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> I can think of no European country that has an autonomous standing army, capable of deploying itself to the theater of operations That has been intentional.
by jltsiren 5y ago
> I can think of no European country that has an autonomous standing army, capable of deploying itself to the theater of operations
That has been intentional. Deploying forces outside your borders is what empires do. It's out of scope for the military forces of ordinary countries.
Most military forces only exist to defend their own territory. For most West European countries in the past 20-25 years, the only realistic threats were their neighbors and the US. Because all of those were allies, the primary purpose of the military was maintaining the readiness to scale up in case the world becomes more dangerous again.
It will be interesting to see what will become of Europe now that Germany has decided they are allowed to act like an empire once again.
- phicoh 5y agoWhat have seen since WWII is that military attacks are extremely hard. Just about all successful missions have support of the local population in the attacked countries. Yes, the US can take over countries like Iraq or Afghanistan. And then what? Is there any net gain for the US? On the other hand, NATO bombings in former Yoguslavia led to a situation that is still more or less stable today. Russia quickly took over Crimea, which has strategic value and has support of the local population. But now they are stuck with a nasty and costly war in Ukraine. So it is not clear where in the world Germany would play 'empire'. I wonder to what extend an army can maintain an effective defence if there no need for any defence for many decades. Many western European countries have not been attacked since the end of WWII.