tank families compared with just one for the U.S.; 20 types of fighter planes compared with just six; and 13 kinds of air-to-air missiles compared with three." While I dont doubt there are efficiencies to be had, I feel they fail to recognise diversity . Any of these weapon systems will have pros/cons. The diversity can be a strength. And the article talks about european NATO spending doesn't cut it... well go look at the stats. UK/France/Italy etc vs Russia spending. Russia is vastly outspent by the NATO forces, almost the same spend via UK and France individually. Who else is this European threat coming from? It hogwash Europe is not militarily self sufficient. Maybe not US style dominant but hardly weak. It feels to me there is so much 'fear the bear' information being coming out it feels like soft propaganda on the other side building to something. Sure Russia is behaving badly with Ukraine and Georgia. And they deserve international punishment for this, and hopefully pushback at some point. Syria I'm not so convinced Russia are the bad guys. They are supporting a long time ally and stable government while the west is the the one pushing regime change. Do you really think Assads replacement will be an improvements? This is geo-politics, nothing about improving the nation. Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately. End of the day its a shame the people in power create all this. Most of us want to enjoy life and live in our bubble. Don't let the governments let you believe any nation is bad. And take these articles with a pinch of salt. Some extreme minority nationalists/religious nuts aside, people want to get along.

purple-again 10y ago
The pros and cons of each system? You think the US would only use 3 types if there was any strategic value to more? We have lobbyists and congressmen salivating at the whisper of evidence that more war machines need to be built. They exist because they are old outdated technology that the host countries feel no pressure to replace since they have to buy their replacements not build them and thr expectation of war has been marginal for a long time.
- LanceH 10y ago
  Some are just plain better, as you state. Even if they were each best at something, diversity comes at a very high cost. Every additional design of MBT means an additional supply chain for parts and ammunition. Additional personnel are needed for every line of MBT. Since you have a different logistics line for each tank, they can't support each other on the battlefield without bringing their whole logistics with them.
zzleeper 10y ago
Wait wait.. Russia plainly invaded two of its neighbors, and annexes part of them. Is that just "behaving badly" in your book?
- yokisan 10y ago
  For the record: Georgia initiated their conflict with Russia.
  - macintux 10y ago
    ish
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - geoka9 10y ago
    This is not true. Unless by "initiated their conflict" you mean cessation from the USSR in 1991.
    - yokisan 10y ago
      Sigh. Must we? "EU investigation says Tbilisi launched indiscriminate assault on South Ossetia..with a massive artillery attack" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attacks-unjustifiable-eu https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attack...
      - atsaloli 10y ago
        South Ossetia used to be part of Georgia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia
        dagenleg 10y ago
        And Kosovo used to be part of Serbia. Just because a region is/was a part of your country does not mean you can do whatever you want in there.
rrggrr 10y ago
> Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately. Show me a recent Western intervention that threatens Russia's legitimate security interests. Syria? Perhaps. Aside from that your assertion is unsupported.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  Disclaimer: Russia is an authoritarian country and not a shining example of freedom. That being said.... If you were Russian and you'd spent the last century watching the West undercut you and try and control you at every step (for valid reasons in a lot of cases), you'd be threatened, too. They went from being a superpower to having 100 million more people than California with the same GDP, while watching their own neighboring states get courted by the West. Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride. If the Russians believed that he US genuinely had their best interests in mind, things might be different.
  - rrggrr 10y ago
    Countries either stand for something or they don't. The countries who give enough lip service, money and legislative attention to egalitarian principles always outperform countries who do not. What does Russia stand for and how has it made the world a better place?
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride. This sounds a lot like apologizing for Germany's feelings in 1930. Except, of course, the Russians had their 1933 in 2010 or so. They did get shafted! They've also responded to that shafting by becoming a heavily authoritarian military aggressor.
grigjd3 10y ago
The disadvantage of having several different MBTs is that you need parts for all the different models. Logistics is a serious issue for any military operations, often just as important as any tactical advantage.
yequalsx 10y ago
When discussing EU military capabilities one must go beyond dollar amount spent. The huge inefficiencies in the collective national militaries in terms of having an integrated force should not be discounted. Diversity of equipment at the level mentioned in the article is not a collective strength. It is a weakness. The real weakness however is the inability for the EU to collectively act militarily. Recall Kosovo and Europe's inability to deal with it without the U.S. And that was when Russia was very weak. The EU in political terms is a military lightweight. It lacks the political will and the military capability to act on it's own.
- mcguire 10y ago
  Specifically, diversity makes for a terrible battlefield logistics problem. It doesn't matter how many rounds of 5.56mm you have if your rifle fires 7.62mm. Further, has the EU ever projected it'd forces outside of Europe without US backing? Can the EU put troops in the middle east or Africa collectively? (Yes, I know the individual countries can.)
  - dingaling 10y ago
    The rifle calibre issue is an interesting example of inefficiency since both were foisted on NATO by the USA. Post-war, Western Europe was tending towards an intermediate-power 7mm round. The UK even issued it. But the US Army wouldn't accept a lower-power round so NATO soldiets suffered 7.62 Shoulder as a result. Until Vietnam, when the USA hastily adopted a fast but low-power varmint round. After 50 years we're still carrying both calibres and no-one is happy, but NATO can't change unless the USA does.
baursak 10y ago
I find it curious that it's only Europeans who are worried about Russia and their expansion threat, and the most loud about it are those who don't even have a common border with Russia. On the other hand, countries with a common border -- China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, etc., are kind ho hum about the whole thing. I also feel compelled to partially quote Gore Vidal's old article on this: "When Japan surrendered, the US was faced with a choice: Either disarm, as we had done in the past, and enjoy the prosperity that comes from releasing so much wealth and energy to the private sector, or maintain ourselves on a full military basis, which would mean tight control not only of our allies and such conquered provinces such as West Germany, Italy, and Japan but over economic–which is to say political–lives of American people. As Charles E. Wilson, a businessman and politician of the day, said as early as 1944, “Instead of looking to disarmament and unpreparedness as a safeguard against a war, a thoroughly discredited doctrine, let us try the opposite: full preparedness according to a continuing plan.” The accidental president, Harry Truman, bought this notion. Although Truman campaigned in 1948 as an heir to Roosevelt’s New Deal, he had a “continuing plan”. Henry Wallace was onto it, as early as: “Yesterday, March 12, 1947, marked a turning point in American history … Yesterday, President Truman proposed, in effect, America police Russia’s every border. There is no regime too reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia’s expansionist path. There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of contest which may widen until it become a world war.” But how to impose this? The Republican leadership did not like the state to be the master of the country’s economic life while, of the Democrats, only a few geopoliticians, like Dean Acheson, found thrilling the prospect of a military state, to be justified in the name of a holy war against something called communism in general and Russia in particular. The fact that the Soviet Union was no military or economic threat to us was immaterial. It must be made to appear threatening so the continuing plan could be set in motion in order to create the National Security State in which we have been living for the last forty years. What is the National Security State? Well, it began, officially, with the National Security Act of 1947; it was implemented in January 1950 when the National Security Council produced a blueprint for a new kind of country, unlike anything the United States had ever known before. This document, known as the NSC-68 for short, and declassified only in 1975, committed–and still, fitfully, commits–us to the following program: First, never negotiate, ever, with Russia. This could not continue forever; but the obligatory bad faith of US-USSR meetings still serves the continuing plan. Second, develop the hydrogen bomb so that when the Russians finally develop an atomic bomb we will still not have to deal with the enemy without which the National Security State cannot exist. Third, rapidly build up conventional forces. Fourth, put through a large increase in taxes to pay for all this. Fifth, mobilize the entire American society to fight the terrible specter of communism. Sixth, set up a strong alliance system, directed by the United States (this became NATO). Seventh, make the people of Russia our allies, through propaganda and CIA derring-do, in this holy adventure–hence the justification for all sorts of secret services that are in no way responsible to the Congress that funds them, and so in violation of the old Constitution. Needless to say, the blueprint, the continuing plan, was not only openly discussed at the time. But, one by one, the major political players of the two parties came around. Senator Arthur Vandenburg, Republican, told Truman that if he really wanted all those weapons and all those high taxes to pay for them, he had better “scare hell out of the American people.” Truman obliged, with a series of speeches beginning October 23, 1947, about the Red Menace endangering France and Italy; he also instituted loyalty oaths for federal employees; and his attorney general (December 4, 1947) published a list of dissident organizations. The climate of fear has been maintained, more or less zealously, by Truman’s successors, with the brief exception of Dwight Eisenhower, who in a belated fit of conscience at the end of his presidency warned us against the military-industrial complex that had, by then, established permanent control over the state." - Gore Vidal, "National Security State"
MichaelMoser123 10y ago
I think that is a report that is sponsored by Thyssen Krupp or by Kraus Maffei (or by both of them) - they want to push their products because the largest arms shop will dominate an integrated commands procurement process. Why is this report bullshit? Because Europe and Russia are interdependent: Europe stops buying Russian gas - Gazprom and the Russian state by extension are toast; Europe stops buying - everything that is made in Europe will be much more expensive. With this information everything else is trivial. Now a non related question: is the no politics period for HN now officially over?
- mcguire 10y ago
  "Trade prevents war" was everyone's diplomatic policy for a while. Until WWI.
  - MichaelMoser123 10y ago
    before WWII the powers had conflicting colonial ambitions, now its a post colonial world, so what matters is access to resources (these you can again buy with money, but the fight is over conditions and price). I think there were several transitions that made the world a more civil place: one was the realization that free labor is better than forced /slave labor, the other one that you can do without colonies. (There was also the axial age, but that was along time ago)
- nsomaru 10y ago
  To your OT question: that was stopped shortly after it begun, mostly because it's quite difficult to actually classify what's 'politics' and what's not.
a-saleh 10y ago
I heard interesting comment in one of newspapers I was reading, proposing a closer union between Baltic countries, Poland and Scandinavia. The argument was that these countries combined have roughly the army spending around half of Russia spending. And to be frank, you should be quite worried about Russia doing the invading iff: * you have significant russian minority * your population can speak russian * you border Russia * you have been part of USSR Therefore, I could see baltics pushing for closer cooperation.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Not to mention the issue of Kaliningrad.
Kalium 10y ago
> While I dont doubt there are efficiencies to be had, I feel they fail to recognise diversity . Any of these weapon systems will have pros/cons. The diversity can be a strength. You're right! And military planners are keenly aware that a diversity of capabilities is a significant strength and asset. That said, there is a point beyond which military diversity is a handicap to ongoing operations. 20 types of fighters means maintenance is very complex and requires a lot of specialized crews. 13 types of air-to-air missiles that can't be used by all 20 types of fighters is a significant complication to battlefield logistics. Both mean manufacturing costs are higher than they need to be. Redundancy in military equipment is perhaps not an ideal situation.

purple-again 10y ago

The pros and cons of each system? You think the US would only use 3 types if there was any strategic value to more? We have lobbyists and congressmen salivating at the whisper of evidence that more war machines need to be built. They exist because they are old outdated technology that the host countries feel no pressure to replace since they have to buy their replacements not build them and thr expectation of war has been marginal for a long time.

LanceH 10y ago
Some are just plain better, as you state. Even if they were each best at something, diversity comes at a very high cost. Every additional design of MBT means an additional supply chain for parts and ammunition. Additional personnel are needed for every line of MBT. Since you have a different logistics line for each tank, they can't support each other on the battlefield without bringing their whole logistics with them.

zzleeper 10y ago

Wait wait.. Russia plainly invaded two of its neighbors, and annexes part of them. Is that just "behaving badly" in your book?

yokisan 10y ago
For the record: Georgia initiated their conflict with Russia.
- macintux 10y ago
  ish
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- geoka9 10y ago
  This is not true. Unless by "initiated their conflict" you mean cessation from the USSR in 1991.
  - yokisan 10y ago
    Sigh. Must we? "EU investigation says Tbilisi launched indiscriminate assault on South Ossetia..with a massive artillery attack" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attacks-unjustifiable-eu https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attack...
    - atsaloli 10y ago
      South Ossetia used to be part of Georgia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia
      - dagenleg 10y ago
        And Kosovo used to be part of Serbia. Just because a region is/was a part of your country does not mean you can do whatever you want in there.

rrggrr 10y ago

> Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately. Show me a recent Western intervention that threatens Russia's legitimate security interests. Syria? Perhaps. Aside from that your assertion is unsupported.

aaron-lebo 10y ago
Disclaimer: Russia is an authoritarian country and not a shining example of freedom. That being said.... If you were Russian and you'd spent the last century watching the West undercut you and try and control you at every step (for valid reasons in a lot of cases), you'd be threatened, too. They went from being a superpower to having 100 million more people than California with the same GDP, while watching their own neighboring states get courted by the West. Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride. If the Russians believed that he US genuinely had their best interests in mind, things might be different.
- rrggrr 10y ago
  Countries either stand for something or they don't. The countries who give enough lip service, money and legislative attention to egalitarian principles always outperform countries who do not. What does Russia stand for and how has it made the world a better place?
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride. This sounds a lot like apologizing for Germany's feelings in 1930. Except, of course, the Russians had their 1933 in 2010 or so. They did get shafted! They've also responded to that shafting by becoming a heavily authoritarian military aggressor.

grigjd3 10y ago

The disadvantage of having several different MBTs is that you need parts for all the different models. Logistics is a serious issue for any military operations, often just as important as any tactical advantage.

yequalsx 10y ago

When discussing EU military capabilities one must go beyond dollar amount spent. The huge inefficiencies in the collective national militaries in terms of having an integrated force should not be discounted. Diversity of equipment at the level mentioned in the article is not a collective strength. It is a weakness. The real weakness however is the inability for the EU to collectively act militarily. Recall Kosovo and Europe's inability to deal with it without the U.S. And that was when Russia was very weak. The EU in political terms is a military lightweight. It lacks the political will and the military capability to act on it's own.

mcguire 10y ago
Specifically, diversity makes for a terrible battlefield logistics problem. It doesn't matter how many rounds of 5.56mm you have if your rifle fires 7.62mm. Further, has the EU ever projected it'd forces outside of Europe without US backing? Can the EU put troops in the middle east or Africa collectively? (Yes, I know the individual countries can.)
- dingaling 10y ago
  The rifle calibre issue is an interesting example of inefficiency since both were foisted on NATO by the USA. Post-war, Western Europe was tending towards an intermediate-power 7mm round. The UK even issued it. But the US Army wouldn't accept a lower-power round so NATO soldiets suffered 7.62 Shoulder as a result. Until Vietnam, when the USA hastily adopted a fast but low-power varmint round. After 50 years we're still carrying both calibres and no-one is happy, but NATO can't change unless the USA does.

baursak 10y ago

I find it curious that it's only Europeans who are worried about Russia and their expansion threat, and the most loud about it are those who don't even have a common border with Russia. On the other hand, countries with a common border -- China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, etc., are kind ho hum about the whole thing. I also feel compelled to partially quote Gore Vidal's old article on this: "When Japan surrendered, the US was faced with a choice: Either disarm, as we had done in the past, and enjoy the prosperity that comes from releasing so much wealth and energy to the private sector, or maintain ourselves on a full military basis, which would mean tight control not only of our allies and such conquered provinces such as West Germany, Italy, and Japan but over economic–which is to say political–lives of American people. As Charles E. Wilson, a businessman and politician of the day, said as early as 1944, “Instead of looking to disarmament and unpreparedness as a safeguard against a war, a thoroughly discredited doctrine, let us try the opposite: full preparedness according to a continuing plan.” The accidental president, Harry Truman, bought this notion. Although Truman campaigned in 1948 as an heir to Roosevelt’s New Deal, he had a “continuing plan”. Henry Wallace was onto it, as early as: “Yesterday, March 12, 1947, marked a turning point in American history … Yesterday, President Truman proposed, in effect, America police Russia’s every border. There is no regime too reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia’s expansionist path. There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of contest which may widen until it become a world war.” But how to impose this? The Republican leadership did not like the state to be the master of the country’s economic life while, of the Democrats, only a few geopoliticians, like Dean Acheson, found thrilling the prospect of a military state, to be justified in the name of a holy war against something called communism in general and Russia in particular. The fact that the Soviet Union was no military or economic threat to us was immaterial. It must be made to appear threatening so the continuing plan could be set in motion in order to create the National Security State in which we have been living for the last forty years. What is the National Security State? Well, it began, officially, with the National Security Act of 1947; it was implemented in January 1950 when the National Security Council produced a blueprint for a new kind of country, unlike anything the United States had ever known before. This document, known as the NSC-68 for short, and declassified only in 1975, committed–and still, fitfully, commits–us to the following program: First, never negotiate, ever, with Russia. This could not continue forever; but the obligatory bad faith of US-USSR meetings still serves the continuing plan. Second, develop the hydrogen bomb so that when the Russians finally develop an atomic bomb we will still not have to deal with the enemy without which the National Security State cannot exist. Third, rapidly build up conventional forces. Fourth, put through a large increase in taxes to pay for all this. Fifth, mobilize the entire American society to fight the terrible specter of communism. Sixth, set up a strong alliance system, directed by the United States (this became NATO). Seventh, make the people of Russia our allies, through propaganda and CIA derring-do, in this holy adventure–hence the justification for all sorts of secret services that are in no way responsible to the Congress that funds them, and so in violation of the old Constitution. Needless to say, the blueprint, the continuing plan, was not only openly discussed at the time. But, one by one, the major political players of the two parties came around. Senator Arthur Vandenburg, Republican, told Truman that if he really wanted all those weapons and all those high taxes to pay for them, he had better “scare hell out of the American people.” Truman obliged, with a series of speeches beginning October 23, 1947, about the Red Menace endangering France and Italy; he also instituted loyalty oaths for federal employees; and his attorney general (December 4, 1947) published a list of dissident organizations. The climate of fear has been maintained, more or less zealously, by Truman’s successors, with the brief exception of Dwight Eisenhower, who in a belated fit of conscience at the end of his presidency warned us against the military-industrial complex that had, by then, established permanent control over the state." - Gore Vidal, "National Security State"

MichaelMoser123 10y ago

I think that is a report that is sponsored by Thyssen Krupp or by Kraus Maffei (or by both of them) - they want to push their products because the largest arms shop will dominate an integrated commands procurement process. Why is this report bullshit? Because Europe and Russia are interdependent: Europe stops buying Russian gas - Gazprom and the Russian state by extension are toast; Europe stops buying - everything that is made in Europe will be much more expensive. With this information everything else is trivial. Now a non related question: is the no politics period for HN now officially over?

mcguire 10y ago
"Trade prevents war" was everyone's diplomatic policy for a while. Until WWI.
- MichaelMoser123 10y ago
  before WWII the powers had conflicting colonial ambitions, now its a post colonial world, so what matters is access to resources (these you can again buy with money, but the fight is over conditions and price). I think there were several transitions that made the world a more civil place: one was the realization that free labor is better than forced /slave labor, the other one that you can do without colonies. (There was also the axial age, but that was along time ago)
nsomaru 10y ago
To your OT question: that was stopped shortly after it begun, mostly because it's quite difficult to actually classify what's 'politics' and what's not.

a-saleh 10y ago

I heard interesting comment in one of newspapers I was reading, proposing a closer union between Baltic countries, Poland and Scandinavia. The argument was that these countries combined have roughly the army spending around half of Russia spending. And to be frank, you should be quite worried about Russia doing the invading iff: * you have significant russian minority * your population can speak russian * you border Russia * you have been part of USSR Therefore, I could see baltics pushing for closer cooperation.

jacquesm 10y ago
Not to mention the issue of Kaliningrad.

Kalium 10y ago

> While I dont doubt there are efficiencies to be had, I feel they fail to recognise diversity . Any of these weapon systems will have pros/cons. The diversity can be a strength. You're right! And military planners are keenly aware that a diversity of capabilities is a significant strength and asset. That said, there is a point beyond which military diversity is a handicap to ongoing operations. 20 types of fighters means maintenance is very complex and requires a lot of specialized crews. 13 types of air-to-air missiles that can't be used by all 20 types of fighters is a significant complication to battlefield logistics. Both mean manufacturing costs are higher than they need to be. Redundancy in military equipment is perhaps not an ideal situation.