LET’S RETURN THE RESPONSIBILITY OF DEFENDING EUROPE TO EUROPE!

My personal rant for the day. The meaning of this blog will change in 60 seconds.

The nations of Europe should have the sole responsibility of defending their own lands and interests. Don’t get me wrong, the United States should stand behind its historical allies (e.g., United Kingdom), but the other numerous nations of Europe have been a drain on our budget for decades by relying on the United States to protect them and the various oceanic trade routes from surrounding threats. [See “The Case for Goliath.”]

And for what reason? There seems to be little appreciation for the United States in a vast number of these countries for the services that we have provided; or for the men and women that we lost while freeing these people during both wars. [You know, the wars in which the European and Asian bickering cost “75 million” people their lives over a period of 30 years -- an astonishing amount of people.] [More on this issue and EU’s continued trade protectionism in another blog.]

I think it is time to let Europe take this responsibility back and bare this expense; and more importantly, for us to have a much less "active" military role in this part of the world. If we fully secure our borders, stop funding the various nations in the Middle East, and just backed off for a while we would be just fine. I guess we would have to work on perfecting our intelligence too, as it seems to have some serious holes.

The following is a list of the current active armed forces of the United States and some European countries (in millions).

United States 1.45
Germany 0.285
France 0.259
Italy 0.20
United Kingdom 0.19
Spain 0.15
Netherlands 0.053
Belgium .04
Sweden .027
Finland .027
Norway .0266
Denmark .0288 [Not bad, and its press actually is nuts, or “courageous”]
Switzerland .003

When you look at the actual spending numbers, the percentages (per total population) are even worse.

See The World Factbook for more information.